Tea Party Express spokesman and former chairman Mark Williams says he's stepping away from the group because of the furor over of his blog post about "colored people." This comes as the Lisa Murkowski campaign says Joe Miller shouldn't accept Tea Party Express help because of the controversy over Williams.

"I feel compelled to separate myself from any further involvement with the Tea Party Express so that I can pursue other interests and to free the tea party movement from any more distraction based on my personal comments or blog," Williams said in a letter released this morning by the Tea Party Express.

The Tea Party Express, which is promising to spend several hundred thousand dollars to support Miller's campaign against Murkowski, has received lots of bad press over Williams' post. Williams wrote on his blog a fictional letter from what he called "colored people" to Abraham 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. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!" he wrote.

Williams, who was Tea Party Express chairman until last month, said the media coverage isn’t good for the movement.

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