While we are bombarded with stories about Tea Partiers and the rise of Palinism (not surprising, in a way, as the most outrageously squeaky wheel gets the most media grease), here is something that we are not being informed about.
By Alan Grayson, via HuffPo
The story that everyone wants to tell is that the Democratic Party is disheartened and disintegrating. Teabagger Republicans are juiced up and on top. Or so the media says, over and over again.
But the House candidate who raised the most money in the entire country during the last FEC reporting period -- $860,000 in three months -- is not a teabagger. He is not boosted relentlessly by Fox News. He's not even a Republican. He doesn't think that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, that President Obama was born in Kenya, or that global warming is a hoax.
This House candidate also, remarkably, had the largest number of contributors. Over 15,000 individuals contributed, many of whom have given time after time, whatever they could. The House candidate who raised the most money did so without French-kissing lobbyists, without flattering the idle rich, and without reaching into his own pocket.
The House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is an outspoken populist who tells it like it is on the war, on jobs, and on health care. His website is called CongressmanWithGuts.com. In the 100,000 e-mails that he has received this year, the most common refrain is, "You are saying what I've been thinking."
I know who he is. Because he's me.
But no one has reported that the House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is a proud Democratic populist. No one.
Continue.
Cross-posted at The Middle of Nowhere.
This is a great article and serves as a reminder that not everyone on Capitol Hill is a shill for the corporate elite.
ReplyDeleteWe need more Alan Graysons - lots more.
Speaking of untold stories, sometimes it's all in how you tell it:
ReplyDeleteBlogger Matthew Yglesias (2/9/10), responding to a Des Moines Register poll that found "a third of Iowans from across the political spectrum say they support the 'tea party' movement, sounding a loud chorus of dissatisfaction with government":
"Thirty-eight percent of Americans have a favorable view of Cuba and 36 percent are favorably disposed toward socialism, but I don't see anyone writing newspaper articles about how a populist wave of socialism is sweeping the country."
The media is our problem, people.
According to Fox News attendence at the Teabag Convention was around 600....
ReplyDeleteAmericans are pissed...and if the liberals start getting pissed then the Tea Bag Movement would end up being nothing more than a Trivial Pursuit question in a couple of years...
I missed that post and thanks for calling attention to it. But yes, the media is the problem, the message and if it weren't for the other media like us and Comedy Central, nobody would know anything but what the media chose to tell us and of course that media is owned by giant corporations.
ReplyDeleteSoBe: "The media is our problem, people."
ReplyDeleteFor certain, media gets my vote, but my list is much longer. I blame corporate America, lobbyists, and their PR machine for spinning messages that are nothing less than "wedge politics." Divide and conquer!
Want to kill health reform? Astroturf a tea bag event. Want lower corporate taxes? Tell tea baggers how lower taxes will result in more jobs or higher pay (laugh line). Want to kill environmental regulations? Tell tea baggers how regulations drive jobs overseas.
Reactionary rhetoric is driven by corporate interests. How else can you explain why tea baggers defeat their own economic self-interests.
Shall we talk about the latest SCOTUS ruling? (Hmm, been there, done that.)
Wanted to let everyone know that my new blog is located here:
ReplyDeletehttp://radicalperspective-tao.blogspot.com/
TAO, saw it yesterday and made the change. Welcome back!
ReplyDeleteYes, I like Alan Grayson -- he's clearly not so worried about losing that he lets that prevent him from speaking his mind. There's little excuse for most politicians to take a timid approach -- most of them are men and women of substance who don't really need the salary they're getting. So what are they afraid of? Loss of status? Humiliation? Serving in Congress is a privilege -- do what you believe is right, and if you lose, well, just go back to being wealthy and privileged. No great shame in that.
ReplyDelete