Ty Harrell and Americans for Prosperity: BFFs?

Rut-roh. Rep. Ty Harrell (D-Wake) and his Time Warner Cable protection bill get an assist from the tea-partying, right-wing group Americans for Prosperity. When you call yourself a progressive Democrat and wind up on the same side as Americans For Prosperity, you're doing something wrong.

Please ask your state representatives not to sell you out to Time Warner Cable.

Comments

AFP

There are few organizations you can count on to be reliably on the wrong side of every issue. Americans for Prosperity is one of them.

Mr. Harrell, that puts you on the wrong side of an important issue too. Please keep your misguided corporate interests away from my local government's ability to serve the citizens in my community.

If you don't want municipal involvement in your community, fine. Fight there all you want. But you have no idea what's going on in hundreds of towns and cities all across the state, as evidenced by your willingness to shill for Big Telecom.

AFP: the Jack Abramoff connection

Isn't AFP this group: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_For_Prosperity#Ties_to_convicted_...

Tim Phillips, then VP of Ralph Reed’s Atlanta-based Century Strategies, and Tim Cox, co-owner with Phillips of the political consulting firm New Dominion Strategies, helped create a supposedly “non-partisan” tax-exempt organization in Virginia called the Faith and Family Alliance in 2000. The purpose of the organization was to launder money for Jack Abramoff's clients through Americans for Tax Reform. The organization opened its doors in 2000 with a $150,000 check from Americans for Tax Reform's Grover Norquist, who provided no explanation to the organization about the purpose of the money. The official incorporator of the Faith and Family Alliance was James Bopp. Bopp was the attorney for Grover Norquist’s Americans Taxpayers Alliance.[8] [9]

Robin Vanderwall served as the organization’s Executive Director. He had been hand-picked by Tim Phillips and Phil Cox to run the organization, which would lobby against certain gambling legislation that Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist, was trying to defeat. This was on behalf of one of the Indian interests that he represented.

Robin Vanderwall has cooperated in the Jack Abramoff investigation. The Washington Post reported the story this way: “Vanderwall is now serving a seven-year prison term after he was convicted of soliciting sex from a minor on the Internet.

In telephone interviews and correspondence from state prison, Vanderwall said the nonprofit group, Faith and Family Alliance, was used as a pass-through to fund Abramoff’s campaign against an Internet gambling ban and to attack U.S. House candidate Eric Cantor in his 2000 primary race.

Money was sent from a client of Abramoff’s to Americans for Tax Reform, which kept a portion.

The rest was routed to Faith and Family, records show. Vanderwall then made out a check for the identical amount and sent it to the political consulting firm where Phillips is vice president.

That firm was founded by former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, an Abramoff friend.

The money was meant to attack conservative Republicans who backed the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, a review of records shows.

Four days before Virginia’s June 12 GOP primary, the Alliance sent out a mailing attacking congressional candidate Eric I. Cantor to boost the prospects of his opponent State Sen. Stephen H. Martin, who had hired Tim Phillips.

attacks on Ty in general are neither constructive nor relevant

unless you are planning a primary challenge from the left.
Otherwise, you are just weakening a candidate who is already being targeted by the Republicans *despite* some of his recent conservative dalliances. Where exactly are progressives in Ty's district supposed to go, if they don't think he is progressive enough? And if these attacks suceed in damaging Ty in the general election, how is putting a REAL Republican into that seat supposed to constitute any sort of improvement in the situation??

Your timing is off by about 12 months

The time to move the party to where you want it to be is between generals and primaries.

The time to fall in line is between primaries and generals.

As you likely know, Ty Harrell was the progressive challenger in his first primary against former Republican Chris Mintz. Of course, then he went on to beat Russell Capps.

Harrell can choose to dance with those who brought him or not.

 

Sorry, George

Your kind of triangulation assumes a certainty about the future that none of us has. Maybe he'll be challenged, maybe he won't. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In the meantime, the legislation in question is a piece of crap. You want to stand by silently? Talk about irrelevant.

The truth is, if Harrell can't handle a little criticism from progressives, he's the wrong person for the job. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up using attacks from mean old liberals to prove he's a middle-of-the-road kind of guy. We're probably doing him a favor.