Politics: The Tea Party Is Outside Your House

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Moneybox The Tea Party Is Outside Your House Can canvassers from David Koch's Tea Party group beat Democrats on the ground? By David Weigel Posted Monday, Sep 24, 2012, at 11:14 PM ET LEESBURG, Va.—The new Americans for Prosperity field office is a short walk from downtown, in an unusually stately office park. (Most things in Leesburg are unusually stately.) Today, National Prosperity Action Day, the red brick office is decorated with yellow balloons and loaded with trays of Famous Dave's pork and brisket. Sixty-odd AFP activists mill inside and outside, getting to know each other before the big schlep. For one day, the Leesburg office is AFP central. Tim Phillips, the Tea Party group's affable president, is here to host a live-stream rev-up-the-troops documentary. He and a two-man crew walk through the office's dozen rooms, and a camera-laptop contraption captures the Tea Partiers as they make calls. Each room has at least eight no-frills Samsung cellphones—"freedom phones," cheaper than land lines—bowls of candy, and simple scripts. Phillips gathers the faithful in the parking lot, and boils the script down to a few sentences. "We have a very simple message to the folks we're reaching," he says. "Do you know what that message is?" YES! "It's about the disastrous impact that Barack Obama's policies are having on our families, our businesses, and our nation. And we're going to change it, right?" YES! Democrats are feeling better about the 2012 election. Every time Mitt Romney stumbles through a news cycle, every time a swing-state poll comes out, Barack Obama is doing better than he has any right to do. A year ago, no electoral ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Mitt Romney's Lame New Housing Policy Is This the Future of Country Music? Harry Potter and the "Miraculously Unguarded Vagina"	Advertisement
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