Tea Party Profiteers: How Republican Operatives Are Exploiting Economic Anxiety For Power, Cash

[babylonsister]

Very informative and downright frightening.


Tea Party Profiteers: How Republican Operatives Are Exploiting Economic Anxiety For Power, Cash


Republican partisans — aided by lobbyists and corporate front groups — are exploiting the legitimate feelings of anger and distrust among many struggling Americans. These operatives and profiteers, many of them experienced public relations professionals, have set up sophisticated social networking portals and online solutions to control the flow of information within tea party organizations. As gatekeepers to ostensibly open forums, these political operatives and profiteers have been able to set the political agenda of the tea parties and hand out marching orders. And tea party profiteers are making millions cashing in on the movement. They are selling tea party support to candidates and policies which continue the legacy of Bush-era unregulated capitalism and corporate bailouts:

– Eric Odom: Odom, who appears regularly on Fox News and on other venues as a spokesman for the tea party movement, is at the center of tea party profiteering. Odom maintains dozens, possibly hundreds of tea party websites and community forums which he controls through a “Ning” technology based social networking platform. Odom’s vast online control of county, state, and issue oriented tea party websites is done through his two for profit consulting companies: American Liberty Alliance and Strategy Activism, LLC. His American Liberty Alliance has served as a hub between disparate tea party groups and right-wing front groups. In a biographical video he posted on YouTube, Odom explained that he has worked for years on local and statewide Republican campaigns developing “stealth type marketing…some say ‘attack sites.’” He boasted that he built “sites behind the scenes, many of them to this day no one today knows I took part in, some of them were actually very effective in defeating the opponent.” While it is unclear exactly who is paying Odom now for his tea party profit ventures, Odom has delicately straddled independent populist rhetoric while proclaiming that his network will work exclusively for the election of Republican candidates this year.

more...

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/02/tea-party-profiteers/

[SalviaBlue]

1. K&R

[tanyev]

2. Newsflash! Republican operatives exploit [insert any damn thing you can think of] for power, cash.

[babylonsister]

3. True that. I just found this particularly scary, because it's so

easy to whip up teabaggers for fun and profit.

[Salmonslayer]

4. You say that like the left is pure.

There are operative on both sides of the isle that take advantage of the people.

I believe Tea Party guys think of themselves as a grassroots effort. Once "operatives" get a hold of the movement and the Tea Party folks figure it out they will quit and you will see the end of the movement. I see this as a inevitable sign of their demise.

[tanyev]

5. I'm also thinking of the Republican efforts to privatize everything government does.

If they could figure out a way to tax charge a usage fee for the air we breathe, they would do it.