Dear Matt,
Hi! How are you? It’s been about two and a half years since we last exchanged unpleasantries but you’ve been on my mind since Barack Obama won reelection.
Truth be told, it feels like a lifetime ago when you took a flip, sarcastic voicemail message I left your group, Freedomworks, and exploited it for all the outrage and donations you could. I remember how you asked your followers to harass me and get me fired from a new GEICO campaign I was on. Of course, you were clever and sly the way you conflated me with the GEICO gecko.
Mind you, I understand why you did it. You had a noble goal of lower taxes, less government and more freedom, so it made sense you’d wanna lie a little, stoke some more hatred and get an anonymous voice over guy fired. (Your work with bussing in the tea partiers during the healthcare debate in March of 2010 was sheer brilliance, by the way!)
So, anyway, I was drinking a glass of elitist cabernet the other night and recounting your goals and what transpired. Have you done this? It’s quite fascinating, Matt.
First, there was getting me fired. Check! One for your team – getting you closer to lower taxes, less government and more freedom. Kudos. Of course, it wasn’t a big campaign. In fact, it was just one commercial that ran… on the internet. It was funny, for sure, but not the campaign like the three years I did with them previously.
Ironically, your plucking me from obscurity as your object of derision quadrupled my fan base and brought me much more voice over work than I could’ve hoped for. (And a few on camera gigs!)
And why was I the target again? Oh! Right! Because GEICO had pulled their ads from clear-headed Glenn Beck’s show. Excellent move, sir… Though Glenn is now off the air and relegated to vodcasting.
But even forgetting about our little tea tango, I still feel a little bad. You had other goals, as well, didn’t you? You and your astroturf group wanted anyone but Mitt Romney to be the GOP nominee, didn’t you? Ouch.
You sent out your minions to support Richard Mourdock… A strange man to support considering you’re for less government and he wanted to expand government farther up women’s vaginas. But he lost, too.
You so desperately wanted to stop Obamacare and now it’s the law of the land.
You were a regular on the cable news circuit as a representative of the Tea Party, but now no one likes the tea party anymore. (I guess I was a visionary – seeing through the ideology to the ugly resurgence of the “southern strategy”).
And here we are at the end of 2012.
My career is humming along (in part, thanks to you).
I am able to be completely free with my opinions now, not caring if someone doesn’t like them. Been there, dominated that.
I have an entertaining hobby of creating political “nipple tweaks” — which was solely inspired by you. (A few even made it on to cable news.)
And what about you guys? Sadly, Andrew Breitbart passed away (I do mean that sincerely). Not so sadly, his websites are diminishing in their political impact, slowly relegating themselves into Glenn Beck tin-foil hat territory.
Tabitha Hale (who spearheaded your Dante blog rings of hell) quit Freedomworks (or was fired?) and just recently posted this on her personal blog:
I’m tired of the Establishment vs. Tea Party wars.
Ironic, no? After all, Freedomworks is run by establishment fossil Dick Armey.
Adam Brandon, who illegally recorded phone calls he made to me, still works there I hear. I’m sure it’s helpful to have morally ambiguous folks on staff. I do get a chuckle knowing he told Slate.com in 2010:
I’m a Cleveland Browns fan. I’ve never won anything.
And this election continues the trend.
So, why this letter? Is it just me gloating? No. It’s me gloating big time and closing the chapter of my life that encompassed getting face to face with the ugly under belly of politics. Face to face with a man who wore Wolverine sideburns and talked with forked tongue. Face to face with a block of Americans who wanted less taxes almost as much as they wanted a white president.
Don’t get me wrong – I will still make silly YouTube videos for fun. But I doubt I’ll need to tweak your nipples again. They look pretty sore after this election.
Hopefully you find solace in your personal life, Matt. Your public one has been quite cruel to you. Oh, and try and relax as you bend over to carve your Thanksgiving turkey. Haley Barbour is suggesting that you guys get a “very serious proctology exam.”
Big hug and kiss,
D.C. Douglas
