Re-Using the Right-Wing in 2012
Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at the People for the American Way Foundation, is closely following the current courting of the religious right-wing by the Koch-funded astroturf group, Americans for Prosperity. The Koch brothers see to it through this grassroots Tea Party front group that their anti-workers agenda moves forward by provoking its very victims to cover for them. Meanwhile, fresh from the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal, Ralph Reed is back to promote his Faith and Freedom Coalition, a partnership of the religious right-wing and the ostensibly secular Tea Party for a get-out-the-vote operation aimed at the 2012 elections. Reed is again promising to turn out the religious right-wing vote for the GOP. In March, Reed’s organization hosted the over-hyped Iowa gathering of GOP presidential contenders. And Tim Phillips, the president of Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, was a panelist for the religious right’s “Awakening Conference” in April at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Unive