Critical Press Release Yanked: Who Muzzled Anderson?
MADISON — In a short-lived press release that the Republican Party of Wisconsin doesn’t want you to see, outgoing Wisconsin College Republicans Chair Lora Rae Anderson blasted the state party for racial intolerance, calling it too “extreme” and saying that it is “alienating a younger, more progressive generation.”
“I’m glad to see the College Republicans Chair admit what a lot of us already know, that the Republican Party today is busy catering to its Tea Party masters, offering more and more extreme slogans, but no real solutions for working families in Wisconsin,” said Mike Tate, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
Last May, Lora Rae Anderson promised in a speech at the state RPW convention to build a more solid relationship with RPW and county parties. But in a press release after the new College Republican leadership was elected, Anderson announced Saturday that she is severing ties with the state party because one of its leaders “used a cultural insult and racial slurs.”
“I will not be renewing my membership to the Eau County Republican Party or the Republican Party of Wisconsin for the year 2010.”
Republicans’ march toward Tea Party extremism began early this year when reality tee-vee star and Congressional candidate Sean Duffy agreed to appear at a Wisconsin Tea Party rally where white supremacist “Col.” John Eidsmoe had been scheduled to speak.
Anderson denounces Tea Party race-based politics, singling out Sean Duffy Supporter and Eau Claire County Republican Party Chairman Brian Westrate for continuing in the Duffy Tea Party mode of associating with racial intolerance. Anderson wrote:
“Racial slurs obviously don’t sit well with me, but when somebody knowingly racially slurs my friends; I am personally insulted.”
Westrate previously defended racists in a letter to the editor of his local newspaper.
