UT-SEN

Tea Party Express Loves Orrin Hatch: 'An Original Tea Partier'

Eric Kleefeld | January 27, 2011, 3:56PM

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

In some good news for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), he will not be targeted for defeat from the right by the Tea Party Express, which in 2010 supported such primary insurgents (and general election losers) as Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. And far from attacking Hatch as a RINO, National Review reports, Hatch is being hailed as "an original tea partier" -- apparently thanks to some old connections.

Just this past cycle in 2010, Hatch's fellow Utah Sen. Bob Bennett was defeated for renomination at his state GOP convention, following an activist uprising motivated in part by his vote for the TARP bailout. Hatch -- who also voted for TARP -- has also had some weak polling and could face a challenge from Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

An important thing to note: While Tea Party Express, a project of Our Country Deserves Better PAC, is branded as an outsider organization, their chief strategist is Sal Russo. For his part, Russo is a longtime GOP strategist who has worked for Republican politicians such as Jack Kemp, George Pataki -- and Orrin Hatch, with whom he has a long history.

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Sal Russo

Tea Party Express Leader: Left Is 'Revolting And Disgusting' For Blaming The Tea Party

Jillian Rayfield | January 10, 2011, 12:39PM

Another Tea Party leader is accusing the left of unfairly blaming the Tea Party for the mass shootings in Arizona, describing how "revolting and disgusting the left is for trying to associate the tea party with violence like this."

Sal Russo, the leader of the Tea Party Express, said on Fox News today that shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner "was obviously a leftist. He admired Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. Those are not volumes that are popular with the Tea Party so he was obviously a left-wing anarchist, he was probably Anti-Semitic."

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