Aw, poor teabaggers. Their new economic model to encourage teabaggers to shop at teabagger-supporting businesses isn't working so well.
The Tea Party Exchange suspended operations on Tuesday, Aug. 17 but founder Donald Hutchinson did not say if he would refund the $150 annual membership fee more than two dozen participating businesses paid him this summer.
“Website and business operations are being stopped until further notice,” he wrote in a news release. “Dayton, Ohio was the test market for Tea Party Exchange. TPX will analyze the results of the test to decide any future decisions.”
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Hutchinson promoted the idea as a way to raise money for Tea Party groups, politically conservative organizations that began cropping up across the country in early 2009. He said the money would help groups supporting limited government, fiscal responsibility and free markets.
Why did the Exchange suspend operations a mere week after it launched? Because it turns out that most consumers in Dayton, Ohio don't want their money going to teabaggers. And the businesses that had paid $150 to participate in the Exchange were instead losing customers.
Bill DeFries, owner of Beef O’Brady’s Family Sports Club, said he decided to withdraw from the exchange even before Hutchinson closed it. DeFries, who describes himself as a liberal Republican, said Hutchinson had presented the exchange as a way to increase his customer base at his restaurants in Centerville and Beavercreek. Instead, DeFries received threats and was called a Nazi by one woman.
“I feel like I was hoodwinked,” said DeFries. “I think he was trying to make money.”
Guess no one could have predicted that the guy who started a group to promote free markets was just trying to -- shudder, gasp -- make money.