From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage --

Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer, in Anchorage today to support Joe Miller’s Senate campaign, would not condemn her group's spokesman, Mark Williams, for his controversial blog post satirizing what he called “Colored People.”

Kremer said at a press conference that Williams, a California talk radio host who wrote the post on his own blog, was not speaking on behalf of the Tea Party Express when he wrote it.

Asked if the Tea Party Express condemns Williams, Kremer had this to say:

“Mark Williams is a former chairman (of the Tea Party Express), he resigned over a month ago to go focus on his own things. I am the chairman of Tea Party Express and we are here to focus on the good work that we do both on our tours and in these campaigns, and getting Joe Miller elected,” Kremer said.

Will he continue as spokesman for the Tea Party Express?

“While Mark Williams may speak on behalf of us in some circumstances and in some situations, and we may agree on some things, this is not one of the things that we agree upon and Mark Williams is speaking on his own behalf and his own behalf only,” she said.

I asked Kremer after the press conference why the group doesn’t disassociate itself from Williams.

“I’m not going to throw a fellow conservative under the bus. I don’t agree with what he wrote, I wish he hadn’t wrote it, but that’s not what we are here to focus on,” Kremer said.

From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage--

Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer is in Anchorage today to support Joe Miller's Senate campaign, as the group put out a statement attacking its expulsion from the National Tea Party Federation over a blog post about "Colored People."

Tea Party Express Coordinator Joe Wierzbicki put out a statement this morning saying his group is far larger than the federation, which he called "arrogant and preposterous."

"The "Federation" has enabled and empowered the NAACP's racist attacks on the tea party movement, and they should be ashamed of themselves," he said.

The NAACP passed a resolution saying Tea Party leaders needed to crack down on what it said were racist elements in the movement.

That prompted the blog post by talk radio host Mark Williams, spokesman for the Tea Party Express, and the group's chairman until last month.

Williams posted on his own blog a fictional letter from what he called "Colored People" to President Abraham Lincoln.

It began "Dear Mr. Lincoln."

"We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards," the letter said. "That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!"

The Miller campaign put out a statement saying Miller "disavows racism of any kind" and that Williams posted on his private blog "not directly linked with the Tea Party Express. We trust that organization in no way shares those views."

More on the controversy from the Chicago Tribune and the AP.