In Mississippi, Jenny Beth Martin and Tea Party Patriots Try to Prove Their Worth

The Washington Post ^ | Sunday June 22, 2014 9:42 p.m. EDT | Ben Terris

[kristinn]

Never mind that it’s 92 degrees and nearing the end of the day: Jenny Beth Martin has started jogging between houses.

SNIP

In from Georgia, Martin has been spending much of the past three weeks in the state, holding conferences, making fundraising calls, meeting with local chapters of the tea party, and yes, walking door-to-door to turn out the vote for conservative Senate hopeful Chris McDaniel. But unlike most volunteers here, as the head of the national Tea Party Patriots, a group she co-founded and helped bring to national prominence, she’s on track to make $450,000 this year doing all this, according to the latest Federal Election Commission reports and Internal Revenue Service filings. And to top that off, the group’s latest disclosures also note that she is allowed to travel first-class on any domestic flight she takes as president of the organization — although her lawyer says she doesn’t take advantage of the perk.

SNIP

Martin, 43, acknowledges that the organization did not put any money behind Brat. She says she met with him before the primary to say that they were all in on Mississippi, a marquee race with much better polling. And while she says she has no regrets about the decision, Ingraham’s criticisms clearly stung.

“She didn’t know, she never talked to me,” Martin says after an elderly man shouts from his window to just leave whatever she was handing out by the door. “She was misinformed.”

A few nights earlier, Martin’s communications director, Kevin Broughton, over Coors Light and vodka shots, had been more emphatic.

“When did Laura Ingraham become Chris Matthews?” he asked, smoking a cigarette in one of the last bars in Jackson that allow it. “When did she love to hear the sound of her own voice so much?”

[goodnesswins]

Isn’t TPP THE Org Mark Levin pushes?

[Gaffer]

I don’t care who pushes them. I remember seeing their ratio dollars-to-real-action as being pitiful.

As I said before, the only one of these so-called TP groups that actually put the money to the road was Club for Growth.

You have to be careful. Just because one or more than one of them gets on TV is one thing. Dollars to the problem are another. A $450K salary for a Reinhart College graduate is not my idea of appropriate in my opinion.

[P-Marlowe]

Yes. It appears the money they don’t spend on Jenny Beth Martin’s exhirbitant salary goes to buying radio ads with Mark Levin and others.

This is the kind of nonsense that contributes to the low opinion of Tea Partiers in general.

Organizations like this should be up front with their salaries. The donations to these groups is supposed to be used to promote the Tea Party causes and for educational and grassroots projects. Instead the money is used to line the pockets of the leaders.

The IRS can use this organization as a prime example as to why Tea Party groups were targeted.

Mark Levin needs to know that his endorsements are being used to line the pockets of JBM and are not being used to support grass roots causes.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

Tell you what I find so interesting about all this, I saw JBM in person at a rally a couple years back. She is NOT an energizing presence by any means. There was absolutely nothing in her words or delivery that compelled me to want to join her cause or give her a penny. I’m so curious how she managed to climb to her position.

[P-Marlowe]

I’m so curious how she managed to climb to her position.

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