Wednesday, March 16, 2011

BILLIONAIRES? TEABAGGERS? FOX SAYS: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

Headline at Fox Nation:

Tea Party Revolt: Miami Mayor Recalled

Yes, the mayor of Miami, Carlos Alvarez, was recalled in a special election yesterday, and the vote wasn't even close. But if you look at story after story about the recall campaign, including the AP story linked by Fox, you'll see no mention whatsoever of tea party involvement in the recall campaign. In fact, if you search for Alvarez's name at the site of the South Florida Tea Party, you'll see it's barely mentioned.

The real driver of the campaign, according to every story? Norman Braman -- a billionaire who made Forbes's list of the 400 richest Americans in 2008 and 2009. He hired the professional petition-gatherers and otherwise spent about a million bucks to oust Alvarez. But now Fox and others on the right are crediting the tea party, and even some locals are falling for the spin.

The guy does seem to have been the object of quite a bit of genuine, and justifiable, voter anger. But this was no grassroots recall campaign -- unless we're just not even bothering to distinguish anymore between teabaggers and fat cats.

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