So much for the image of tea partiers as scrappy, low-budget activists running a revolutionary “starfish” operation destined to change history with their homemade signs and political potlucks. Over the past week, national coordinators of the Tea Party Patriots, a group that claims to represent 2800 local chapters and as many as 15 million people, have been “flying for freedom” and “landing for liberty” in various states to help buck up local activists trying to get out the vote for Tuesday’s election. The plane they’re using, dubbed “Patriot One,” belongs to a big GOP donor in Montanta. Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin have made sure that their every move during the flying “GOTV” tour has been filmed by Luke Livingston, the founder of Ground Floor Video who produced “Tea Party: A Documentary.” The resulting slick, high-production value clips are posted on the Tea Party Patriots website.
Judging from the video, the tea party leaders have been much more overwhelmed by the coolness of flying on the swank private jet than on the less glamorous work of actually getting voters to the polls. The video below comes complete with a “Top Gun” soundtrack and devotes the first full minute and a half to footage of Meckler and Martin getting on the plane (in slo-mo), getting off the plane, being cool inside the plane. Martin even interviews the pilot. Whether all this jetting around will bring out a single voter remains to be seen, but the video definitely should get some laughs (though maybe not from the grassroots activists these folks claim to represent). Check it out: