The GOP Highjacks the Tea Party movement.

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The Tea Party Patriots are a national grassroots organization that has no offices, no president, virtually no money, and operates largely on volunteer efforts. Understandably with an advertising budget that ould fit in a coffe can, it must have seemed like pennies from heaven when Fox News took the lead in promoting their uber televised Tax Day Tea Parties last April 15.

But unbeknownst to many, there was another group claiming ownership of this conservative movement. It's called the Tea Party Express, and it has dominated Fox News coverage over the past year with its multistate bus tours and political rallies.





The political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) — which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement — directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place.

Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) spent around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.


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The political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) — which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement — directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place. Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) spent around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.

OCDB, which built the Tea Party Express, is essentially a Russo, Marsh creation, as we’ve detailed. The PAC’s site was registered in July 2008 by Sal Russo, the firm’s founder. That site also lists Russo as the PAC’s “chief strategist.” Tea Party Express fundraising emails, sent by OCDB and obtained by TPMmuckraker, come from another Russo, Marsh employee, Joe Wierzbicki.

With The Tea Party Express and the Republican Party controlling the movement, there remains to be little hope for anyone looking for a real grassroots movement. Between Fox News, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, they've managed to attract some unsavory, gun toting charachters to the health care town hall meetings last summer. - Of course while The Tea Party Patriots were looking the wrong way, The Tea Party Express popped up out of knowhere and basically high-jacked the whole kit and caboodle right out from under them.

Overnight the Tea Party Movement went from a grassroots group of people protesting the the size of government to something that is bound to leave just as big of a stain on American history as the the civil rights movement did in the 50s' and 60s' - Suddenly there was a hatefull mob of people with little concern over taxes, but hell bent on reversing the election of the first black President of the United States. It wouldn't have mattered if Obama were born in Kenya or Compton. These folks "don't want no niggers in the White House." That's a quote from my racist, teabagging, next door neighbor who has a Barack Obama statue that holds up his mailbox at the end of the driveway. He's dressed in a Jocky's suit although I'm not sure what the purpose of the horse jocky's uniform is. Are there African American horse jockies? - You can see from some of the signs being held by tea baggers, they and my neighbor Tom are like peas and carrots.