POLITICAL INSIDER: Tea Party Express soliciting cash to influence GOP primary in Delaware

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POLITICAL INSIDER: Tea Partiers seek cash for Del.

WILMINGTON, Del. — The Tea Party Express is asking supporters to raise $250,000 for its preferred candidate in Delaware’s contentious Senate primary.

In an e-mail sent Wednesday, Tea Party Express spokesman Joe Wierzbicki reminded supporters the organization was backing conservative activist Christine O’Donnell’s primary campaign against nine-term Republican Rep. Mike Castle. Wierzbicki called Castle a liberal and a “RINO,” or a Republican in Name Only.

National Republicans are backing Castle and have worked to discredit O’Donnell, citing her personal financial troubles and inaccuracies on her resume. Tea party-style activists have only grown more emboldened with the mounting criticism.

EDITOR’S NOTE — An insider’s view of this year’s elections based on dispatches from around the nation.

“These folks in the GOP establishment want more Lindsay Grahams, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowes, John McCains,” Wierzbicki said, mentioning Republican senators whom the tea party activists view as unacceptable because they sometimes work with Democrats.

“We are up against the entire political establishment and the liberal news — and clearly they want to see us lose this race,” Wierzbicki wrote. “But we can win — if we all stand united on the principles of constitutional conservatism.”

The Tea Party Express already has spent more than $100,000 on the race and has promised $250,000 before Tuesday’s primary.

Third-party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo has outpaced the Colorado Republicans’ nominee, Dan Maes, in August fundraising and has almost the same sum in the bank as Democrat John Hickenlooper, a sign the race could be more competitive than previously thought.

Tancredo collected $200,485 to Maes’ $50,201, The Denver Post reported. Maes had almost $18,000 cash on hand, compared with more than $141,000 for Tancredo. Hickenlooper reported raising almost $404,000 in August and having more than $171,500 banked at the end of the month — surprisingly close to Tancredo, who was a last-minute addition to the race.

Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher can’t catch a break.

The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate faced questions earlier this year about whether he was dodging President Barack Obama after twice failing to show up when the president dropped in on the Buckeye State.

Fisher was with Obama on Wednesday in Cleveland, but ended up getting mocked by Republicans after the president introduced him as the “soon-to-be junior senator from the great state of Illinois.”

Obama quickly corrected himself, saying he must have been thinking about his home state.

The campaign organization of Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has donated $1 million to a liberal group that is indirectly trying to help Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett succeed Doyle in office.

Doyle’s campaign organization gave two $500,000 donations last month to the Greater Wisconsin Committee’s political arm, according to disclosure filings. The group has in turn used the money to pay for $500,000 worth of advertising criticizing Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker, according to the filings.

Walker, the Milwaukee County executive, has been seen as the front-runner on the Republican side in the campaign to succeed Doyle. But Walker must first defeat former Rep. Mark Neumann in next week’s Republican primary, and Neumann appears to be gaining some momentum.

Barrett, who was urged to jump in the race both by the White House and Doyle, faces only token primary opposition in the Democratic primary. But during the campaign, he has tried to show independence from Doyle, whose popularity has sagged during the recession.

Walker said the donation was not surprising but shows Democrats are “going to throw out all the stops” to prevent him from winning. State Republican Party Chairman Reince Preibus called on Barrett to demand the committee either give Doyle’s money back or stop running anti-Walker ads.

Associated Press writers John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Ryan J. Foley in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.