The Teabagger Messiah. Dave Weigel has the goods
(h/t CSPANjunkie)
Attorney Scott Brown said in his victory speech:
"Our tax dollars should go to weapons to defeat [terrorists] not lawyers to defend them."
"Raising taxes and giving new rights to terrorists is the wrong agenda for our country."
And his crowd is chanting "yes we can."
Scott Brown is trying to make believe he's a change agent, but really he's just another teabagger, as you can see. The Democratic firing squad is under way on the left, and what we're hearing is that it's either Coakley's fault or President Obama's fault or both for the clusterf&!k that led to Brown's victory, but pundits and readers are overlooking the role conservatives and their media infrastructure played in the process. To me, that's something that can't be ignored. I mean, Scott Brown did have help.
Dave Weigel followed the teabaggers in MA and explains that the right has something the left just doesn't have: An incredible media machine that is able to transmit their message faster and more powerfully than anything the Democrats have. Brown was able to turn to a bunch of conservative media outlets immediately, and ultimately that got his campaign off and running.
Media Outreach, Online Tactics Honed in 'Perfect Storm' GOP Win
Brown’s short campaign–he announced for the seat on September 12, 2009, the very day that many Tea Party activists participated in a “taxpayer march on Washington”–masterfully wove together traditional campaign strategy and outreach to old and new conservative media. The arc of his victory demonstrated just how the modern conservative movement can boost a campaign without generating a backlash from voters. His online campaign strategist, Rob Willington, explained to TWI that Brown focused early on outreach to conservative media and built on that with technology that let local and out-of-state activists grab a piece of the campaign.
“I concentrated on specific conservative opinion leaders here in Massachusetts for the first part of the campaign,” said Willington. “Right around Christmas, I started targeting some national political leaders, using certain hashtags, and using video.”
