Tea Party Button Salesman Tells All

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Denver, Colorado—Jim Maser, “the pin man,” is to-the-point when I ask him why he sells his collection of conservative buttons at tea party rallies: “Capitalism.”

Jim’s not your typical tea partier. He’s quick to point out, for instance, that the proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan is just that—”Look, I know it’s not a mosque”—and says he wouldn’t really have a problem with it at all if it weren’t so blatantly pegged to 9/11. Amid a sea of “We the People” and “Don’t Tread on Me” banners at the 9/12 rally on the steps of the state capitol, he’s wearing a plain white polo shirt and khaki shorts. He is, in other words, all business.

Before the Democratic Convention came to Denver in 2008, Jim just stuck to sports (right there on his card it still says “specializing in sports collector pins”), traveling to All-Star games and the like to hawk his wares. But he started to branch out into politics after Obama came to town. He sets up booths at liberal events too—political rallies, obviously, but also pride parades.

(Photo: Tim Murphy)(Photo: Tim Murphy)“It doesn’t matter if it’s Democratic money or Republican money, it’s all green,” he says. Although it doesn’t always pay for the same things. “I’ve done this long enough to know that red, white, and blue stuff sells at events like this and I can’t give it away at the other events.”

(Photo: Tim Murphy)(Photo: Tim Murphy)Every political rally, at some level or another, is about jobs. The politicians up at the podium are trying to keep their job or take someone else’s; the loyal patriots in attendance are upset that they’ve lost theirs, or upset that they think they maybe could; and the invited speakers, the special guests, are there to make a name for themselves so that when you leave, you might remember them and throw a few page views or book sales in their direction.

The keynote speaker at the Denver rally, for instance, is Andrew Breitbart, a conservative media pioneer and occasional character assassin, who spoke, at great length, about the dangers of “character assassins.” And ACORN. Breitbart’s basic point is that the mainstream media can’t be trusted. And if the mainstream media can’t be trusted, who can you trust? Oh, right: Andrew Breitbart.

Whether you’re listening to speeches or shopping for a new “Nobama” pin, are commercial enterprises—and sometimes the fish just aren’t biting.

“To be honest,” Jim says, when I ask him about the event, “I’m kind of disappointed.” He was hoping there’d be a few more people there. We the People may have seized the lectern, but for the entrepreneurs who make the movement tick, it’s still the money that talks.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate