GOP operatives are running a secret campaign to kill health care reform, and it’s based on Karl Rove’s old playbook
by Tim Dickinson/ Rolling Stone Magazine / Originally posted September 23, 2009 On the first day of August, a mob of 200 right-wing Texans stormed the parking lot of a Randalls grocery store in southwest Austin. They were united in a single goal: Disrupt the “office hours” that Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the district’s congressman, had scheduled for his constituents. The protesters targeted Doggett for his role in crafting the House’s bill to reform health care, brandishing signs that read “No Government Health Care” and “No Government Counselor in My Home!!!” But their anger seemed to encompass a universe of conservative fears: higher taxes, illegal immigration, socialism. The threat of violence was thinly veiled: One agitator held aloft a tombstone with the name Doggett. Screaming, “Just say no!” the mob chased Doggett through the parking lot to an aide’s car — roaring with approval as he fled the scene.
Conservatives were quick to insist that the near-riot — the first of many town-hall mobs that would dominate the headlines in August — was completely spontaneous. The protesters didn’t show up “because of some organized group,” Rick Scott, the head of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, told reporters. “They’re mad about the stimulus bill, the bailout, the economy. Now they see that their health care is about to be taken over by the government.”
In fact, Scott’s own group had played an integral role in mobilizing the protesters. According to internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights had been working closely for weeks as a “coalition partner” with three other right-wing groups in a plot to unleash irate mobs at town-hall meetings just like Doggett’s. Far from representing a spontaneous upwelling of populist rage, the protests were tightly orchestrated from the top down by corporate-funded front groups as well as top lobbyists for the health care industry. Call it the return of the Karl Rove playbook: The effort to mobilize the angriest fringe of the Republican base was guided by a conservative dream team that included the same GOP henchmen who Swift-boated John Kerry in 2004, smeared John McCain in 2000, wrote the script for Republican obstructionism on global warming, and harpooned the health care reform effort led by Hillary Clinton in 1993. For the remainder of this article, go here.
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anybody who knows anybody who thinks the “teabaggers” are grassroots should read this!
I guess Turd Blossom wants to do something besides helping Crusader George pick up dog poop.
I doubt that the conservative elite ( why would you think there isn’t one?) considers these 200 souls as much more than a bunch of dumb-ass rubes. Wind ’em up and set them loose. How about Rick Scott spending a month or so with his down home brethren?
hey everyone – if you are concerned about american democracy, then you must read this article. thanks for posting it.
One might think every Republican has a good HMO plan for life.
I think it’s the same partisan stupidity that demands every Democrat be staunchly against the Iraq war , as well as the GOP turn away anyone who isn’t frothing at the mouth against abortion.
Vote the issues, and not the party. You may not get invited to any post election celebrations, but at the end of every election cycle you can say you have your integrity without crossing your fingers behind your back.