GOP Senate candidate George Allen has announced [1] that he, too, has tea party support:
…George Allen received the endorsement of over 100 Tea Party Patriots throughout the Commonwealth, led by Coby Dillard, Co-Founder of the Hampton Roads Tea Party, Laura Alcorn, Co-Founder of the Richmond Patriots, Strother Smith, President of the 10th Amendment Foundation, Ben Marchi, former State Director of Americans for Prosperity and conservative Tea Party activists Tito Munoz and Carl Tate.
There is a list of the tea party endorsers at the link — and I’m sure the quibbles will be many (in his role with AFP, Marchi all but turned the organization into an Allen front).
I can appreciate Allen’s effort here, but his list isn’t as impressive as the one Jamie Radtke has assembled [2]. Now one would expect Radtke to have a long and varied list of tea party and patriot group supporters, given her leadership role in the statewide organization. While that support has yet to translate into movement in the polls, it’s quite real and impossible to dismiss.
Still, that Allen found it necessary to produce such an endorsement list, and do so now, is quite interesting. Is he exploiting a wedge, or trying to create one? Is it all just cover for the coming debates? Or is it benign?