Braves Beat Tea Party in the Astroturf Games

The Tea Party may win most of their battles but the Braves won the battle this week by out Astroturfing the Koch brother’s funded Astroturf Tea party. (Astroturf-fake grass roots organization)

For starters, the Braves were for something. The cost of the development is too large, borne by Cobb taxpayers, and dishonestly presented but it least it is something. The Tea Party is known for shouting down elected leaders and being anti-everything.

When the Braves said that they were moving to Cobb, they had a majority of county commissioners in their pockets. Now, all they needed was political cover for those officials and a fake appearance of public support to create the atmosphere of inevitability.

On Monday at 3:30, the Mountain View Library’s parking lot was full; there were a couple TV trucks, and a lot of police cars to handle the anticipated large crowd. If you didn’t arrive early, you wouldn’t get a seat for the activities. The small meeting room was full early.

100 yards away, the Mountain View Community Center’s much larger meeting room was empty. Someone said that half the seats were reserved for the Braves supporters who had matching shirts and signs. There were no reserved seats. Actually, the public relations team for the pro-Braves group made sure that there would be a small room, and their supporters would be there early to get seats. There were more people outside the room in the hallway and parking lot, than inside the room. People kept arriving and parking next door at the senior center by the dozen. But back inside the library, the staged photo op gave the appearance of strong Brave support.

Tea Party leader Debbie Dooley had been left outside in the cold by people who out Astroturfed her. She kept saying that the Tea Party wasn’t just the anti-party. They win things, like defeating the Transportation-SPLOST, so they could get that phantom Plan B transportation plan. Inside were real Astroturf professionals, who were well funded, well organized, and for something.

A quick trip to the Cobb Commissioners room on the Square in Marietta revealed the same play, act 2. Commissioner Bob Ott has held many Town Hall meetings in the past in rooms that were larger but tonight at 7:00, the small room would be the scene for the Brave’s Astroturf acting company. If you got there at 6:00, you could get a seat, though many of them were taken by the Brave team with the shirts and signs.

Before the meeting started, the ever polite commissioner went outside to talk to the crowd who could not get into the packed room. Back inside the room, Commissioner Ott began the charade by saying that he would not say how he would vote. Later, a lady stated that by appearing on the front page of the MDJ with Chairman Tim Lee, and a Braves official, all in Braves shirts, that the commissioner had already told the world how he would vote, so why have a pretend town hall meeting.

In the first row were commissioners Helen Gorham and Jo Ann Burrell to see how the political wind was blowing. Commissioner Ott never relinquishes control of a meeting. He is always in control of the wind speed and direction. If things get a little out of control, he’ll go into his ten minute routine about chickens and residential zoning which always restores order. But on Tuesday night, there was no need for chicken stories.

Commissioner Ott made difficult tax problem more complex instead of more understandable. He would answer question A with answer B. The ever charming, self-effacing commissioner obfuscated (he is the only person I know who obfuscates) around most issues. Long rambling questions followed by even longer rambling answers, kept the forum from being informative but then that was never the intention. Then it was 8:30 and the meeting was over.

Late Tuesday night, a friend called to say that the Braves had won but by a narrow margin of 3-2. He said that Bob Ott and Lisa Cupid had voted against it. He was wrong. He had heard a litany of Ott saying, I don’t like this proposal because of this, and another reason I don’t like this proposal is. Being a reasonable person, he thought that Ott was against the measure and left the meeting. Commissioner Ott was going to vote yes, at least since he put on that Braves shirt for the MDJ. He and the rest of the County Commission, except Lisa Cupid, have been trying to act like they were concerned what the voters thought about this issue. They put their trust in the Braves public relations team to help get them re-elected. Time will tell.