Remember Ernestine, the sassy telephone operator played by Lily Tomlin on Laugh-In? In her mind, the phone company was the most powerful entity on Earth. Her motto was, “We’re the phone company; we don’t care and we don’t have to.”
“You’ve angered me,” Ernestine once told a customer. “And when you’ve angered me you’ve angered me and all the power necessary to tie up your lines for the next fifty years!”
Rep. Joe Walsh (Tea Party-Ill.) has angered the phone company. CREDO Mobile, a cell phone company that has always donated 1 percent of its proceeds to “women’s rights, peace, environmentalism and an entire progressive agenda,” has now formed a Super PACs to fund its Take Down the Tea Party Ten campaign.
Super PACs, which were made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, are allowed to raise unlimited funds from corporations, unions and individuals. With 11,000 donors, CREDO’s Super PAC is second only in size to television presenter Stephen Colbert’s.
CREDO plans to spend $3 million to defeat 10 Tea Partiers. It’s already picked out six:
· Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI)
· Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
· Rep. Allen West (R-FL)
· Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL)
· Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH)
· Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN)
“We’re talking about some of the most odious members of Congress. Even for Republicans these guys are low,” said Campaign Manager Matthew “Mudcat” Arnold. “We’re going to empower local activists to organize their friends and neighbors to lay out the truth about their representatives in the most basic terms: They are anti-woman. They are anti-science. They are hypocritical, bigoted, and have said and done things that are downright crazy. They’ve done more to embarrass their constituents then they have to govern or work toward solutions. They are unfit for congress, and we’re going to help their constituents hold them accountable.”
CREDO singled out Walsh for his “refusal to pay child support.”
“We’re taking the traditional SuperPAC model and turning it on its head - to put power back in the hands of the people, instead of consolidating it in the hands of corporate executives and the ultra-wealthy," said Becky Bond, president of the CREDO SuperPAC. “Where Karl Rove and the Koch brothers can use shady money from a few hidden donors to fund a barrage of TV attack ads, this SuperPAC will empower local voters and our list of 2.5 million activists to build a grassroots campaign that is as hard hitting as it is progressive. Using innovative tactics, technology, and good, old fashioned grassroots organizing, we’re going to kick some Tea Party congressmen out of office.”
