Welcome to the First Coast Tea Party
Dear Members: You Should Know About This
As many of you know, the First Coast Tea Party belongs to a Florida Statewide Tea Party Leaders Google Group. We have been together for nearly two years now. The group is a secured, confidential group and we discuss issues, thoughts and frustrations among tea party friends. We do this to coordinate efforts in the state of Florida and bounce off ideas.
Today I was called by the press about an email that was written by me to this private email group. The email was a part of a large discussion about the Tea Party and the 2012 election and focused on what happened here locally and how that could be applied to our future work. My email called out the GOP Lawyers who advised the Mike Hogan campaign to let it go and concede. To put it lightly, I felt they should have advised them to continue the battle and push hard to make sure … as Alvin Brown said “Count Every Vote.” I mentioned a 2 hour phone conversation I had with Jerry Holland the day after the concession where I was asking questions to understand what happened and why the concession was so quick. Jerry Holland was forthright and answered my questions with sincerity and professionalism. My email indicated how upset I was that the GOP Lawyers did not encourage a fight because I knew the “political machine” would have fought hard and would have kept this process going a lot longer.
To get to the point, either the “political machine” or a mole in our group (doubtful) stole that private email string and sent it to the media.
To say the tea party leaders were shocked and disappointed is an understatement. To say my trust level has been shattered is another understatement.
Abel Harding called me to get a statement about the email. It is circulating all over the media and of course they are running with it. This is juicy news.
I spoke to Abel this evening and told him that was a private email that was stolen and the tea party leaders in Florida were very upset about that. I stand behind the message of the email and believe the Political Machine did beat us and the GOP lawyers should have fought harder for a win. We found out the GOP does not understand who Alinsky is and Alinsky IS the Political Machine. No one organization or person is to blame for the loss of this race and ALL of us are to blame for the loss of this race.
The media loves this story and the GOP is not feeling good right now nor are we. That message was between friends as we tried to understand who the GOP is and how to fight the Political Machine so we can win in 2012.
These are all hard lessons for us. All of us who worked together to win the mayoral race were stunned with the outcome. The Political Machine beat us and that is the fact.
What we must do is figure out how to beat the Political Machine in 2012 – by either coming together with a plan; setting up our own political party; OR hunkering down and wishing it would all go away. At this point, I think we would all agree we must come together to figure thiout. The GOP is weak about the Political Machine and so are we. The Machine has massive amounts of funding and a grassroots system that surpasses all of us. Without funding, a system and boots on the ground, we are going to be fighting an uphill battle that we will not win.
The country loses, the GOP loses, the tea party loses and the people lose.
The end of this story is this:
- We are getting under someone’s skin so they want to infiltrate our emails and our websites.
- The GOP and Tea Party must figure out how they work together – if they do.
- The Political Machine is alive and well in Florida and will not be going away until December 2012.
Abel Harding will have his story about this sad state of affairs tomorrow. There is also another story brewing that the local GOP leader and the Tea Party are in a pointing fingers match with each other and the tea party is being blamed for Mike Hogan’s loss. That is an outright lie and no one in the GOP leadership or the Tea Party has said anything of the sort. We are not blaming each other nor are we blaming the Hogan camp. The blame lies within everyone who had anything to do with this PLUS the 300,000 peope who stayed home and did not vote.
We have gained one more notch in our political belt! We are new to this political game and finding how dark and difficult it is. These notches are hard to take but they are worth it all.
On another note:
- Please be aware that the Political Machine is trolling our website trying to have conversations with bloggers. We are watching these conversations closely and will remove these people from our website when we see hanky-panky.
- The day after the election a member received a phone call from someone asking about the bumper sticker she has “Take Back America.” She told them where to get it (our office) and they asked her if she was a tea party member. She said yes. A few minutes later the same person called backed believing he was calling someone else. She confronted him and he stammered with her until he hung up. It appears the Political Machine is working from a list and trying to identify tea party members. If you get a call, beware of that tactic. As for me, I’m proud to be a Tea Party Member and will gladly say “Yes” when they call.
No one said this would be easy and no one said the press would like us. No one said our friends would not rat us out. No one said we would win every race. But someone did say, “Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” That man was Benjamin Franklin and he understood that fighting for liberty would require a lot from each of us. There are days I wonder if I have it in me to keep it up. Then I cry my tears, wipe them away and say “Hell No – I’m not going away. I owe it to my grandchildren and to those who fought and gave their lives for my freedom."
I am willing to risk everything I have and will continue to do that no matter what the press writes or what the infiltrators do to me. The months ahead will require strong, principled people to stand up to the Political Machine, stare it down and say: “Machines don’t win, people do!”
Are you game for this? Will you go with us? Will we let the press or the Political Machine marginalize us or the GOP so Obama and his political class can win in 2012?
I planned to take the last couple of days off and that has been impossible. I will be taking next week off to recharge the batteries and prepare for the next battle. I may write a blog or two while I am away but I do not plan to entertain the media or anyone else about the mayor’s race. It is finished and there is no need to cry over spilled milk. Instead, it is time to clean it up and figure out a way to eliminate the spills in the future!
And a final note: “Be careful what you put in a private email. It may end up as a headline one day.”
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Comment by J.R. on May 21, 2011 at 9:19pm
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What concerns me, Jean, is whether or not the out-of-county and out-of-state paid canvassers and campaign workers who were provided that lodging while working here could have registered to vote and voted. And, by the way, they also got their cell phone calls paid for. I'm the one who found that ad on Craigs List, and some others found similar ads in other big cities in the country, but those paid $500/wk, provided lodging, and provided cell phones. It's apparently happening all over the country.
And, Judith, we do need a proactive, well-organized and realistically implementable plan to get out the vote. We can't afford to leave any eligible voters not voting---or eligible citizens not registered to vote, if we can do something to prevent that. And, I don't see why, if Organizing for America (ACORN) and other Democrat groups can register voters, the Tea Party couldn't do the same. We could have volunteers in every voting precinct working to accomplish that. Maybe we could also have Tea Party membership forms available at the same time for those interested in joining---then they could help work in their precinct. Or, if others have some ideas for a good plan, let's hear and consider all of them. We have a lot of smart people in the Tea Party, so let's do some brainstorming and get a lot of good ideas on the table.
One more thing, we need a "fire in the belly" litmus test for candidates for public office, especially in our local elections. We need to ask them up front, exactly how hard are you willing to fight to win this election if we decide to throw our support behind you? They don't have to be aggressive, but they sure do have to be assertive and willing to go on the offense to win. And to go to the mat like George W. Bush did when faced with almost a tie in thefinal vote totals.
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Comment by JL Gawlik on May 21, 2011 at 9:05pm
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Shavager, you are wrong on your assessment, the Progressives took over congress in the beginning of 2007 and ran over the budget from 2007 to 2008 over $2,000,000,000,000.00 plus trillion dollars that was added to the deficit by Sept 2008, from 2009 to 2010 when President Obama became president he ran the deficit over the budget over $3,000,000,000,000.00 plus trillion was added to our US debt (that makes it $5,000,000,000,000.00 plus trillion in just under 4 years added to the U.S. Debt.), from 2010 to 2011, running our country for almost 2 years WITHOUT a budget by the end of Sept 2011, the PROGRESSIVES will have added OVER $7,000,000,000,000.00 plus trillion dollars to our U.S. Debt almost doubling it while tripling the size of the Federal government. Go look up figures and do the math. We have had crisis after crisis since the Progressive through the leadership of Pelosi and Reid took over our Congress. Clinton never really balance the budget nor did he have a real surplus, the figures were projected IF the budget has been followed for a decade or longer. That is the way they balance the budget in Washington, projecting and playing with figures. Sorta' like the hidden ball in the cup game. In other words not reality just BS.
Since the end of Jan 2011, have we had a small break from these dangerous people. It is a LOT worst than many people realize, even Senator Marco Rubio remarked to the FCTP earlier this year when they went to Washington, D.C. in passing that things are a LOT worst than he could even imagine.
Note here, Glenn Beck's book Arguing With Idiots is a great primer for spotting progressives and learning the silly tricks they play because they have no principles and values to debate on.
I do not think there will be a problem in 2012 getting the majority of Duval county's voters voting, somehow the voting has gotten all turned around and perverted, there is suppose to be less participation (because those who vote should be very knowledgable of the U.S. Constitution and issues) in the federal elections, more in the state election and the most voter participation should be in the local elections because people should be more familiar with the issues and the candidates and the local charters etc.. I don't know if anyone remembers but in the one of the elections, Peyton was trying to move our Mayor and local elections to coincide with the Federal or state elections so that the local elections would have more participation but thank goodness it got voted down. Personally i think the local issues/elections should stay separate for obvious reasons so that the focus is on the candidates and the issues, period. Just my thoughts...
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Comment by Patricia M. McBride on May 21, 2011 at 8:28pm
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Jean and Judith, you are right on top of what needs to be done. I guess maybe Billie is also thinking about this, but you are right, it does need to start now. Waiting until just before the election is out of the question. The thing we should do however is what 2 of us suggested and that is have a meeting of some sort in person. This may not be the place to put a plan since we seem to attracted people who have now got their noses under the tent. The question for me is how to go about it and where to start! Debbie G did a corker job helping in District 6, and would wonder if she might be helpful or make some suggestions?
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Comment by jean alexander on May 21, 2011 at 8:15pm
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If the Democrats advertised on Craigs List to pay people $400.00 a week plus lodging to canvas the neighborhoods where those most likely to vote for Brown and urge them to vote and probably bused them to the polls and perhaps gave them free breakfast the way Corinne Brown did to get elected and we did nothing it is not surprising that they won. In 2012 it will take a lot of effort to promote our candidate but first we have to find the right one.
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We need to get out a vote program that is different, and that works. Let's start a plan now..... count me in. We cannot afford to have 300,000 people do nothing......
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What did you think would happen with Obumbler's Organizing America and MoveOn.org in town months previous to the election working for Brown? This was a planned operation from the beginning by the Obumbler campaign, we can't afford 4 more years of this man. From G. Washington to G.W. Bush this country BORROWED $10 Trillion, Obumbler's BORROWED $5 TRILLION IN TWO YEARS, SPENT MORE MONEY IN TWO YEARS THAN 43 previous presidents spent COMBINED IN 233 YEARS. Now Jax's got a mayor who will spend all he can, worry about paying for it with new taxes, higher taxes--watch the proposed Springfield renevation projects that will pop up now.
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Thanks, Patricia! Been there... done that... not fun. Who wrote that book about arguing with fools? It's a painful exercise that produces totally diminished returns.
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I really like the idea that someone wrote about earlier-A Col. Allen West/ Michelle Bachmann ticket for 2012. So far the hopefuls that have entered the race leave a lot to be desired. Perhaps it's time for us to pick our own candidates instead of waiting to see what is placed in front of us.
A West/Bachmann ticket would appeal to all but the far left and the subject of racism which always clouds the issues would be eliminated.
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JR, you are ever so right, and if you have ever tried to have a serious conversation with a leftist wack, you have to know how frustrating it can be. Why would you waste your time or even be inclined to attempt to...............it's like hitting your head against a stone wall; it feels so much better when you stop doing it.
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Woops, Jean, I would say they had more problems during this election solely because many names of folks who showed up were not on the voter lists because they had not voted in some time. Most of them had not voted since they went to the polls to gift us with Obama..............can we all say thank you again! Those folks also go through an ordeal and everything is checked (on the computer to be sure they really are registered voters in Duval County), and then, they are allowed to vote (but it is not an easy process for them).
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