A funny thing is happening inupstate New York right now. The collusion between the grassroots populist angerof the “teabaggers” and the more elitist pro-Wall Street agenda of the Club forGrowth is being unmasked all at once--just in time for Halloween.
Conservative Party candidate DougHoffman is either leading or in second place in the special election to replaceRep. John McHugh (R) in the upstate 23rd district of New York. The election turned intoa three-way race when both the Republican Party and the Democratic Partynominated moderates. The conservative grassroots and elites revolted at once andHoffman has become a cause célèbre of the national teabagger movement appearingrecently on Glenn Beck and winning Sarah Palin’s endorsement.
The irony of a grassroots movementsupposedly angry about being victimized by the financial crisis supporting theWall Street candidate couldn’t be more obvious.
Hoffman’s candidacy was born out ofthe Club for Growth—an elitist cabal backed by big bankers whose founder nowwrites editorials for the Wall Street Journal. The Club for Growth is aright-wing Trojan Horse—wrapping itself in justifiable grassroots anger aboutthe financial crisis in order to stop a reform agenda and investigations thatwould put a leash on the most outrageous Wall Street practices. With Hoffmanthe Club for Growth has now put a saddle and harness on the teabaggers. Doug Hoffman is Wall Street's man in the Adirondacks.
Over the last decade or more, theClub for Growth, which Hoffman has fully embraced, has opposed measures toregulate out-of-control banks and provide protections for ordinary Americans.Their only purpose is to make sure that the mainstream of the Republican Partyadheres to their ideology.
What we need nowmore than ever are real and serious investigations ala the Pecora Commission ofthe 1930s. A new Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has started their work—andwill reportedly get a lot busier as they hire their investigators and moveforward. Getting to the bottom of the financial crisis is criticallyimportant—America’s outrage about what is going on needs meaning. Americadeserves to know who got us into this mess—especially if they’re still inpositions of authority.
Hoffman and theClub for Growth are ideologically opposed to government and would rather hang a“buyer beware” sign on the front of banks than do the responsiblething—investigate what happened and fix our system so it doesn’t happen again.
Accountable America, a group Ifounded, has a new TV ad that will air in the 23rd district continuously untilTuesday that connects the dots between Doug Hoffman, the Club for Growth andtheir opposition to bank investigations and reform. Check it out.