Political Class Dismissed

A Simple Organizational Plan for the Tea Party Movement

By James Ostrowski

PoliticalClassDismissed.com

FreetheChildren.US

The tea party movement (TPM) is on a trajectory towards victory this year. The only thing that can stop it is itself. This memo outlines a simple plan to ensure the TPM doesn’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The TPM is a grassroots, locally-controlled, decentralized and populist movement based on the individual’s natural right to liberty. The key to its success this year is the use of an organizational structure consistent with its mission and philosophy.

Unity is essential to the success of the movement, however, unity at any cost or a unity that is inconsistent with our mission and philosophy will not lead to victory but to self-destruction. That can easily be avoided but can only be avoided by a coalition approach.

There are literally thousands of tea party organizations around the country. It is a vain hope to get them all together in one giant, top-heavy, top-down formal organization funded by mysterious billionaires and headquartered in DC, that den of iniquity. And it’s not necessary either.

There already is in each metropolitan area, region or county, an organic, homegrown, grassroots TPM. We start there, with a firm foundation grounded in reality. That local TPM may consist of one or more organizations. In Western New York, for example, there are several such organizations. There may also be key activists or sympathetic allies in the media who are not affiliated with an organization at all. They are, in effect, organizations unto themselves. They must have a seat at the table. By table, I mean roundtable, a table where all are equal.

Get all the groups and key activists and media people together around a table for the purpose of cooperating, communicating, and coordinating in your area. Call it a tea party coalition. It’s not a new organization displacing the existing ones but merely a way to coordinate the activities of the existing groups. Each group retains its identity, purpose and leadership but gains strength from forming an alliance with like-minded groups and individuals in their area.

Hold a tea party convention in your area. “Area” will differ from place to place but I suggest using the well-established concept of metropolitan area. In some areas, region or county might be a better unit of operation. The purpose of the convention is to select TPM candidates, provide opportunities for members to educate themselves on policy issues, and encourage direct citizen action activities. Invite candidates to the convention to make their case.

Who gets to vote? Each local group would makes its own rules but here’s my suggestion: anyone who signs a brief statement of principles, provides contact information and agrees to donate at least $10 to one of the candidates endorsed and to work for that candidate in some capacity. A list of possible options will be listed for them to check off.

I suggest a short and sweet statement of principles:

• Government exists to protect individual natural rights that existed prior to government such as the rights to life, liberty and private property.
• Government must serve the general interest and not special interests that benefit some at the expense of others.
• The free market is superior to socialism or the “mixed economy.”
• The federal government is limited to exercising enumerated powers and all other powers are reserved for the states and the people.
• The United States are in severe crisis because of their abandonment of these principles.

Properly organized, each tea party convention will be a huge success and will generate positive press and hundreds if not thousands of additional volunteers, the army of liberty that will carry us to victory. Those who sign the agreement become members of the TPM. Members can also be recruited throughout the year at other tea party events and online.

What needs to be highlighted at the convention is the sharp contrast between how the TPM chooses its candidates and the sleazy smoke-filled room/horse-trading approach of the other parties. Challenge the other parties to do likewise: hold an open convention of their own members to select candidates. Fat chance!

Once candidates are endorsed, the TPM works with the candidates on issues of ballot access and which party lines to pursue. All such questions must be decided pragmatically, based on local conditions and each state’s crazy election laws (designed to make life difficult for people like us).

Once each area has had its convention and chosen a liaison, all the liaisons in the state should hold a conference call and create a tea party coalition for the state. The state coalition does the same as the local coalitions: communicate, coordinate, and cooperate. If major decisions must be made, each liaison can poll their own members. For example, if statewide candidates need to be endorsed after various local conventions have been held, this can be done by polling the members via email.

Each state coalition should choose a liaison for the national coalition. That coalition should organize by conference call and conduct any national business that needs to be conducted. A spokesperson should be chosen.

At all times, the function of the liaisons is to convey the wishes of the grassroots to other liaisons and try to meld a consensus for how to carry out the desires of the members. It’s a bottom up, not top-down approach.

I have kept this plan as simple as possible because complex battle plans usually fail.

The real beauty of this plan is best seen by imagining different scenarios for organizing the tea party movement. What if various groups in each area decide to elevate ego over principle and point their guns inward rather than outward at big government? We lose!

What if various DC-based groups with deep roots in the failed GOP past, use millions donated by billionaires to falsely claim that they are the tea party movement, even though many of us in the real grassroots movement have never heard of them, talked to them, or received the slightest bit of assistance from them? We lose!

So that’s the plan. It will work. Don’t let it gather dust in a drawer. As we used to say in South Buffalo, long before the Nike slogan was coined, and usually in response to someone bragging about their athletic prowess: stop talking and “DO IT!”