Will the Tea Party groups we know today remain relevant after November’s election? One well-known national umbrella Tea Party organization has a plan to remain a force in American politics until 2050.
Documents released online Monday night by an incessant critic of the organization outline a 40-year plan by the national Tea Party Patriots organization to stay politically active and influential.
Jenny Beth Martin, a national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, said, “The document was designed to help us with fundraising and it’s also something we plan to go over in a meeting with local coordinators privately in a face to face meeting in the next couple of weeks.”
But Mark Williams, the critic who posted the documents, suggests the plan shows how the group—which prides itself on being led from the grassroots—is really centrally led. Martin denied that, saying, “Every single thing in that document, every idea on it was given to us by the grassroots.”
Williams, a former spokesman for the rival Tea Party Express, is a relentless critic of the Tea Party Patriots organization and its national coordinator Mark Meckler. Williams over the last several weeks has obsessively blogged about Meckler, even posting his personal contact information.
According to the document, immediate activities for Tea Party Patriots include engaging in high-tech “get out the vote” methods using GPS-enabled smart-phone walking lists, organizing rallies against a possible “lame duck” Congress and holding a summit for newly elected officials.
“Our plan is to inform, educate and renew the commitment to limited government and free markets in the hearts and minds of at least sixty percent of the American public over the next forty years,” the document reads.
Future activities include holding “local coordinator nationwide leadership summits,” as well as regional conventions. The plan calls for continuing to coordinate national events, like Tax Day Tea Parties, and expand the group’s ad budget on sites like Drudge Report. Reaching out to younger voters and organizing a “perpetual legislative watch,” is listed on the plan, as is conducting polling on an annual or biannual basis.
The Tea Party Patriots is also the recipient of a recent million dollar donation, which they say they will administer in the forms of grants to local chapters of the organization.
“Enjoy the taste of plastic grassroots,” Williams wrote in his blog post titled, “Tea Party Patriots get marching orders from top.” That’s a shot at the contention by Meckler and fellow national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin that the organization is run by the local activists.
Williams, a contentious radio host, often uses his blog and radio show to demand that Tea Party Patriots open their books to show how the group spends its money.
Martin said that she and Meckler are paid less than $100,000 a year for their work with the Tea Party Patriots, which contradicts sources that told The Daily Caller that the pair each make more than $100,000 a year.
But Meckler said “the real story” is the fact that Williams is willing to share the information in the document “with the enemy.”
“There’s no way the release of that document helps the Tea Party movement,” he said.