Brewing Tension Between "Patriot" Groups
Perhaps there is something in the tea: On "Washington Unplugged" Wednesday, the debate between Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Debbie Dooley and Patriot Majority PAC President Craig Varoga quickly turned ugly.
Patriot Majority, a left-leaning group, has launched a campaign targeting Tea Party candidates in this year's hotly contested mid-term elections with the hopes of keeping them out of office.
According to Varoga, "The Tea Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Sarah Palin is the leader of it. Any attempts to distance themselves from that are not going to be successful."
Dooley quickly shot back, responding, "If you cannot discredit the message, you try to discredit the messenger...Don't sit there and tell me we're part of the Republican Party. You are not going to get away with discrediting our message because you don't like what our message is."
Moderator Bob Schieffer played referee as the debate progressed and both sides could barely get a word in edgewise. The issue of Sarah Palin's connection to the Tea Party became a reoccurring theme during the debate.
Dooley discussed the relationship between Palin and Tea Party Patriots.
"There is no division within the Tea Party movement but we do distance ourselves; Tea Party Patriots have remained distant from the Republican Party," she said. "The Tea Party movement is like a spider, we are made up of different legs. There are tens of thousands of leaders throughout the United States; not Sarah Palin."
Said Varoga: "The problem we have is when it crosses the line into harassment and violence and the problem that we have is that when Sarah Palin is leading this effort people conveniently distance themselves from it. We're going to hold the Tea Party movement in its entirety, beginning with Sarah Palin and others to keeping the record straight."
Watch Wednesday's Washington Unplugged above, which also features also CBS News' Bill Plante and former RNC donor Mark DeMoss on the RNC's spending scandal.
"Washington Unplugged" appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click