Observers seem to be quite shocked by the latest announcement out of Tea Party Express. They are planning to co-host a debate amongst Presidential hopefuls for 2012 with CNN. TPE seems to have finally gotten over feigning they are grassroots and gone big time. It will presumably be a big pay day for Tea Party Express next September.
CNN waxes poetic in their announcement about the tie-up with some amusing results.
“Sam Feist, CNN Political Director and Vice President of Washington-based programming said, “The Tea Party movement is a fascinating, diverse, grassroots force that already has drastically changed the country’s political landscape.”
Alex Pereene sums up the feeling of many in the tea party movement with his sneer about the announcement.
“”Diverse” and “grassroots” are not the first words that come to mind when I think of the Tea Party Express…”
Tea Party Express is seen by many in the tea party movement as a top down Republican front that has tried to co-opt the tea party movement for its own ends. Many tea party organizers in the North East were none too pleased when TPE held an event with tea party “star” Sarah Palin in Massachusetts the day before the traditional tax day tea parties on April 15th last year.
As Mother Jones points out in their piece about this announcement.
“Last year, grassroots tea party activists were up in arms over federal elections filings showing that the PAC had spent donor money lavishly, not on candidates, but on its operators. One particularly outrageous item, by tea party standards: a nearly $1,600 tab for a small meal at a fancy steakhouse in Sacramento. In 2009 almost $900,000 of the $2 million raised by the PAC went to Russo Marsh.””
And another thought comes to mind, echoed by Mother Jones, TPE’s close relationship with Palin hardly makes for an unbiased host for such a debate. Or do they know something that we don’t?
