GOP: Group tries to 'hijack' tea party's name with filing to get on Michigan ballot

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit News

Last Updated: July 14. 2010 5:48PM
GOP: Group tries to 'hijack' tea party's name with filing to get on Michigan ballot
Mark Hornbeck / Detroit News Lansing Bureau


Lansing -- A group calling itself the Tea Party filed petitions this afternoon to qualify for the November election ballot.

The organization filed 59,400 signatures; 38,013 valid signatures are required.

Tea party activists in the state have called the group that filed petitions a front for Democrats who want to deceive voters and peel votes away from Republican candidates.

"It's a sham. It's an attempt to confuse voters in November," said Wendy Day, president of Common Sense in Government and a spokeswoman for the loosely organized tea party movement in Michigan.

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100714/POLITICS02/7140411/GOP--Group-tries-to--hijack--tea-party-s-name-with-filing-to-get-on-Michigan-ballot#ixzz0tiQcfhwq

[niceypoo]

1. We wouldn't want confused tea partyers running around now, would we....

[glinda]

2. They sure don't like it when others play their game do they.

[SkyDaddy7]

7. LOL! I was thinking the same thing!

[mzmolly]

3. :D

:evilgrin:

[Tx4obama]

4. So TeaPartyers can only be Republicans? LOL

I thought the Tea Party always said that their party was made up of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents?
Looks like they have finally admitted that Democrats are not welcome and are not in their party ;)

[and-justice-for-all]

5. I doubt Democrats had anything to do with it...

Key words "loosely organized" meaning, they are not the kind of movement the media would like us to believe they are.

[tanyev]

8. Yep. The tea party is more like the Judean People's Front vs the People's Front of Judea.

[JoeyT]

6. I doubt it's a plot by Ds.

Tebaggers are so frenzied they even hate one another to a pretty astonishing degree.
That's why they end up with groups that sound like the political movements from a Monty Python movie.

"Are we the Freedom People's Family Movement of Birmingham?"
"Hell no! We're the Family Freedom Movement of Birmingham's People!"
"I thought we were the Birmingham Free Movement of People's Familydom?"

[KurtNYC]

9. Shouldn't the Tea Party be the one complaining? Or does the GOP run the TEA Party?

oh, I see...

[Bozita]

10. Headline article in today's Detroit free Press ...

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100715/NEWS06/7150463/1319/Tea-Party-on-the-ballot&template=fullarticle

POSTED: JULY 15, 2010
Tea Party on the ballot? Some say it's a trick
Activists say it's a veiled attempt to steal GOP votes
BY DAWSON BELL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER


LANSING -- Veteran tea party movement activists said that an expensive, secretive campaign that submitted 60,000 petition signatures to the state Wednesday to qualify candidates for office under the banner of the Tea Party is a trick to help Democrats.

The activists said the group that submitted the petitions wants to siphon votes from tea party conservatives running as Republicans.

Mark Steffek, a Tuscola County man who described himself as head of the party that turned in the petitions, issued a statement Wednesday criticizing both major parties and claiming "the tea party is a grassroots movement that belongs to everybody. No one person, click (sic) or party boss owns the tea party."

He could not be reached for comment. His statement contained no phone number, e-mail or other address.

Leaders of tea party groups in Michigan said they have had no contact with Steffek or others linked to the petition drive.

"This is absolutely not legitimate," said Mark Graham, an organizer of a tea party group in Tuscola County.

A spokesman for the Michigan Democratic Party said it had "absolutely nothing" to do with it.

Tea party leaders ticked over official party
A group calling itself the Tea Party submitted an estimated 59,400 signatures to state elections officials, well in excess of the 38,000 needed to qualify it as a minor political party eligible to run a slate of candidates in the November election.

A statement from the enigmatic head of the Tea Party, Mark Steffek of Richville, delivered by untraceable fax Wednesday afternoon, said the political party will allow the tea party "to keep holding these politicians accountable."

But veteran Michigan tea party activists said there are ties between Steffek, the UAW, Democratic politicians and the firm hired to collect signatures for the petition drive, which has worked for the state Democratic Party.

Chetly Zarko, a conservative blogger and consultant who has directed petition drives, estimated the cost of the party petition drive at more than $120,000.

Steffek was unavailable to comment -- his faxed statement contained no contact information -- and has not responded to multiple inquiries from the Free Press over the last two months.

Spokesman John Tramontana denied that state Democrats were involved in the Tea Party political party.

A similar dispute is under way in Florida, where Republicans and tea party activists have accused Democrats of financing so-called Tea Party candidates for local office in an attempt to dilute the anti-Democratic Party vote.

Most of Michigan's public tea party activists, like those elsewhere in the country, have dismissed the idea of forming an official third-party alternative as counterproductive to their goal of reining in the cost and size of government.

"We don't need another party," said Bill Hollister, chairman of MEDEFCO, a Macomb County-based tea party organization. "The tea party is trying to cleanse the Republican Party."

more...

[SpartanDem]

11. I thought the tea was independent

but they sure seems worried about hurting GOP candidates

[SpiralHawk]

12. RepubliBagger Family Values

As always, about as low as you can go...

[SpiralHawk]

13. RepubliBagger Family Values

As always, about as low as you can go...

[underpants]

14. It's an attempt to confuse voters in November ---what? the tea party?

I thought that that was what the tea party was all about.

[No Elephants]

15. It's impossible to get anything past those sharp Teabaggers, eh?

Well, besides things like politics, history, economics, math, spelling, rudimentary reasoning ability (WHAT!!!1111!!! Social Security and Medicare are somehow related to goverment spending?!!!111!!?? Shuuuuuuuut up!)and stuff like that.