Sharron Angle's Razputin --- the vile Mark Williams

Sharron's Best Pal

by digby

In case anyone still has any question about how influential the vile racist Mark Williams really is in the Tea Party movement, this article in MoJo should put them to rest. He's behind one of the flagship teabag Senate races:

Williams and the group he's affiliated with, the Tea Party Express, have almost single-handedly made Angle into a contender. Earlier this month, Angle described Williams, who stepped down this weekend as chairman of the outfit, as "instrumental" to her success. So does she still consider him a key to victory? So far, she's not saying.

Up until now I've thought she was just a fairly foolish amateur wingnut, but her response to the Williams "satire" shows she's really a typical Republican nasty piece of work:

Angle's campaign issued a statement to CNN that managed to avoid mentioning Williams' name directly and spin the controversy into a chance to bash her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "Mrs. Angle readily condemns the use of the type of inflammatory language used on somebody's private blog just like she condemned the language used by Majority Leader Harry Reid when he referenced our President as being a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one'."

The spokesperson goes on to say that "all" such racist language is to be condemned, as if Reid's clumsy remarks are in any way comparable to Williams' shockingly noxious screed.

But then Sharron Angle couldn't distance herself if she wanted to --- Mark Williams and the Tea Party express pretty much made her:

It wouldn't be easy for Angle to sever ties with Williams and the Express. This spring, Angle received the Express' full-throated endorsement, and not long after, her campaign hauled in $5,000 from the group's political action committee—the maximum donation from a PAC. The Express has also spent more than $500,000 on TV ads, radio spots, and direct mail backing Angle, and has blasted email appeals to its members to drum up contributions to Angle's campaign. Williams has said his group "spent more in the campaign to defeat Harry Reid than just about any other group out there in this election cycle." Once the Williams-led Express got behind Angle, her rise in the GOP primary was meteoric. She had a mere 5 percent support in an early April Mason-Dixon poll, but won 40 percent of the primary vote in early June. Angle likely couldn't have pulled off her GOP primary upset over moderate Sue Lowden without the Express' backing.

She had to have known about Williams' views since the article further shows they were all over his "private" web site and he never failed to express them in "colorful" terms on his radio show. She apparently didn't think there was anything wrong with them. Certainly the Tea Party Express knew about them. But they aren't pulling out of her campaign and Angle isn't planning to return any of the money they raised for her.

We already knew she was a heartless person who thinks that little girls should give birth to their own sisters if they are raped (they can be adopted together!) and that the unemployed are spoiled and should be forced to pick strawberries and clean toilets. I suppose it shouldn't surprise anyone that her closest allies are vile racists. It's a worldview.

.