More Signs Of Tea Party Campaigning In 2010: The Liberty First PAC

Glenn Beck has put together a candidate pledge and hinted at something big (an organizing effort) for the 2010 elections; Freedom Works is looking to mobilize conservative activists in multiple states. And now there is word, from TPM, that conservative organizer/strategist Eric Odom is unveiling a new political action committee--his Liberty First PAC.

Odom leads one of the groups originally responsible for facilitating the tea party movement, the American Liberty Alliance, which promoted the tea parties and helped tea partiers network, along with Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity. Odom was behind the #dontgo movement last year, which promoted House Republicans' protests of Democratic energy policies from the House floor during Congress's August recess.


Odom told TPM that the goal will be to raise $1 million to defeat incumbent lawmakers who supported Democratic health care reforms.

While conservative activism has been generating a lot of buzz this year, it has, so far, lacked organized means to translate that buzz into money. There may be a lot of grassroots conservatives out there, but, unless they donate their money to the Club for Growth, or to candidates themselves, they're more valuable as foot soldiers than anything else.

With a PAC--which, essentially, is a body that raises money and donates it to chosen candidates--the Tea Party movement might be able to put some money behind its candidates, as well.