Apparently Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson is avoiding the various “Tea Party” groups here in Wisconsin, now that he’s started to have a rough time with their vetting process:
U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson’s courtship of tea party groups took another twist as he postponed question-and-answer sessions with two organizations this week after a skeptical reception from constitutional conservatives in Jefferson County.
Johnson called the United Nations a joke, mocked the notion of human-made global warming, endorsed dramatically lower taxes and said abolition of the IRS would be wonderful, but the Republican wasn’t prepared for some questions thrown at him Friday by the Rock River Patriots.
His campaign said a personal issue forced him to skip his scheduled appearances at “vetting sessions” in Chippewa County on Tuesday and in Madison on Wednesday night.
But some tea party activists were skeptical, saying Johnson may be regrouping because he couldn’t seem to satisfy the Rock River Patriots with specific policy positions on constitutional issues such as gun rights, property protection and limited government. They also took note that he was able to attend a Republican Party office opening earlier Tuesday in the same part of the state.
“Johnson is probably a sincere guy and I think on a gut level he’s conservative, but he hasn’t taken the time yet to develop his positions,” said Ken Van Doren, an official with Campaign for Liberty.
Todd Welch, the group’s interim state coordinator, called Johnson’s support of the Patriot Act and the national Real ID mandate “scary” and said he had hoped to question him about government invasion of privacy. Johnson backs Real ID as a crackdown on illegal immigration.
You can watch Ron Johnson’s candidate forum/vetting interview videos over at the Rock River Patriots website.
To be honest, I’m not at all surprised that Ron Johnson has had a rough go of things with the folks from the various Tea Party groups in the state, given the fact it took Johnson so long to articulate to voters exactly where he stood on the issues. What’s more, Ron Johnson strikes me as the kind of candidate who sounds great in a commercial or reading a prepared statement at a campaign rally, but who sounds less great once he’s forced to think on his feet and actually share what he thinks about a particular issue, and not what his campaign staff thinks he should think about a particular issue.
However, if I were a Republican supporter of Ron Johnson’s candidacy, I’d be more than a little worried by the fact that he’s now actively avoiding the various Tea Party groups as if they had the plague, because that certainly doesn’t bode well for Johnson’s chances should he make it out of the Republican U.S. Senate primary.
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