Minnick Shores Up Base, Rejects 'Tea Party Express' Endorsement

Last week, the NAACP passed a resolution requesting that tea bagging leaders ratchet down the racist rhetoric within their ranks. As you might imagine, several tea baggers took that as a taunt, leading this prominent tea bagger to pen a facetious letter from a "colored person" to Abraham Lincoln characterizing slavery as a "great gig." Here's a choice excerpt to get the flavor:

The tea party position to “end the bailouts” for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.

And the ridiculous idea of “reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government.” What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!

The author is Mark Williams spokesman for the Tea Party Express (TPE) which endorsed Congressman Walt Minnick, the only Democrat to earn the dubious distinction. Mr. Williams has a long history with bigotry and racism. The Tea Party Federation has kicked TPE out of their umbrella organization for standing by these comments (Splitters!). And Walt Minnick has rejected their endorsement, also as a consequence of their failure to admonish the idiot for his blatantly racist screed. condemn him.

The reprehensible blog post by your spokesman was clearly in poor taste. Whatever his reasons for writing it, his words reflect on all of those associated with the Tea Party movement. The proper response to his perceived slight on the issue of race was not to use inflammatory sarcasm. Rather, I would have expected your organization to instead highlight the Tea Party I know, the one with good, decent folks who care very much about the serious financial issues facing our nation and who themselves would find Mr. Williams' blog post distasteful.

Instead, the Tea Party Express has apparently decided to stand by Mr. Williams and support him in his own contention that he did nothing wrong. I cannot agree with that course of action. Since the Tea Party Express refuses to reject and rebuke Mr. Williams, I have no choice but to decline your endorsement.

Minnick's opponent, Raul Labrador, paradoxically says that while Williams is wrong, we can't go around condemning all tea baggers because of it. That's some cowardly bullshit a disingenuous dodge designed not to alienate a group, which, for all intents and purposes, is the outspoken branch of the Republican Party. And its in clear contrast to what Minnick did. Labrador is still reeling from tepid fund raising numbers and an internal poll which shows Minnick with a ten point lead.

Certainly the tea bagging movement provided fertile ground for the remnants of a sorry history of bigotry in our country continuing to fester just below the surface. Many of us on the left called Walt out for his pandering to teabaggers, implicitly condoning the fringe elements tolerated within their organizations and mainstreaming those elements into the national media providing a perception of legitimacy. The Williams letter fracas gave Walt a convenient out of an embarrassing endorsement. Regardless of cynical motivations it was the proper, if belated, call making it easier for Democrats to get out and vote for him, certainly when compared with the alternative. We'll see if this solves Walt's base problem but its definitely the correct direction.