The latest Frank Strategies LLC video, produced for Americans for Prosperity at a Tax Day Tea Party in Washington, DC:
Filed under: Government Spending, Online Video, Protest, Shameless Self Promotion, Taxes | Tags: tea party
One year ago today, I walked down to Lafayette Park across the street from the White House, then-brand-new Flip cam in hand, and shot some video at the first Tea Party in DC. Dozens of similar rallies were held across the nation that day, kicking off what would become one of the most widespread and effective grassroots movements in American history.
Looking back at the video from that day, I’m struck by the foresight demonstrated by Brendan Steinhauser of FreedomWorks, who declared: “This is only the beginning! This is a shot… that is going to be heard around the country!” How right he was.
Disclosure: Frank Strategies LLC produced this video. (Although the credit really goes to Creigh Deeds…)
Cato’s Dan Mitchell explains in this new online video why the Left’s constant call for higher taxes on the so-called “rich” is a very bad idea.
In the process, he also illustrates how organizations, candidates and elected officials can quickly and easily transform what would historically be a plain old newspaper op-ed into a more interesting mode of communications that will reach thousands of additional key opinion leaders around the world.
Filed under: Government Spending, Protest, Staging, Taxes | Tags: jane hamsher, tea parties, tea party
The folks who are organizing Wednesday’s Tea Party in Houston have come up with a good idea: refer as “Tea Party Truthers” to the paranoid conspiracy theorists who claim that the Taxpayer Tea Parties are funded by sinister corporate interests or the Fox News Channel.
Truth is, many of them probably are the same folks who think that 9/11 was an inside job, so it seems like a fitting label.
As I pointed out right after the Feb. 27 Tea Parties, I’ve been working in politics professionally for 15 years, and I can attest that this is undoubtedly an organic grassroots movement unlike anything else I’ve ever seen on the Right. Yes, national grassroots organizations and some media outlets are now jumping on the bandwagon and heavily promoting their activities in conjunction with these events, but that’s a far cry from them “financing” them.
For some reason, too many on the Left don’t understand (or care) that when they spout this garbage that’s so obviously not true, they completely undermine any credibility they might have when they actually have valid points to make.
UPDATE 4:55 p.m. EDT: Glenn Reynolds has an excellent op-ed about the true grassroots nature of the Taxpayer Tea Parties in today’s NY Post.
Filed under: Economy, Government Spending, Taxes | Tags: ari fleischer, robert samuelson
Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post: Obama’s Economic Mirage
Ari Fleischer in the Wall Street Journal: Everyone Should Pay Income Taxes
Lauren Miller over at Blue State Digital, the lefty firm best known as the Obama campaign’s web vendor, recently opened up a can of whupass on the RNC over a recent email newsletter:
For those wondering whether the GOP is headed in a new direction and making the most of new media, this email landed with a thud. Indeed, the RNC isn’t following basic, publically available best practices. For instance, it doesn’t look like the GOP read any of our ten easy suggestions for better email campaigns during their vacation.
Ouch. Miller lambastes the RNC for putting “RNC Weekly Trunk” instead of “Michael Steele” in the From: field, linking to outside sources rather than internal RNC action items, using a subject line that’s “as about as dull as it gets,” sending it out in the middle of the night, and for making the newsletter too long.
Like I said, ouch. She’s not wrong, of course, which makes it even more painful.
This might be a good time for all communicators on the Right to get some free advice from Obama’s team.
From this morning’s Washington Post:
“Nothing about this crisis is really a surprise. People have been warning about it for more than a decade… Our smartest financiers, Warren Buffett and George Soros, saw it coming as clear as a bell.”
- Columnist David Ignatius, “When the Gurus Flinched,” page A17, The Washington Post, Sunday, March 1, 2009.
Then there’s this… three pages prior…
“The widely followed investor Warren E. Buffett… yesterday (accepted) blame for for Berkshire Hathaway’s worst showing in his 44 years as chairman and chief executive.
“During 2008 I did some dumb things in investments,” Buffett wrote, adding later, “I made some errors of omission, sucking my thumb when new facts came in that should have caused me to re-examine my thinking and promptly take action.”
- “Buffett Takes Blame for Firm’s Ugly Year,” page A14, The Washington Post, Sunday, March 1, 2009.
So which is it, Washington Post editors? Did Warren Buffett see the financial crisis “coming clear as a bell,” or was he, per his own admission, a thumb-sucking dummy like the rest of us? (Excepting, of course, David Ignatius and President Obama’s financial brain trust, who are now pushing essentially the same “solutions” that put the “Great” in the Great Depression…)
You may remember Rick Santelli’s “Rant Heard Round the World” on CNBC last week, in which he spoke out on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange against President Obama’s mortgage bailout plan and called for a “Chicago Tea Party.” Santelli’s outburst struck a nerve with millions of frustrated taxpayers across America, who have been working hard and playing by the rules, only to then be forced to bailout one bad decision maker after another.
Almost as soon as Santelli finished his rant, taxpayers from coast to coast started to organize real “Tea Party” protests to voice their anger and frustration. Today, several hundreds folks converged on Lafayette Park, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House for DC’s Tea Party. Check out video from the scene below:
UPDATE: More event video and photos from Michelle Malkin and from Amanda Carpenter of Townhall.com.
… the more they stay the same. Just check out this 1940 video from the Republican National Committee…
