The Tea Party Express is confident the candidates it has supported will stand by the group, despite the growing ostracism of its controversial spokesperson, Mark Williams. The TPE has played a role in a number of high-profile conservative campaigns this year, pumping more than a million dollars into the coffers of tea party favorites across the country, ranging from Scott Brown in Massachusetts to Joe Miller in Alaska to Sharron Angle in Nevada. The group is promising to spend more, and that fact will keep conservative candidates from leaving the TPE behind, the group’s national coordinator Joe Wierzbicki told me yesterday.
“No, I don’t think too many candidates are going to turn away our support when they know that our membership is the most actively engaged - politically - of any of the tea party groups,” he said.
But other tea party leaders say that after the firestorm over Williams’ racially-tinged blog post last week, abandoning the TPE would be a good idea for some of the candidates the embattled group has backed.
“If I were running, I’d definitely step away from that kind of rhetoric,” Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler told me yesterday.
Other tea party groups have said that by continuing to back Williams, the Tea Party Express has lost credibility. Asked about their take on Williams and the support of the TPE, many of the group’s highest-profile candidates have essentially side-stepped the question in recent days. (The notable exception is the lone Democrat endorsed by the TPE, Idaho Rep. Walt Minnick, who rebuked the group and said he wanted nothing to do with it from here on out after Williams’ blog post.)
Wierzbicki said most candidates will continue to stick with the TPE — and will continue to basically ignore questions about the Williams issue. The TPE’s money talks, Wierzbicki said.
“In the past two weeks alone we’ve raised over $200,000,” he said. “I tell you that so you understand our supporters don’t care about the media buzz on [the Williams] story.”
“That’s why they are all punting when asked by reporters to respond to this issue,” he added. “It’s not what their campaigns are about, and it’s not why our people have given their money, time and efforts.”
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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