It's exasperating and amazing that the
Coffee Party people even have to write this, but the right wingers are doing their usual "Big Lie" thang again, so I guess there's no choice.
Annabel Park, who created this fan page and ignited the Coffee Party movement, volunteered for Obama in 2008 along with millions of her fellow Americans. She and her partner, Eric Byler, created a YouTube channel for filmmakers to contribute videos supporting Obama (www.youtube.com/unitedforobama). No one got paid.
A Korean reporter (Annabel is Korean American) mistakenly thought that she worked for the campaign as a videographer. You can FOIA the Obama campaign and White House payroll and check this.
While we're at it, let me also refute
this malarky, that Annabel supposedly "led the grassroots effort for Webb." In reality, of course, Annabel was one volunteer in the 10,000-strong "ragtag army" of grassroots Jim Webb supporters. I should know, since I was netroots coordinator on that campaign, working closely with the grassroots coordinator, Josh Chernila. As I wrote in my book,
"Netroots Rising", Annabel came to volunteer for a week or two but ended up staying longer than expected. During the 2 months or so she volunteered for the Webb campaign, she and Eric Byler did great work with the Korean-American community in Annandale, as well as with the grassroots group they formed, "Real Virginians for Webb." Here's Annabel's description of how she came to be a (super) volunteer on the Webb campaign in the fall of 2006.
I’m single, I heard the men in Virginia were really hot. (ha) Actally, I found out because of the Macaca incident on TV news, not through the blogs. Then, I started Googling it trying to find out more, came across Raising Kaine. I didn’t know that there was a Progressive community in Virginia, came across your articles, they were really well written, I was very impressed with Raising Kaine. I didn’t consider coming to work on campaign until Eric said he was coming out for 2 weeks during the film festival.
…I didn’t think we were going to win either [and] had never volunteered on other campaigns before.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the right wingnuts can believe whatever they want, project their own paranoia 'til the cows come home, but that doesn't make it in the least bit true. The fact is, Annabel Park is an extraordinary activist - smart, creative, resourceful, and above all, true to her own "north star." To imply that Annabel is a "puppet" of anyone is of course insulting, but even more than that, it's utterly laughable for anyone who knows Annabel. And speaking of laughter, something tells me Annabel will be the one who laughs last, as her "Coffee Party" movement now has almost 100,000 fans on Facebook and has nearly surpassed the largest Tea Party Facebook page in just a couple weeks. Ha!
