The Tea Party Plan to Save Scott Walker

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:



As soon as April, millions of Wisconsinites will vote on whether to oust Gov. Scott Walker—a rising Republican star and arguably the most polarizing governor in politics today—just two years into his first term in office. Walker's recall election is a referendum on his hard-line conservative agenda, including curbing collective bargaining rights for state workers and slashing education funding. For Walker himself it's a pivotal moment in his young political career.

The recall fight is also a crucial test for the tea party, the populist movement that helped elect Walker in 2010, vigorously defended him during last winter's protests over his anti-union "budget repair" bill, and has been organizing to prevent his ouster. The movement's support is flagging, its clout dwindling, its buzz mostly gone. But now, tea partiers at the state and national levels are rallying around Walker's recall defense, hoping a victory could bolster the movement in a critical election year. A defeat, on the other hand, would give ammo to liberals and conservatives alike who say the tea party is all but dead.

In recent months, the Tea Party Express, a national organization, and the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, a tea party-linked political action committee, have waded into the recall fight, blasting out more than a dozen emails to supporters and launching a $100,000 "money bomb" fundraiser to help defend Walker. They argue that the outcome has national implications for the 2012 presidential election; a Tea Party Express email to supporters in January announced that Wisconsin is "Ground Zero for the Battle Against Obama's Liberal Agenda."

The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama says it has raked in small donations from supporters throughout the country, from Napa, Calif., to Nashua, NH. The group's director of grassroots outreach, Donald La Combe, wrote in an email to supporters that funds would go toward TV and radio ad campaigns as well as "war rooms" throughout Wisconsin to bolster Walker's support among voters. "We're going to win this fight, we're going to DEFEAT the RECALL, and we're going to stop Barack Obama from getting Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes," La Combe wrote. (Neither of the above groups responded to requests for comment.) ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/scott-walker-recall-tea-party

[BumRushDaShow]

1. "we're going to stop Barack Obama from getting Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes"

What? By any (illegal) means necessary?

[dragonlady]

2. Their $100,000

will be a drop in the bucket compared to the $4.5 million Walker raised in a month recently. He has received more than 100K from wealthy donors individually.

[Sheepshank]

3. I'm feeling really let down about the recall effort coming to naught

all those signatures. All that anti Walker sentiment, really driving all that hard work and effort. It was an amazing thing to see. But all polls I'm seeing posted here, looks to be favoring Walker on a recall election...by very wide margins. So what would have been accomplished? It's so discouraging.

[catbyte]

4. Cheer up, Sheepshank. The FBI may just be the ones to oust Walker!