Tea Party Express's pricey cruises

A speaker loads equipment on one of the Tea Party Express tour buses. | AP Photo

By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 10/20/10 4:32 AM EDT
Politico.com

When the Tea Party Express helped Joe Miller win a shocking upset in Alaska’s GOP Senate primary, it cruised to victory in more ways than one.

For seven weeks this summer, staff members of the political action committee coordinated their efforts on behalf of Miller from staterooms aboard Holland America’s M.S. Amsterdam, a cruise ship that plied the waters from Seattle to various ports of call from Canada to Alaska. There, while other passengers were shopping or photographing glaciers, Tea Party Expressers held press conferences, rallies and meetings with Miller supporters. Between stops, they used their time at sea plotting strategy and cutting radio ads that they downloaded from a digital recorder and e-mailed to a studio for production.

The Tea Party Express, paid Holland America Line a total of $103,000 to send six of its staffers on four consecutive cruises on the Amsterdam. The payments to the cruise line, which appeared on a campaign finance report filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission, have started drawing attention from critics of the Tea Party Express, who have alleged that the committee is a front for Republican consultants seeking to use the populist movement to make a buck and live the high life.

“It seems so outlandish,” said Kelly Eustis, who after being fired from the PAC late last year, set up his own PAC and has engaged in public e-mail battles with Tea Party Express’s leadership. Eustis forwarded an analysis by a Nevada blogger, highlighting what he deemed to be questionable expenditures in the Tea Party Express’s FEC report, including some of the cruise payments.

“Why would a committee spend all that money going on cruises when they weren’t even on land most of the time? They made it seem like they were up there campaigning the whole time, when they were really up there on a Holland America cruise ship,” said Eustis, contrasting the boat’s lavish accommodations with the grass-roots tea party movement’s populist sensibilities.

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