Posted on 07/19/2010 7:30:17 AM PDT by kristinn
Mayhill Fowler has an extended interview with Mark Skoda, co-founder of the National Tea Party Federation, posted at the Huffington Post today.
Fowler notes that Skoda orchestrated the expulsion of Mark Williams and the Tea Party Express from the National Tea Party Federation, starting with a Facebook posting last Friday:
After reading the entirety of the [Williams] blog, I have come to the conclusion that a call for rebuke and removal is necessary. This is not the first time that Mark Williams has taken this approach. And while I can appreciate sarcasm, this "letter" is beyond the pale and reignites an issue that we were winning. I have already issued a press release from the Memphis TEA Party calling for his removal. As a leader he can either lead, or as an entertainer, entertain but he should not do both. This matter is too serious to let lie in such an incendiary environment."
Like Williams, Skoda is a local talk radio host in love with the sound of his own voice. Skoda now fancies himself as directing the movement
In an e-mail comment to Fowler this weekend, Skoda urged Nevada Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle to follow his lead in dumping the Tea Party Express, the group that helped her secure the nomination:
"I don't think this will hurt Angle, however, she won't want to associate herself with TPE after the controversy. At least that's what I would divine from the status of things. Reid has done a good job of beating her up while she has been raising money. This will be a race to watch!"
Skoda will be disappointed to learn that Alaska Republican Senate candidate Miller has said he stands by the Tea Party Express, which has endorsed his candidacy against incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski:
Associated Press - July 18, 2010 10:54 PM ET
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - A spokesman for U.S. Senate hopeful Joe Miller says the Republican isn't concerned with having the Tea Party Express advocating on his behalf.
Fowler writes the entire interview will be posted later at her site, MayhillFowler.com. A lengthy excerpt can be read at the Huffington Post.
Read the whole interview to form your own opinion of Skoda. Here's a sample of his verbosity to whet your appetite:
Just one final question. What would be a scenario where you think -- you talk about the need to get around balkanization -- a Tea Party group of leaders could come together and talk with a group of Daily Kos or MoveOn? Is that too pie in the sky?
I think that right now we're trying to fix the conservative movement, right? What I have found from my own experience is, when I was discussing things with the New York Times and several other more liberal papers -- one thing I was very clear about, and I felt I was treated very fairly in the interviews, the reflection of my comments in those interviews. One thing I didn't do was attack them or their institutions. I didn't have to, I didn't want to. I can disagree with you, but I can disagree graciously. And what I found was, in that opening, which I was very clear about in any interviews I took, is that people respected me for that -- I think. At least, were willing to have the dialogue. And reflect fairly my comments without making me to look like a cartoonish figure.
I believe that ultimately that is something that needs to happen. I think we are so polarized right now, it's going to have to happen later. It's going to have to happen under a different president. Because this president has very effectively balkanized this nation. Very effectively. In a way I don't think we've ever seen a more divisive figure. To go from what was "hope and change" with a lot of folks voting for him, 62 million folks voting for him, to where he stands today. Without having simply misled that group of people. And when you have imbued that level of emotion, and that level of expectation in an individual and that individual fails you, you -- I know a lot of people that were of that ilk -- they are hurt, they are unwilling to talk about it, they are unwilling to admit the problem. And until you get to that point, it is hard to have those dialogues. I would love to have a chance to talk, but just not right now. I think it would be good to have that dialogue -- not on the record, but to have that dialogue.
We talk about it here -- you and I had lunch in this city -- we have a very demographically bifurcated -- a very large African-American population here, and in South Memphis, and a very white population in the suburbs, although a number of suburbs like Cordova and Bartlett are not. It takes an effort to make those connections, to work together. It's something that we do on a local basis, that I do on a local basis. And so why wouldn't I want to do it on a political basis? But right now I have so much work to do in my quote unquote own party and the efforts I am undertaking, I don't know if I have enough energy or time for that today.
We are in a battle of hearts and minds, and I would like to say that the battle can be had in a way that is respectful but tough, very tough -- and we'll see how it turns out in 2010.
Mark Skoda
Skoda just another PC idiot that wants to grovel and get on his knees.
Skoda and the NTPF are libs. How can I tell? They’re delusional, esp re their fantasies of running the TEA Party and moving it left.
The NTPF aka Coffee Party in TEA Party clothing will be flushed soon, just like the first Coffee Party...
TWP - Thread Winning Post! Pithy one, too!
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Movements don’t need leaders. They can catch up later after we’ve stormed the barricades.
There is no leader to the Tea Party, or Parties, nationally or locally.
I am sick of these opportunists who claim they are the self appointed leader of some Tea Party group. Like this guy and Dick Armey and others.
The beaurty of the Tea Party is that it was a spontaneous consensus of like minded Americans who “were mad as hell and counldn’t take it any more”.
Even today Santelli of CNBC is claiming that he is the founder of the Tea Party. Santelli? Rand?? No way.
The Tea Party is a movement without a founder. If there was a seminal moment that could be traced as the origin of the Tea Party, it is not Santelli’s rant. It was the attempt by the rulers in Washington of both parties - Bush, Kennedy, McCain, Rove, Pelosi, Reid - to push through an amnesty for illegal aliens in 2006-2007.
With 70-80% of Americans in violent opposition to an unwanted invasion, public outrage melted down the switchboards and Outlook boxes in the Senate and forced them to back off the amnesty program that cheap labor Republicans and Hispanic vote grabbing Democrats wanted to shove down American throats.
It was the first example of people power, and it awakened a vast majority to the fact that the people did have it within their power to take back the country. Santelli just got caught up in the wave - he didn’t create it. And the Tea Party’s future lies in remaining a spontaneous, popular (not populist) movement.
It doesn’t need self-promoting hacks claiming to be leaders who speak only for themselves and just want to get on TV because the talk show producers find it easy to call on the same few morons rather than do a real search for true Tea Party people.
The “Tea Party” is like the Unitarian Church. Leaderless, welcoming anyone who wants to be a Unitarian, and from the outside, opaque.
Now all we need is for someone to start the International Tea Party Federation and kick the National Tea Party Federation out. Maybe followed by the Intergalactic......and so it goes.
We know they are going to make stuff up about us anyway. We should just loudly and repeatedly reject those claims and not let fear cause us to try to stiffle free speech.
Be very aware the left loves to turn and co-opt people...the fact that this guy claims leadership of the Tea Party, a leaderless movement, by public denouncing a fellow Tea Party member for the "crime" (racist) that left is desperately trying to pin on the Tea Party, and does it in the left favorites blogs....all the waring sign of a someone that been co-opt is there ...he giving the sound bites the left wants
There is no "leader" or "leaders". The radio hosts have a bully pulpit, so they are naturally more in the national spotlight than the rest of the tea partiers, but they aren't the leaders.
That's why we need to actively disassociate ourselves with such folks - when it's real.
For example, if I am at a rally and spotted someone sporting a sign that says "Lynch Obama" (which as far as I know has never happened to date), I would go to the cops nearby (they're always there) and ask them to ask the person to move across the street or something.
They have the right to free speech. They don't have the right to color the rest of us with what they have to say.
Not a problem, until they start posting material that creates big, national political problems for them and the movement they somehow think they represent. Obvious to everyone else, except the blogger and his/her followers.
Skoda is clearly a troll. I say we expel him from the civil society. Henceforth, NO tea party member or conservative should so much as return an email from this jerkoff.
FReegards!
Well, how do the ideas thatthey articulate get selected? They may get a lot of call-ins, or go to rallies, or otherwise get feedback. But they aren’t just serving as megaphones for other people. They aren’t just ventrioloquist’s dummies. They have to select whatthey are going to say.
So on what basis do they make that decision, I guess is my question.
The Tea Part movement isn’t like the Democratic or Republican parties, where delegates are selected locally and go to a state convention and develop a platform (by state) that each state party wants to get enacted. It’s a lot more fluid than that. These guys have the bully pulpit and can articulate .... what? Whose ideas? Their own? Or things that their listeners want them to say?
Yes. He was one of the organizers.
Exactly...and he looks like Wolfman Jack to boot!
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