As a Democrat I am naturally happy about O’Donnell kicking Castle’s ass, but as a Delawarean – I’m a little upset that Californians can come in and create such mischief in our elections. Furthermore, I’m a little confused as to why our local media is so incurious about the shady profiteers behind the Tea Party Express.
Luckily, The Daily Caller is a little bit curious about this operation and has drawn back the curtain on this operation.
The TPE money funnels up to two people who have invented a for profit that is very effective at getting money from witless rubes. The head honcho is an ultimate California political insider turned political entraprenure, Sal Russo:
Sal Russo: The 63-year old Russo is the most senior principal at TPE, along with his 37-year old protégé, Joe Wierzbicki. Both have spent most of their careers in California politics, advising Republican candidates and spearheading political and public relations campaigns. Russo founded Russo, Marsh and Rogers, a GOP public relations firm in Sacramento, and Wierzbicki also works for the organization. But Russo gives true meaning to the term “veteran political operative.” He got his start in politics when he volunteered for Ronald Reagan’s 1966 gubernatorial campaign.
In the California political world, “there’s a sense that, ‘can you believe that Sal Russo has kind of reinvented himself as the Tea Party Express guy?’” said one GOP political operative with years of experience in the state. “There’s that sense of, ‘You know who runs the Tea Party Express now? Russo. Wow.
Russo likes to keep a low profile. His picture on the TPE website is at the very bottom, below figures who are much more peripheral in the organization. But he’s well-known to even the most high-profile Republican leaders. “He’s a hoss,” said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who said he’s known Russo for 40 years.
Next is the public face:
Joe Wierzbicki: If Russo provides the institutional gravitas and political know how for TPE, Wierzbicki, his right-hand man, provides the energy and leadership. Wierzbicki is not nearly as well known in California politics but has been the main organizer behind the TPE bus tours, which are reputed to have raised significant amounts of money for the group. When TPE sends out fundraising e-mails, Wierzbicki is most often the one whose name is at the top.
Wierzbicki is also at the center, along with Russo, of several groups that overlap and intersect with the TPE, such as Moving America Forward and King Media Group. TPE itself was at its inception in 2008 an anti-Obama advocacy, fundraising and advertising group known as Our Country Deserves Better. Each of these groups has paid large amounts of money back to Russo, Marsh and Rogers over the last year, leading to charges from members of the Tea Party Patriots and from former employees that Russo and Wierzbicki formed TPE simply to make money (Politico reported in April that $1.9 million out of roughly $4 million in expenditures by TPE and King Media went to Russo, Marsh and Rogers).
These men, who pocket two out of every four dollars donated, have tapped into a money gusher. I think that is safe to say that they don’t give a shit about who represents Delaware in the US Senate as long as the gravy train keeps flowing and thew witless rubes keep waving the good old red white and green.