Republicans Endorse Neumann, Westlake

Today, Team Neumann issued a press release claiming that they received the endorsement from the Republican Liberty Caucus of Wisconsin. Following the link in the press release, one sees that they RLC-WI also endorsed Dave Westlake for Senate.

At best, they could be considered backhanded endorsements, especially when one considers this blurb:

In our view, neither of these two candidates is perfect. In fact, neither would likely be comfortable calling themselves libertarian Republicans. Perhaps they would consider themselves Constitutionalists. In any case, these are the best candidates Wisconsin has to offer for U.S. Senate and for Governor in 2010. We think our slate of candidates will radically reduce government waste and increase freedom in the state of Wisconsin. If you agree, please consider becoming a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

But even has tempered an endorsement as these might be, they also picked up on the machinations of the power brokers of the Republican Party:

First, in principle we oppose the Republican Party of Wisconsin making pre-emptive endorsements prior to the primary. They did so in both the Gubernatorial race and the U.S. Senate race. The Wisconsin Republican Party’s pre-primary endorsements were inappropriate for several reasons:

• They are directing money and resources to candidates prior to allowing primary voters to weigh in;

• The state GOP clearly picked its favorites and was working to help their favorites even before the state GOP Convention;

• Winning is not as important as vigorously protecting free and fair elections. Selling out on principle to win has not yielded positive results for the Republican Party in the past;

• Pre-primary endorsements discourage Republicans from donating to the Republican Party of Wisconsin; after all, if you donated to them to help build the Republican Party and they are funding the candidate you did not want them to fund, it doesn’t appear that your money is being put to good use.

This kind of takes away from Team Walker trying to gainsay the legitimacy of Neumann's campaign and puts his own in the shadow of doubt.

When one considers that this group claims to be part of the forces that brought in the Republican wave in 1994 with the Contract on for America, the fact that they are not very keen on either Scott Walker or Ron Johnson should put a trickle of concern down their backs, as well as those of the would be king makers.