Several Tea Party icons, including Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Sarah Palin, and former Representative Allen West (R-FL), are urging Tea Party activists around the country to help Republicans take back the majority in the U.S. Senate in next week’s 2014 mid-term elections through a low budget but heart-felt social media campaign of personalized YouTube videos.
Dollar for dollar, these short YouTube pitches may end up being the most cost-effective assistance the Republican Party receives in the last week of the campaign. Targeted at the passionate Tea Party conservatives who powered the huge wave in the 2010 mid-terms that saw the Republicans take back a majority in the House of Representatives, the videos attempt to make the case that, despite four years of Republican establishment backsliding on the promises of the 2010 election, the future of the country depends on the outcome of the 2014 election.
These pitches, coming from Tea Party-aligned political leaders who enjoy high levels of trust with Tea Party activists around the country, are a timely boost for the Republican Party. Tea Party activists are not particularly enthused about the choices in the 2014 general election, whose marquis contest in the Kentucky U.S. Senate race will turn on whether “Tea Party Republicans show up and vote for McConnell, nose-holding or not,” as Sam Youngman at the Lexington Herald Leader reported.
With the losses of Tea Party-endorsed candidates in Republican primaries in Kentucky, Mississippi, Kansas, and Tennessee, Tea Party activists have no one left to cheer for. As a result, most consider this a “hold your nose” election where they are forced to vote for the least bad option, which in most cases is the moderate Republican, as opposed to the far left Democrat (in Kansas, the far left Democrat is listed on the ballot as an Independent).
The Tea Party icons in these videos are reminding the true believers in limited government that sometimes the best course of action is to hold your nose and vote for the least bad option, especially if one result of that vote will be the deposing of Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) as the majority leader of the U.S. Senate.
The low budget YouTube videos have an equally low budget distribution mechanism. Sources tell Breitbart News that several groups–including Americans for Limited Government, Tea Party Patriots, and For America, a conservative 501 c 4 whose Facebook page has more than six million likes–will be sending links out to these videos in their regular email messages.
Representative Louie Gohmert’s video begins with the assertion that “this is a country in trouble.” Every Tea Party activist, he urges, should “vote as if your country depends on it.”
Senator Mike Lee tells Tea Party activists they should “vote this year as if your life depends on it, because it does.”
Sarah Palin reminds voters at the Value Voters Summit “it is time to stand up and fight like your country’s future depends on it, because it does.”
With less than a week until election day, these Tea Party icons are hoping that the anticipated small margin needed for victory by Republican candidates in several key swing states may come from Tea Party activists energized by their YouTube video pitches.
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