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.”
Views: 133
Comment
-
Comment by Matthew Roberts on May 21, 2011 at 11:45am
-
For those who keep saying that I havent been with the Tea Party since the start, Ill let you know Im not only informed but have a question. The first fue Tea Partys I went to no politicans were there, now its full and you are hard pressed to get your oppinion out. Dont tell me how its been. Granted Im not in favor of A Democrat,nor am I in favor of rhinos. Marco Rubio does support amnasty for imagrants, I dont support tat but what is the alturnatives? Liberals? Its sad you have no choice,But on the other hand I love Govener Rick Scott,hes not looking for reelection, this is what we need.
-
Comment by J.R. on May 21, 2011 at 11:21am
-
Tim and Tom: I agree with both of you about our unanswered questions.
Hogan should have directly asked our extensive list of relevant questions the Times Union refused to print and Alvin Brown refused to answer. Brown would never have answered those questions, even if challenged by Hogan to do so. But, such a refusal would have been an indictment of his lack of willingness to fully disclose his actual qualifications and fitness for the job he was seeking as Mayor. And, it would have made voters wonder why Brown was running from his educational, business, and political record.
Hogan, with the courage to do so, could have beaten that refusal to disclose like a drum. Unfortunately, Hogan pulled his punches and left our questions hanging out there unanswered, just like the Times Union and Alvin Brown did. Those questions remain unanswered.
This election wasn't won... it was conceded during the election... given away. And, I'm still not sure that it was, in fact, won, and will never be convinced of that without an audit of the votes and an audit of the voter registrations for the past 12 months. Voters should be demanding that these audits be done to preserve the integrity of the elections system and the verified outcome of this Duval County election and run-off election.
-
-
@Tom Wright,
Remember the media playing up Moran's and Mullaney's negative ads as ruining their chances?
The door was left open for the DNC canidate to do the same but not to be condemned by the local bought and sold media, meanwhile Hogans camp sit back and played it soft and safe, not wanting to get labeled a meanie.
This psy-op played right into the hands of the genius of lies, the liberals and their minions, they will never play fair and honest, those ideals they do not possess.
If the Hogan camp would have spent their campaign ads showing the questions put forth to the TU and Brown by the FCTP, instead of showing pictures of Hogans beautiful granddaughters, I believe the race would have been quite different.
But, what the hell do I know...
-
-
As a Tea Party member, I have read all the notes and blogs, and it is clear to me that the opposition will do anything and everything possible to discredit us and our movement.
Clearly, Mike Hogan did not have the guts to get down in the mud with Alvin Brown.
The democrats are absolutely ruthless when it comes to running for office.
If we are not willing to do the work of getting out the vote, then we deserve to lose.
300,000 voters did not care enough to bother to go to the polls. With this kind of apathy we will never defeat them. I know some people believe that they should stay above the fray, but this is an out of date idea.
If we are going to defeat Barak Obama in 2012, we will need a canidate that is willing to beat them at their own game, be nastier that them, pull more dirty tricks than them, and be absolutely ruthless in our campaign against him.
Now he must run on his record, and a dismal one it is, thats how you beat them, be more aggressive and don't worry about hurting someones feelings.
If I offended anyone, by speaking my mind, then too damn bad.
Tom Wright
-
-
Frankly, I don't object to the Tea Party becoming a discrete party, for it would have more power to influence the direction taken by the monolithic GOP. Like in Great Britain, where they had to form a party coalition in order to win the election, the GOP could be forced to do likewise or lose. And, to get Tea Party support, they would have to level the playing field with us and treat us as an equal partner. They are the ones going along to get along, while the opposition party is eating them for lunch. And the Tea Party doesn't exist to be annexed to the go along to get along crowd in Washington.
Further, they need to be re-educated on the fact that we will only support true conservative candidates - NO RINOS! They grudgingly acknowledged the Tea Party's gift to them of giving them back the U.S. House of Representatives. But, we didn't do that for them to continue their political gamesmanship and horse-trading, both with the people's freedoms and the people's money. Or, for them to allow our renegade president to continue ripping our Constitution, and its required application in governing, to shreds, while they sit and watch him in wonderment and doing nothing to stop him and his organized socialist machine. We need statesmen in office, not career establishment politicians who are more interested in power and control and protecting their own personal turf than doing the job they were elected to do.
Along with putting true Tea Party backed conservatives in the 10 open Republican U. S. Senate seats, and 24 open Democrat U.S. Senate seats, we need to target the establisment good old boys and RINOs in both the House and Senate, defeat them, and bid them goodbye, good luck and good riddance.
Meanwhile, they must be made to understand that the Tea Party is not here to serve them, but to do the job they haven't done to get this country back to its founding principles, to ensure that we actually do have the republican form of government mandated by the Constitution, and that the Constitution is followed to the letter. And, we must make sure they get our message to stop the political games, restrict themselves to keeping their sworn Oaths of Office, protecting and following the constitution, protecting the defense capabilities of this country, and truly serving the people as they were elected and sworn to do.
-
Comment by Barry Lee Phillips on May 21, 2011 at 9:52am
-
Billie,
Ron is right about Google. They are as leftist as you can get. I would not trust the security of any Google Group. Leftists will not hesitate to break any electronic communications law and compromise anything that is discussed in that group. Ditto for Yahoo. Facebook, which most people love, is notorious for compromising subscriber's privacy. I am not a subscriber for that reason.
The bottom line is that no electronic communication is totally secure. Therefore, if confidential information needs to be exchanged electronically, then email should be encrypted. A better method would be a face-to-face meeting held at a secure location where notice of the date, time, and location of the meeting is given at the last possible moment.
You may not think all of this cloak and dagger stuff is necessary, but you might as well buy a megaphone and shout the information from the rooftops if precautions are not taken.
The enemies of the Tea Party play for keeps and they will go to any length to render it useless and impotent. If they know in advance what you are going to do, then they can counter it.
-
Comment by Yvonne C Heikkinen on May 21, 2011 at 9:13am
-
Remember your history. When our fight for independence was in full swing we lost more battles than we won. The oppressor was very strong and the colonist were unorganized and unskilled in warfare. They just wanted a piece of earth to call their own. That need mounted the greatest battle of our history. We must keep the idea of freedom and choice as our focus going forward even when the odds are against us. We must look at our weaknesses and mistake, learn from then and move on. This fight, while local now, is a fight for our existence as a free society and that freedom is being eroded everyday. So, everyone, please, take a break and restore your energy and resolve, then get started and work hard. Perhaps 2012 will have a different outcome
-
Comment by Ron Ogletree on May 21, 2011 at 9:02am
-
A Google group. Hmmmm, that says it right there. Are members of this group aware that Google is a big supporter of Democratic and Leftist causes? They are data mining us right now on this ning portal.
Lee,
Are the Republicans and Democrats conspiring together as a whole? No, I was very clear in using the establishment label along with my comments. Are we not all aware of the likes of Orin Hatch, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Bennett of Utah and on and on? Then it is the political intelligencia who tell us that we are not smart enough or political enough to mkae the grade like Charles Krauthammer and his Beltway Echo Chamber Glee Club. We didn't go to Harvard, Yale or Stanford so our opinion is meaningless crowd is who I am talking about, and yes that includes Karl Rove.
How dae us to think we can be the deciders! That is the message that average Six pack Joe's here from their earliest days in government schools. That is what feeds apathy and the media is knee deep in it with the establishment politicians, no matter the party.
-
Comment by Lance Thate on May 21, 2011 at 8:59am
-
Billie, As always your on top of the problem. Reliance on the GOP works in rural areas, but in the big urban world the machine has to be dealt with. The GOP has shown that it lacks the skills to win in urban areas. GOP 's rush to concede has been going on since the Kennedy/Nixon days. They need to remember that it is not who votes, it is about who counts.
-
Comment by Patricia M. McBride on May 21, 2011 at 8:57am
-
I think that the person is trying to cause damage and panic, I would recommend we don't do the panic thing. One or 2 people getting phone calls (or was it 1)? Out of thousands?
National Debt Clock
The First CoastTea Party is a non-profit organization. We have no deep-pocketed special interest funding our efforts.
You may contact us at:
First Coast Tea Party
1205 Salt Creek Island Dr
Ponte Vedra, FL 32082
904-392-7475
Helpful Links
Blog Posts
RYAN NICHOLS - Hardened Criminal?? Seriously??
If you're not already aware. This is what's going on in DC while dangerous criminals are allowed back out on the streets. It's horrifying that this is happening to our citizens and veterans for protesting the hijacking of our election process. This is still happening! They are STILL being tortured and treated like full on terrorists.
You may not be aware of the typical things they're forced to go through...…
ContinuePosted by Babs Jordan on August 14, 2022 at 8:44am
© 2024 Created by LeadershipCouncil.
Powered by
You need to be a member of First Coast Tea Party to add comments!
Join First Coast Tea Party