It's about the money. Where's it going? Who gets it?
Now two key Republican idols -- Marsha Blackburn and Michele Bachmann -- have dropped out of the costly Tea Party convention.
Amid a growing row over the planning and financial arrangements of the upcoming Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) have backed out of the conservative event, Politico reports. The two representatives cited uncertainty about where the money from the event would be going as their reason for declining to participate. They were scheduled to join Sarah Palin as speakers.
Controversy over the convention began earlier this week, when several Tea Party groups accused the event's organizer, a little-known Tennessee lawyer, of profiteering. The event's $549 ticket price led some to believe that Tea Party Nation founders Lou and Sherry Phillips were using the event to enrich themselves, though they claim they were planning to use the profits to seed a conservative 527 organization.
Taking a lot of money out of the pockets of populist supporters, however, doesn't faze Sarah Palin.
Palin, however, defended the event, at which she is scheduled to give the keynote address. "This is about the people -- the grass-roots' activists whose core values demand a responsible government," she told Politico. "This is not about politics or organizers, it is about the soul of our blessed country." Palin is reportedly receiving in excess of $100,000 for her appearance, and tickets to her speech alone cost around $350.
Hey, this is what happens when political opportunists take over the loosely structured, loud, and naive know-nothing-style movement. The name of the original 1840's "know-nothings" arose because they were originally a secret movement. Know-Nothings (the "American Party") were to respond to questions about their beliefs with, "I know nothing." They were driven by paranoia about Catholic immigrants gaining political strength.
Contemporary Tea Party membership is largely made up of people who proudly reject fact and reality. They are "know-nothings" by choice but are driven by some of the same kind of paranoia that drove their counterparts almost two centuries ago. Their sources of anger, titillation, and "facts" are agenda-driven media. They earnestly believe they know something and are really resistant to dealing with the complications of reality.
We tend to treat them as coming largely from the right. But in fact they are joined by libertarians, independents, and progressives. An important question has to do with how the left will deal with that.
