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Reaching The Black Community: Anita MonCrief’s New Tea Party

By: Melissa Clouthier (Diary)  |  April 4th, 2011 at 01:36 PM  | 

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Anita MonCrief, former ACORN employee, turned whistle blower, turned conservative political activist, turned American Majority spokeswoman has another new role: Tea Party founder. Anita along with Houston native Earl Johnson have created the Crispus Attucks Tea Party. Learn more here.

Anita and Earl attended the True The Vote Summit sponsored by the King’s Street Patriots here in Houston, Texas. I got to speak to them for a few minutes.

People keep asking if the Tea Party is going to go away. All the evidence points to the answer: definitely not.

Both True The Vote and the Crispus Attucks Tea Party represent a deeper level of engagement and organization. The former group is working to provide conservatives a blueprint and education to keep elections clean everywhere. The latter group is working to forge meaningful relationships with the black community.

Since voter fraud seems to always benefit Democrats, it is incumbent upon Republicans to do more. And yet, there is only so much that can be done by official organizations. The Tea Party folks, though, can be poll watchers and watchdogs generally.

As for reaching the black community, it’s nice to see the Tea Party, at least, is not willing to concede this voting block. Republicans should be getting far more of the black vote. Moreover, as more blacks see their vote being used and abused and taken for granted by Democrats, looking right will be the only option. Kudos to Anita and Earl for planting the seed in Houston. May Sheila Jackson Lee, the petty tyrant of Texas, be deposed.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://www.moccasincreekminutemen.com VizBiz

    It is so refreshing to hear you speak. It REALLY brings about true hope to this nation, that all people are equal and should have equal freedom for opportunities.

    God Bless you.

  • tedpomeroy

    Bring forward the message.

    Original intent of the 14th Amendment and let the chips fall where they may.

    Celebrate the birthdate of Ulysses S. Grant on April 27!

  • southernsue

    hope this works.

    for the past two years America has been in class warfare and race warfare. obama has divided our nation such as i haven’t seen since the 1960′s.

    he needs to go and soon, before we have a civil war ourselves.

  • Leon H. Wolf

    And yet, there is only so much that can be done by official organizations. The Tea Party folks, though, can be poll watchers and watchdogs generally.

    This is the exact opposite of correct. If you are an official party with ballot access and a candidate on the ballot, you are entitled to have poll watchers inside the polling locations. If you are a Tea Party organization that someone invented, you are not.

    I am not really sure what “watchdogs generally” means but given that the tea party orgs are not going to be actually allowed into the polling locations (other than to vote and then leave) I struggle to understand how they can do more than the parties with ballot access can do.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    But you make a very good point. To be an “official” polling place observer on behalf of a political party here in Arizona, for example, one has to be a registered voter of that Party and have an original ink-signed appointment form from the Party county chairman.

    On the other hand, the county hires “laymen” to work at the precinct polling stations and the only requirement for some of the positions is to be a registered voter. Of any party. Or “no party declared.” Just a registered voter. Sadly, in the 2010 election cycle, the Maricopa County Recorder’s office was unable to fill all of these positions. But many tea party members volunteered.

    Again, this is how it works in Arizona. Every state has its own unique set of statutes that govern how this works.

    Another reason why tea partiers ought to actually get involved in party politics.

    And another reason they ought to is because in those states with closed primaries, the only way to “primary” a Republican incumbent is to be a registered Republican voter. When one hears, for example, the “national coordinators” of Tea Party Patriots say that “tea party is going to ‘primary’” the Republican incumbents if they don’t shape up, without going on to explain to the tea partiers in the local chapters that if they live in a state with closed primaries that they won’t be “primarying” anyone unless they register to vote as a Republican, one wonders what, exactly, they want their local chapter members to be doing with their time besides planning for the next mass rally where they’ll hear the same speeches and exhortations to “take our country back” and cries of, “Congress, can you hear us now?”

    They need to focus on making sure that more Republicans get to the polls on primary election day and general election day in 2012 and the best way to do that is to become Republican Party precinct committeemen. And, as precinct committeemen, they also help “true the vote” by becoming poll watchers and workers.

    Thank you.

    ColdWarrior

    • Leon H. Wolf

      I don’t know, it seems to me that basically making vote counting an open to all process to watch would breed mass chaos if anyone ever caught on. It would lead to more vote fraud than having no one there at all.

      • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

        Making sure the process works and counting the votes are two separate things and, again, it’s different in every state.

        Here in Arizona, we need polling place volunteers (some are paid, some are not) to do all sorts of things. Set up and take down of the equipment. Sitting behind a desk with the voter rolls and making sure the individual voters shows the proper ID and actually states their name when asked. (Many of the poll workers won’t enforce this — but they are supposed to, so there are poll watchers and inspectors to make sure this is done.) Watching to make sure no campaign activities are going on inside the 200 foot perimeter around the entrances to the polling place. Making sure that no voter is being “interfered with” inside the polling place.

        Then there’s the operation of the ballot counting machines and making sure that if “spoiled” ballots are properly discarded and replacement ballots are properly issued and accounted for. Then there’s all the voters who come in who have just moved. They don’t know which precinct to go to — the old one or the new one. If they need a “provisional ballot,” it must be issued in a way that ensures they will only end up voting one ballot, not two.

        The premise that having “too many” involved in the process would lead to chaos is faulty at least with regards to AZ — statutes govern how many workers may be hired and for what tasks. The problem we have now is the opposite: there’s a bit of chaos sometimes because not enough people step up to the plate to volunteer. I was fortunate the last two election cycles to take most of, or all of, the day off on primary and general election days to be an “official Party poll watcher” and visited scores of polling places to spot check the procedures. Some of the polling places would have had a little less chaos had they had a full staff of volunteers.

        Arizona has a pretty good system and our Secretary of State believes it is a “model” for the rest of the states. We don’t catch all of the fraud (just caught a couple from Nevada who voted there and then voted here as absentees, too), but we prevent a lot of it. But we need more volunteers to make the system work even better. If only we had the “madness” of having to turn away enthusiastic volunteers.

        Thank you.

        ColdWarrior

  • jen0517

    At the Tax Day Tea Party on 4/16 in The Woodlands at Woodforest Stadium. Can I post a link?

    Thanks,

    Jen

  • http://www.800cart.com Ron Robinson

    Poll activity and counting are usually 2 highly separate activities Leon, one does not imply the other. Here in LA, CA, the parties certify poll watchers (but the tea parties can supply non-party non-certified poll watchers as well).

    The even have separate names for them here in CA – out at the polls they are called poll watchers and at the tally operation at the courthouse, they are called observers – to avoid just the confusion we are trying to sort out in this thread. They can be the same person (as I was) in both places. IN LA the tally operation is so secure, you better be a certified poll watcher if you want to try to get in to observe the tally operation.

    But even a certified poll watcher (as I was) cannot get anywhere near the tally (counting) operation. We can watch it thru a plate glass window put there for that purpose at the county recorder’s office, but only separately certified county workers are allowed in the tally/counting room..

    And then there are those funny hybrid blends – Tea Party members who used their party membership in the GOP to get the party training and become certified party poll watchers. One could if one wnated, I presume, call them Tea Party poll watchers. We had thousands of those here in CA last year.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      Well, it is obviously something that is done very differently from state to state. I have been actually in the room when votes were counted in both AR and OK, although frankly since the widespread advent of electronic voting I frankly have no idea what the process is now. But the point you bring up is what I was trying to say, if you are a tea partier who wants to participate in either the monitoring of vote casting or vote counting in every place I have ever worked you do it through a party with ballot access (not necessarily GOP or Dem).

      • Leon H. Wolf

        There is absolutely nothing that a tea party group that the GOP cannot do, which is what was implied by the OP, even if you grant the proposition that in some places the tea party can do some of the things the GOP can do.

  • jen0517

    4/16 at the Tax Day Tea Party – Woodforest Stadium, Shenandoah, TX 6pm-8pm

    Also featuring Herman Cain and Representative Steve King and State Senator Dan Patrick!

    www.ttppp2.eventbrite.com