Spartanburg Tea Party

HERE is the link to this week’s ICAUCUS interview with Jim Pratt. ICAUCUS is a national grassroots organization dedicated to vetting conservative candidates for office, inspired by the successful campaign of Utah’s Jason Chaffetz

http://chaffetz.house.gov/

Please go and listen to the hour long interview to understand the full range of the ICAUCUS panel interview, which takes place AFTER the candidate answers an 80 item questionnaire.

BTW, Pratt scored 100% on the questionnaire and really needs some backing to get rid of SC’s Clyburn.

I encourage Tea Party folks to join ICAUCUS and be involved in the vetting process. You can go here to sign up.

AND HERE is the very informative ICAUCUS site, including their list of endorsed candidates, and training resources.

Early in 2011, we are going to invite Wayne Middleton, the SC Director of ICAUCUS to attend one of our Tea Party meetings and devote the meeting to learning more about ICAUCUS and why we need to get involved.

If you are interested in working for a candidate via phone banking/walking neighborhoods between now and November election, please read this and contact Karen Martin at 864.384.7558.

A few Tea Party/liberty group members met on Monday with Jordan Sherer, who is working for Victory, an offshoot of the SCGOP which becomes active during election years. Victory’s mission is to GOTV for Republican candidates. We have the opportunity to work with Jordan in Pickens, Oconee, Anderson, and Greenwood Counties, and Jason Greer in Greenville, Spartanburg, and Union Counties. Karen Martin will coordinate with Jason.

Here is the game plan:
Jason will provide Karen with calling lists and walking lists (and door hangers) for Spartanburg and Greenville counties. He will provide a phone script which must be followed, which basically says “Please vote for Nikki Haley and Jim DeMint, and do you want to volunteer for either of those campaigns?” If you want to make phone calls for these candidates, or walk your neighborhoods please contact:

Karen 864.384.7558 / info@spartanburgteaparty.org

We will begin calling/walking next week hopefully and will make one contact at this time for the selected voters. THEN there will be an intensive 72 hour campaign Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday the weekend of the election, so the goal is TWO contacts each voter. As we work through the printed lists, we will make notes on the list so that Jason can “cull” those voters not interested, so we don’t waste time on the 2nd round of contacts. So we keep the lists current and turn them in via Karen periodically. PLEASE commit to the 72 hour period now, this is crucial.

We can arrange a meeting with Jason if needed, one in each region. Jason has committed to attend both the Spartanburg Tea Party meeting on 9/14 and the Greenville Tea Party meeting on 9/21 … BUT … the key is … to contact Karen NOW to express your interest in doing this work. November is coming. Whatever is on your agenda between now and election day should take a back seat to getting these candidates in office. We all know the stakes, including the redistricting issue.

Additionally Karen has been in touch with Mick Mulvaney’s campaign in District 05 in his effort to FLIP a seat from Democrat to Republican, and Mick is ahead, and is being helped by several national organizations including the RNC which is providing his campaign with cell phones to make the GOTV calls. Karen needs to know who would like to work on Mick’s campaign to make calls, and will provide you with call lists and a potentially a cell phone to begin that work as well.

PLEASE DO NOT CLOSE THIS POST WITHOUT GIVING SERIOUS CONSIDERATION TO CONTACTING KAREN TODAY.

I had a chat with Bill the other night, who is quite concerned about recent rumblings like those outlined in this article by Adam Schaeffer of Cato@Liberty which makes it sound like Nikki Haley may be less enthusiastic then many voters would like her to be re: school choice.

This is NOT an issue I’m well versed on, so I urge Spartanburg Tea Party members to call Nikki or visit her at one of her appearances and ask the question directly, and then please blog your interview and I’ll post it here. Please use the comments section also to share your thoughts and any facts you may have about any of Nikki’s recent remarks re: school choice that may help us figure out whether this is a departure from earlier campaign convictions or hers, or just some “thinking out loud” on her part, or the part of bloggers/journalists.

The Columbia Tea Party, The Lexington County 9-12 Project, and The South Carolina Campaign for Liberty are combining to offer a summit in Columbia for the leaders of the various liberty groups (tea party, 912, campaign for liberty etc.) I plan to attend and would like to know if anyone else in the Spartanburg Tea Party is interested in coming along. Each group can have two attendees. If you are interested in stepping up your involvement in the STP and coming with me to learn what other liberty group leaders are doing in their spheres of influence, let me know by emailing info@spartanburgteaparty.org or calling me directly at 864.384.7558. Here are the details for the September 25 event (8 am to 4 pm):

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(Note that there is a $25 fee for the event, includes a buffet lunch)

Its time for the grass roots leaders in South Carolina to come together and pool our collective knowledge! Over the past couple of years, I have learned a lot in the fight to defend liberty. I bet you have too! I want to learn from you and am willing to share what I have learned. Come prepared to share and to learn!

We want to provide an opportunity for the leaders of the various grass roots groups in South Carolina who are fighting to maintain our liberty to meet, build relationships, open lines of communication, and make our organizations more effective.

We think the best way to do this is to meet face to face and learn from each other. We have put together a format that we think will have enough structure to encourage good discussion and participation from all attending without stifling a healthy exchange of the wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and experience each of us have gained.

You are the cream of the crop of liberty fighters in South Carolina. After we spend the day learning from each other we will all be better armed to defend our liberty! We can prepare our people to navigate this storm and make our state a life boat of liberty… even an example to our sister states of how to protect and defend individual liberty against the oppression of an unrestrained government!

Topics to be discussed at our Liberty Summit include:

* Washington isn’t the answer (and they are not omnipotent)
* State legislative opportunities
* The philosophy of liberty / the political sovereignty of man
* “The real nature of politics” and political strategy
* The benefits of multiple groups that network and a decentralized organization
* Nullification and interposition (giving teeth to the 9th and 10th amendments)
* Both mainstream parties are a problem / How to move state politics

Lake Wylie Pilot, an interesting publication, has a great story of how the tea parties in Michigan worked diligently, patiently, and with great focus to win several hundred delegate seats recently at their Republican state convention.

From the article:

Now, the activists are positioned for an attempt to push the Michigan GOP further to the right and put hard-core conservatives on November’s general election ballot.

The tea party’s bid to capitalize on its delegate coup, which caught veteran Republican activists by surprise, is an important test for a national movement seeking concrete political impact.

and …

The tea partiers won the positions by running their members in precinct elections, which normally attract few candidates, and then turning out in force at many county GOP meetings to support the winners for state convention slots.

Other than actually running for elected office yourself, becoming a precinct delegate and having a voice in your local county GOP meetings, and the state convention is the surest way to move the Republican platform to the right … and back to conservative, Constitutional principles. Spartanburg precincts will be organizing in the Spring of 2011 and you need to begin talking to your friends in your precinct now about becoming delegates, coming out to support and vote for you. The Spartanburg Tea Party will be providing speakers and resources beginning in 2011 to learn how to join your precinct as a delegate.

NoisyRoom.net has a bunch of links of yesterday’s Restoring Honor rally.

Thanks to www.thehopeforamerica.com … which I intend to bookmark.

Restoring Honor Rally

Haven’t found an embed video link yet, but here is the Ustream URL:

http://www.ustream.tv/restoringhonor

Our good friend Wayne Middleton from ICaucus always has great information to share with us, and he’s provided a long list of events happening in DC September 9 through 12. I’m going to post this list “below the fold” so click the “read more” to take a look. If you have any questions I don’t think Wayne would mind hearing from you at wmiddleton@aol.com.

I also have this information available in a Word doc with some hotlinks, if you want it email me at info@spartanburgteaparty.org and I’ll forward a copy to you.

For those of you going to DC, please type up a report and email to me at info@spartanburgteaparty.org, I’ll post it here for all to read, thanks.

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Politico has this very cool feature which I make use of for every primary election (and general of course) to monitor and check results. I suggest bookmarking it!

The percentages/votes are updated in real time as the results come in on primary nights so you can follow along. Check it out … some of the results from last night

Miller over Murkowski in Alaska
McCain over Hayworth in Arizona
Scott over McCollum Florida Gov