Tea Party: Liberals Want to “Break the Back of Conservatives” in Wisconsin

A tea Party Express bus at a rally for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fibonacciblue/4503390869/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Fibonacci Blue</a>/Flickr

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The tea party arrives in Wisconsin today, kicking off a four-day tour to rouse conservative voters and help protect the six imperiled Republican state senators facing recall elections on August 9. Spearheaded by the Tea Party Express, the “Restoring Common Sense” tour brings together four different conservative groups—TPX, Tea Party Nation, FreedomWorks, and the Patriot Action Network—and plans to hit nine cities in what the groups see as a crucial battle to keep the GOP senators in office, and thus prevent Democrats from jamming up Republican Governor Scott Walker’s agenda.

On Friday morning Tea Party Nation blasted out a life-or-death missive to its members on the importance of the recalls. TPN’s leader, Judson Phillips, accused liberals and Democrats of wanting to “break the back of conservatives here in Wisconsin” via the recalls and drive the state into bankruptcy. Referencing the winter labor upheaval in Madison, the state capital, Phillips wrote: “Liberal mobs attacked the capitol building and at one point trapped at least one Republican lawmaker.”

He goes on:

The left lost. So they are fighting back. They have filed recall papers against 6 Republican Senators. If three of them lose, it will flip control of the State Senate back to the Democrats and the fiscally conservative Governor Scott Walker will be hard pressed to do anything to cut spending.

This recall election is setting the stage for next January when the left is going to try and recall Scott Walker. By law, January is the earliest they can do this. Millions of dollars from radical left wing groups has flowed into Wisconsin along with millions of dollars from Unions.

[…]

As we tour Wisconsin the next few days, we need your help. If you can make it to Wisconsin, join us for the tour. If you cannot, spread the word about the tour to anyone you know. Details about the tour are on the front page of Tea Party Nation.

Phillips’ plea, not to mention the uniting of four different tea party groups for the bus tour, can only be seen as a sign of serious concern about how the six GOP senators will fare in next week’s elections. And if recent polls are any indication, they’ve got good reason to worry.

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We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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