Is Minnick Still 'Pleased?'

Despite radical views expressed by leaders of the Tea Party Express, Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick accepted their endorsement.  Now that Tea Party Express is active in supporting Arizona's new anti-immigration legislation will Minnick continue to accept their support?

"I'm pleased to have their endorsement."

That's what Congressman Minnick said last month upon learning that he had been named a Tea Party Hero and endorsed by the Tea Party Express.  "They're just ordinary folks who think the government ought to balance its budget.  There's nothing very radical about that," included Minnick.  Campaign spokesman John Foster acknowledged that there were some fringe within the group but implied that those weren't the views of the group as a whole.

Seven months earlier this was Tea Party Express Chairman Mark Williams on CNN with Anderson Cooper:

Partial transcript via Crooks and Liars:

COOPER: But I mean, Mark, what you're saying makes sense to me here when I'm hearing what you're saying. But then I read on your blog, you say -- you call the president an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

COOPER: Is that the kind of...

WILLIAMS: That's the way he's behaving.

COOPER: But I mean...

WILLIAMS: I mean, if he cares to be...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Do you believe he's Indonesian? Do you believe he's a Muslim? Do you really believe he's a welfare thug?

WILLIAMS: He's certainly acting like it.

More here.

Calling the President "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief" would seem radical to most ordinary folks, but that's not just some "fringe" element within the group; that's the chairman of the Tea Party Express--the group whose endorsement Congressman Minnick is "pleased" to accept.

Now we learn that the Tea Party Express is actively circulating a petition in support of Arizona's onerous anti-immigration law, with its potential for civil rights violations considered problematic by a wide array of groups from the Southern Poverty Law Center to the Christian Science Monitor.

Is Walt Minnick still "pleased" to have the endorsement of the Tea Party Express and what would it take for the Congressman to denounce this group?

Comments

[Timm!]

When Karl Rove and Jeb Bush have problems with your immigration reform bill, you've got problems.

[Vince Buntrock]

What is wrong with this state? I had hoped that when I (foolishly apparently) voted for minnick he would have been at a minimum a centrist. Now it is obvious he is either a tea bagger in Democratic clothing, an excellent example of a pandering politician or more likely both. Does this man really think he is doing his job representing the views of those who gave him his position or is he merely using his podium to push his own vision of what the country ought to look like.

Never again minnick.

[Nursing clothing]

great video footage...

[Bubblehead]

Rep. Minnick voted to repeal DADT last night. Is MountainGoat still displeased? The fact remains that, while Rep. Minnick doesn't always vote the way Progressives might like, there's zero chance a Rep. Labrador would vote that way, and it's highly unlikely that a more progressive Democrat could win in the 1st District of Idaho.

[IdahoRocks]

Your research about Minnick is impeccable.

I do think that Chomsky had it right when he queried what the Tea Party people are really asking, protesting, etc. Chomsky did a kind of mini-initial-ethnography by asking such questions and I think they're worth pursuing; we have to understand the how and why these questions are important to these people, i.e., what are they really driving at.

But aside from Chomsky's initial, surface query, I think you are right in questioning Minnick's pleasure with such an endorsement. Surely it re-confirms his interest in a Minnick fiefdom. And I am very disturbed with how he continues, as with his initial run for congress, to separate himself from any Idaho Democrats, including the Idaho Democratic Party. He seems to be sucking away all the money for other candidates, as well as from the IDP, into his own coffers, instead of trying to be part of an overall Democratic platform, and of democratically spreading the wealth of his own success.

So, what is an Idaho Democratic voter to do? Vote for the Reublican? Not vote at all? I'm perfectly willing to give any money I have, which is not much, to local Democrats, or even to southern Idaho Democrats I admire, and not to the Minnick campaign. But when I'm in the voter booth, and I have to choose Republican or Democrat or no vote at all, what is a person to do.... Drop out or opt for the least crazy?