Mediaboss Marketing

Wisconsin Republicans will vote next month on whether or not to support the state's right to secede from the United States of America. (PHOTO: Darin ten Bruggencate) Published April 17, 2014 at 9:02 a.m.

I am one of those level-headed sophisticates who has always laughed at the Tea Party.

I've always dismissed them as a bunch of dissatisfied wingnuts who gather under the cover of darkness and say a prayer to Sen. Ted Cruz, who is the chief wingnut, unless you consider Sen. Rand Paul, and then we've got a tie for the Wacko in Chief.

But tremors have begun to shake through me as I sit idly by and watch the ground being gobbled up by the Tea Party in Wisconsin by four stunning political events.

First State Sen. Mike Ellis was surreptitiously videotaped by that crazy James O'Keefe, who runs something called Project Veritas. Ellis was embarrassed by political conversation in a bar that seemed to advocate something against the rules. So, Ellis resigned, providing a victory for the Tea Party and its supporters. Thus ended a 44-year career in the legislature and removed a Republican voice of reason.

If anyone wants to know about O'Keefe, just listen to what James Letten, who was the U.S. Attorney in Louisiana, had to say about Project Veritas after the organization went after him, even though he proved they were wrong in their allegations.

"You went to my house, you terrorized my wife, you're violating federal law, you're trespassing, you're a nasty little cowardly spud," Letten said last year in a video he posted. "All of you, you're hobbits. You are less than I can ever tell you. You are scum. Do you understand?"

O'Keefe did not seem to publicly object to the characterizations.

Ellis was the first of the victories for the Tea Party in the last week.

Next to fall was veteran congressman Tom Petri who has represented the Fox Valley for over four decades. Petri, a middle-of-the-road Republican faced a primary challenge from State Sen. Glenn Grothman, who has built a reputation not quite as extreme as Cruz, but then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's fair to say that Petri didn't relish getting into a fight with the extremists on the right edge of the mantlepiece.

Continue reading here:
Can we secede from Wisconsin's Tea Party nuts?