This is the video of an interview I did with CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I joined my friend and fellow conservative activist Kellen Giuda of Tea Party 365 in New York City to discuss the movement, and the role it played in the Massachusetts Senate race.
Fast forward to 1:24:10 in the video to see our interview.
Today’s Christian Science Monitor has a piece on the Tea Party movement and its origins. It has a great analysis, and not just because of the kind words it says about yours truly.
But unheralded operatives, such as Brendan Steinhauser, campaign director for FreedomWorks and author of “The Conservative Revolution,” created the backbone of the movement, establishing websites and Facebook pages that would become populated with fed-up voters.
The CSM is doing a good job covering the movement, unlike some other newspapers that still don’t get it. But most mainstream media outlets are coming along slowly. CNN has aired quite a bit of reporting about the movement, and much of it has been fair.
Hopefully we can continue to build the momentum for the long-term, and reinvigorate the conservative movement the same way that William F. Buckley Jr. did in the 1950’s. This revolution is now entering a new phase, and no one really knows where it will go. But I predict it will make a big impact on the 2010 elections, and more importantly, keep people involved in politics at the local level for a long time to come.
Newsweek has a decent piece up on its website about the conservative movement. It mostly gets things right - like the fact that the grassroots are independant, right-leaning fiscal conservatives that are loosely organized. The reporter wonders whether the electoral success in Massachusetts can be repeated in other races around the country. I would argue that the answer is “yes” and that Marco Rubio’s success in Florida is a great example of where the movement is making a real impact.
Here is the part that talks about FreedomWorks’ involvement in the movement. You can read the rest of the piece by clicking here.
Chief among them is FreedomWorks, founded by former House majority leader Dick Armey in the 1980s. Despite its ties to the Republican power elite, FreedomWorks insists that it is simply a “one-stop service center” for training conservative activists, recently hosting a three-day leadership summit for organizers from 22 states in the afterglow of the Brown victory.
Although this article has some major errors in it, and completely misunderstands the nature of the conservative movement, it is worth reading. For those of you involved in the movement, you will notice that it is about five years behind the curve when it comes to the way the conservative movement works. Well, what do we expect from the Washington Post, anyhow?
Here is the part that covers FreedomWorks’ involvement in the movement.
Such grass-roots groups would spawn the tea-party movement. But they had help from the start.
The first protest, against Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package, was in early February in Florida, according to Brendan Steinhauser, the D.C.-based director of state and federal campaigns at FreedomWorks, chaired by former House Republican leader Richard K. Armey (Tex.). After CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli suggested a tea party during his on-air rant against government bailouts on Feb. 19, Steinhauser and another FreedomWorks staff member conferred with activists planning the first tea parties for Feb. 27. Steinhauser then wrote a tea party organizing primer, which was posted on the FreedomWorks Web site and Malkin’s site.
“It sort of exploded from there,” Steinhauser said. FreedomWorks’ ongoing involvement in tea parties has been known for months, but its role in helping create the movement is far less publicized.
David Weigel of The Washington Independent has a great writeup about the leadership summit we hosted this weekend. Activist leaders from around the country came from more than 25 states to network, strategize, talk policy and prepare for the 2010 elections. I’m sure we will get some more press coverage in the days and weeks ahead, thanks to the hard work of FreedomWorks’ staff and the 60 activist leaders that spend time meeting with major media outlets, including CBS, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News and Politico.
Here is my quote in Weigel’s piece:
“I think the people that you see here are going to change the direction of the country this year,” said Brendan Steinhauser, FreedomWorks’ director of federal and state campaigns.
We’ve had a great media week here at FreedomWorks. Check out chairman Dick Armey’s interview on NPR’s All Things Considered. Armey discussed the Scott Brown victory and what it means for 2010.
Also, today’s Politico has a piece about the tea party movement’s involvement in the Brown victory. This story takes a different approach than the New York Times piece, which gave a lot more credit to the movement.
The Financial Times newspaper has a pretty terrible article about the movement, but it’s worth a read just to see how out of touch this particular reporter is. It gets a number of facts wrong, but other articles in the paper have done a better job analyzing the movement.
Finally, we expect a big New Yorker magazine article to come out soon about FreedomWorks, the tea party movement, and what role we will play in the 2010 elections and beyond. As soon as that piece is up I will link over to it. One thing is clear: the mainstream media is beginning to take our movement seriously, and so are both political parties.
As promised, here is the showdown between me and liberal MSNBC propagandist David Shuster. It was a fun interview, and I think I defended our movement well against David’s pathetic attempts to marginalize us. He still doesn’t get it folks, even after the thumpin’ in Massachusetts.
I just got back to the office from MSNBC’s studio in Washington. I was on the air live, defending the tea party movement against the liberal media and their attacks on our movement. David Shuster and I had some disagreements over the truth, as you might imagine. So I wanted to post a couple of links that prove my points in the interview.
1. International ANSWER is a communist front group that has been organizing big anti-war marches, but the media refuses to cover it. Check out their website here.
2. Lyndon LaRouche is the guy promoting those posters that show Obama as Hitler. Here is the proof of that.
You can watch the entire segment here. Hopefully we got through at least a little bit to those liberals that just don’t get it. On second thought..
What do you expect, coming from the Swiss left? A film crew was sent her a few months ago to do a hit piece on the conservative movement in America. They went and found the most extreme elements on the American right to attack the more mainstream “tea party” movement that has taken the country by storm.
Although I don’t speak French, it’s pretty easy to get the idea of what they say in the documentary. I make a cameo at 46:46 in the video. I guess you are doing something right when left-wing propagandists are attacking you from Europe. This isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last such hit piece from domestic or international press. I think that this shows our movement is becoming a huge political force to be reckoned with, and we should be proud of that.
If I didn’t have so much school work to do this weekend, I’d be up in Massachusetts with my fellow conservatives working on the Scott Brown campaign. Fortunately I can at least make some phone calls from here in Alexandria, send emails, donate money and encourage others to do the same. If Scott wins on Tuesday, and delivers the US Senate seat to the people of Massachusetts, it will be a historic victory for conservatism.
To that end I want to pass along some information to those of you in Massachusetts, and those of you who know people there. Please make sure this info gets out to the right people. Scott will be holding a rally Sunday (tomorrow) at Mechanics Hall in Worcester. The address is 321 Main Street, and the doors open at 3:00pm EST. Please help get this message out and encourage everyone you know to make phone calls and send emails in support of Scott Brown for the US Senate.
To victory,
Brendan
