Not sure if you’ve heard that Tax Day Tea Party organizer and DontGo Movement leader Eric Odom said “thanks, but no thanks” to RNC chair Michael Steele’s request to speak at the Chicago Tea Party event? Instead, Eric invited chairman Steele to come and mingle and LISTEN. Which I thought was well-played and a great idea.
Now it seems the grassroots Tea Party effort is being portrayed as a project of the GOP. Here is Eric’s response - which, as a volunteer Tea Party organizer here in NV, and an associate and friend of Eric’s, I can verify as true and genuine:
#dontgo Movement |
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Is the Tea Party tied to the GOP? Posted: 10 Apr 2009 11:43 AM PDT Of course not. In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is, the RNC has been about as effective as a lead balloon in actually engaging the free-market minded grassroots with regards to political action. The RNC, as well as all but two Republican members of Congress, have been eerily silent over the past few weeks. RNC Chairman Steele’s office did reach out to me on Tuesday morning (although rumor has it that he is now denying such a conversation took place), and the person I spoke with asked if we would be interested in having him speak at the Chicago Tea Party. This request was…at the last minute and only after national media eyes became involved. But that was the first time the RNC had really injected itself at the national level into any part of the Tea Party Movement. Why do we use “Silent Majority” as our national brand? Because the vast majority of those involved in the Tea Party effort are people who have sat at home yelling at their TV’s for the past few years. This is a group of folks who have gone on with their lives in attempt at the American dream, only to be shell-shocked by a sudden and bold surge towards full scale socialism… and we’ve had enough! Most of those involved in the Tea Party Movement do not wish to see something with RNC or DNC involvement. We do not want the failed two party structure injecting itself into this movement for political gain. That’s not to say that there aren’t Republicans or Democrats involved, because we have people identify themselves as both involved all across the country. But there is no evidence whatsoever that the Tea Party Movement is some kind of orchestrated GOP effort disguising itself as non-partisan. In fact, the evidence suggests quite the opposite. Take Chicago, for example. A handful of local young Republicans have been trolling and following me all over the web in an attempt to attack me at every opportunity. They hunt me down on Twitter and Facebook, lashing out at me because I refused to promote their REPUBLICAN sponsored event happening later in the day on April 15th. Indeed, the FUNDED organizations and media outlets of the left are swinging at this movement from all angles, attempting to paint this as a GOP backed effort. But the reality is that thousands of free-market minded Americans don’t see it that way. The DontGo Movement was attacked last year by these same groups who claimed that we were taking oil money (still waiting on those magical checks, BTW) and now they claim we’re under the spell of the Republican Party. What part of “we’re just Americans and we’re mad as hell” do they not understand? -Eric Odom |
