The tea party is trying to make good on its promise to go from frustrated horde to organized political army. A new site launched by the Tea Party Patriots and the Leadership Institute on July 4 — TeaPartyTraining.org — seeks to offer the average tea partier the tools to go from flag-waving Glenn Beck acolyte to flag-waving Glenn Beck acolyte with a plan.
Back in April, tea partiers across the country pledged to remake their movement in the wake of threats of violence — and some actual violence — following the health care reform vote in Congress. Leaders of the ultra-right called on tea partiers to abandon their traditional Day Of Protest, Tax Day, and instead turn their efforts to politics.
TeaPartyTraining.Org gives some insights into how that change is going to happen.
Visitors to the site, who must first register with the national Tea Party Patriots organization, are treated to a series of online seminars ranging from “Grassroots Lobbying” to “Networking and Developing Contacts” to “Get Out The Vote” and “Developing Your Precinct Plan.” The seminars are free.
The curriculum appears to be heavily influenced by the political training academies run by the Leadership Institute, the conservative nonprofit perhaps best known for helping launch the career of ACORN-destroyer and bumbling stunt-bugger James O’Keefe.
What does a tea party organizing seminar sound like? Well, like most political organization classes, it’s mostly mind-numbingly boring. But mixed in with the standard fundraising and messaging tips are suggestions tailored to a tea party audience.
This, for example, is a tip on how to influence the media from the site’s nearly 40-minute long lecture on “Grassroots Organizing”:
“When you’re trying to influence the media, the tendency always is to go to the editorial boards,” Leadership Institute trainer Barry Aarons tells the viewer, “and they will politely listen.”
“But we have found that the media tends to be a little more on the center left side, to put it mildly,” he adds. So, what’s a young tea partier to do? Go find the conservative allies on the business side of the media and put pressure on them, Aarons says:
“One of the sub-stakeholders of the media that we frequently forget about is business and advertising. There isn’t a single, major newspaper or television station in the United States of America or radio station that is owned and operated by the government of the United States, or the government of a state. Even the public broadcasting [channels] are non-profit organizations that depend on contributions from private donors.
And yet we forget to talk to the business and advertising sections of newspapers because we just don’t think about them and yet they have as much influence on the public policy process as any editorial that their editorial writers could write or any newspaper report that their newspaper reporters can engage in. So don’t forget when you’re looking at stakeholders to look at those who might have a similar interest to yours.”
The end result of all this, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin tells viewers, is a tea party movement that doesn’t just complain about the politics around them — it changes them.
“You will have access to valuable information that will turn the passion of thousands of tea party patriots into powerful actions that I believe will restore this country and return it to its rightful place as the freest and most prosperous country in the world,” Martin says before calling on tea partiers “get started” on their path to political influence.
