O’Connor: Three liberal states have been hit with TNT, is California next?

‘T’ is for Tea Party

The fuse was lit in Virginia.

It moved along in New Jersey.

And it caught fire in Massachusetts.

The “Teabag Revolution” has put every politician on notice.

Some political and electoral dynamite may be coming your way.

Winning three governorships for the GOP in formerly Democratic states, is impressive.

Disparaged as an “astro turf”– not a grass roots revolution — the Teabaggers (no offense intended) have pinned the tail on the Democratic donkey, but aren’t exactly happy with the Republican elephant, either.

Republicans heard several warnings at their annual retreat last week;

• that the GOP must now “present a positive agenda;
• needs to take time to meet with Tea Party activists, listen to them and “walk among them;”
• and pay attention to the public’s anger. As one attendee cautioned, according to the voters, “even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.”

Driven by rage, the tea partiers take orders from no one, wait for their wave to surge, and then surf it to the shores of victory. Sometimes they use great stealth, as in the Massachusetts Senate race.

Meanwhile, the ruling class is sunning itself on the sand piles of near bankrupt coffers, bankrupt ideas, and bankrupt speeches.

A little history…just a little

Populism is not new in America.  It enjoys a rich history.

In the 1890s, another transformative era — when the country was leaving the agricultural era and entering into the industrial era — ordinary people were summarily dismissed by the “leadership class,” whilst the wealthy “Robber Barons” plundered and profited off child labor, sweat shops, and machines that literally killed and crippled men.

Similarly, today the country is leaving the industrial age and entering the information age; with the compounding tensions of globalism v. nationalism.  Hence, the great common threads between the old and new Populists.

The Populist Platform of 1892 contains language similar to the Tea Party advocates of today.

• “We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin.
• “Corruption dominates the ballot-box”
• “The people are demoralized…public opinion silenced”
• “Homes covered with mortgages”
• “Rapidly degenerating into European conditions”
• “We breed the two great classes tramps and millionaires”

My favorite Populist was Mary Lease, who advised farmers (losing their land); “Raise less corn and more hell.”

For those who think the comparison of 1890s Populism is an exaggeration of today’s economic fears, consider the findings of Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, (appointed to oversee the bank bailout) and currently pleading with Congress to “save the middle class.”

• 20 percent of all Americans are either jobless, unemployed, or have given up looking for work
• One in eight Americans is on food stamps
• One of every eight U.S. mortgages is in default or foreclosure
• The crash erased $5 trillion from participants’401(k) pension accounts

Small wonder the Tea Party activist are lighting up the blogosphere, Facebook, Twitter, and every other “new media” network that will provide them with free speech.

Rage needs an outlet.  They found one.

‘N’ is for No…loud and clear

The Republican Party, almost deaf to the Tea Party’s initial rumblings, fortuitously adopted the strategy of “Just Say No” against the current Democratic majority’s agenda.

This consistent (albeit recent) act of defiance in Congress-especially to the unpopular issues of bank bailouts, auto company takeovers, massive stimulus spending, and the hugely unpopular (read: complicated, secretive, and expensive) health care package — provided the compelling slogan for all those who were enraged by the upward re-distribution of wealth and attention to the richest and often, least responsible class, at the expense of the middle class.

Again, Populists v. Robber Barons circa 2010.

‘T’ is for Twitter and all new media

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean first demonstrated the power of the Internet and “the new media” to raise funds during his 2004 “netroots” campaign.

This new version of “Small is Beautiful” took hold with tens of thousands of small contributions flowing into his campaign, mostly from liberals, angry with the status quo.

A real-time thermometer, or baseball bat, was used to both encourage donors and keep them informed of their success.

Nothing succeeds like success.

In 2008, the Democrats embraced the new technology, with meet ups, small donations, and energized volunteers ready to defeat the Republicans.  The Obama campaign seemed to master the “new media,” while simultaneously dazzling the old media, with speeches and instant “talking points” delivered via Blackberries and other PDAs.

Slow to catch on, but not asleep at the switch, the Republicans (themselves the object of Populist anger in 2008) decided to test this “new media” of social networking, while still clinging to the old habits of raising huge sums, from large donors, to buy even larger amounts of TV ads.

Enter Patrick Ruffini, Mindy Finn, and The Blue Bird of Happiness

Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn are partners at Engaged, an online political consulting firm that provided the fundraising technology to Scott Brown’s stunning Massachusetts’ victory for Ted Kennedy’s old U.S. Senate seat.

Writing in The Washington Post, they explained how Brown used Twitter, with the  #41stVote (aka stop filibuster-proof health care) and #massen hashtags, to get a base following of friends and acquaintances.

Twitter became the real time “The Blue Bird of Happiness” that originally propelled this unlikely candidate to a new Populist win.

More by Colleen: Sarah Palin’s move is brilliant politics | Time for back room deals in California | Americans want, need Eliza Doolittle politics

Eventually, Brown also utilized blogs, Facebook, and other “new media” social networking tools to expand on his Twitter following.

The results, of this new “populist approach” was a tie-in to the Tea Party rage, using “web geeks” to overwhelm the “rolodex” consultants and garner “$12 million from 157,000 individual donors in the last two weeks of the race.”
Literally, “unprecedented.”

By design, Ruffini and Finn proceeded in stealth-like fashion. They caught the Democrats napping.

They have credited this quiet approach, along with “Three Big Moments,” for the game-changing Republican win in liberal Massachusetts.

‘Three Big Moments‘

The “Three Big Moments” included:

• A Boston Herald story claiming that the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee was not going to get involved. This fueled even more anger and more money to Brown.
• The Rasmussen Poll showing Brown behind the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, by only nine points. This spurred a huge spike in on-line donations.
• “The Bomb.” Afraid of disclosing the campaign’s fundraising success, the Brown team debated about publicly acknowledging the money haul. By then, however, evidence of heavy Brown media buys were public-and a new poll showed the Republican leading the Democrat by one percent.

Caught out, the Brown campaign then set a new public, on-line goal of raising $500,000 in one day.  They hit $1.3 million, instead, and still the mainstream media dismissed them.

Around the same time, the Coakley campaign was pleading with the White House to send money and help yet to no avail.  It all came too little, too late.

By then, the Brown campaign was “stoked” by funds and volunteers from all over the country.  The contemporary 1890s’ prairie fire was lit.

Every day of the last week of the campaign, the Brown team raised $1 million to $2.2 million.

Even Obama’s visit on behalf of Coakley, helped the Brown campaign.  They raised $900,000 in less than 24 hours.

Interestingly enough, the new media-fabulous at igniting the campaign-was not cited by donors as the source of their contribution.

The most popular was Fox News: 100 percent; followed by:

Radio: 54.4 percent
Web: 18.5 percent
Blogs: 10 percent

The real time contributions graph and full list of “new media” influences can be seen at Engaged.

Old media catches on slowly

Faced with the reality of “TNT” in states as diverse as Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia, the old media has temporarily desisted in denigrating the Tea Party movement.

As Eleanor Clift of Newsweek belatedly asks in her column; “are the tea-partiers a lasting force?”

While Clift admits that those calling themselves “tea-partiers” now outpoll both the Republican and the Democratic parties, she still clings to the notion that these are just “anti-government” populists.

Clift, is hoping, I imagine, that the revolt will dissipate and return power to the old elite.

So, too, are some old consultants and politicians from the traditional GOP.

According to the Wall Street Journal, former Bush adviser, Karl Rove, Mississippi Governor, Haley Barbour, and former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, are affiliating with a new political group, American Action Network.

Their goal is “organizing grass-roots support and raising funds ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.  They also hope to burnish the still tarnished image of the old Republican party; and most likely, want to co-opt or divert the Tea Party’s rage.

Afraid, I suspect, that the modern Tea Party movement, like the Populists of the 1890s, seriously threatens the old-line GOP’s grasp on power.

Sleeper issue: smart elders over 50

Underpinning the rage, anxiety, nervousness, and anti-establishment “New Populism” of today, is the real sleeper issue: smart voters over 50-who know history.

Much more about this in coming weeks, but just some basic clues:

• The age group that most strongly favored Scott Brown was 65-74 years old (58 percent to 38 percent)
• That same age group opposed health care because the government “couldn’t afford it” (66 percent to 33 percent) (Suffolk Poll, January 14, 2010)
• And watch Fox news. Even The Los Angeles Times television critic has noticed, and is now asking, “So what’s with all the old people all of sudden?”

And, “Is the youth culture, like, you know, dead?”

The article’s subtitle: “Grown ups are in the ascendancy on TV, in movies, and in life.”

And, I would add, definitely in politics in 2010.

Stay tuned.  “TNT” may be headed your way.

Colleen M. O’Connor is a former college history professor, the director of the “Faces of San Diego 2000″ family photographic history project and co-editor of Eleanor Roosevelt: An American Journey.  She is an SDNN political columnist and can be reached at CoConnor15x(a)Yahoo.com

Tags: 2008 presidential campaigns, activist, Blogs, congress, democrats, Eleanor Clift, Elizabeth Warren, Engaged, Facebook, Filibuster, foreclosures, FOX News, fundraising, GOP, health care, Howard Dean, jobs, Just Say No, Martha Croakley, Mary Lease, massachusetts, Mindy Finn, mortgage, New Jersey, new media, Newsweek, Obama Campaign, Patrick Ruffini, Populist, Ramussen Poll, reform, republicans, Robber Barons, Scott Brown, SDNN, senate, social media, Tea Bags, tea party, Tea Party Revolution, Ted Kennedy, The Blue Bird of Happiness, The Boston Globe, the los angeles times, The Washington Post, Twitter, unemployment, unpopular, virginia, Voters

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