Statement of California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton on Racist and Offensive E-mail Distributed by Orange County Republican Central Committee Delegate and Tea Party Activist

The recent e-mail communication distributed by Orange County Republican Central Committee delegate Marilyn Davenport depicting President Obama as a chimpanzee is racist, it's offensive and it's flat out wrong. Orange County Republican leaders have forcefully condemned the communication and have called on Davenport to resign from her post.

However, as of this morning neither the website of the California Republican Party nor the Republican National Committee have posted a statement condemning this racist communication which has no place in decent society, not to mention in our political discourse. Republican members of the California Legislature have been strangely silent on the issue as well.

We urge the CAGOP and the RNC to loudly and forcefully condemn the actions of this Republican delegate. At a time when political passions are running high and the Republican Party and Tea Party seem to be morphing into one entity, it is absolutely critical to state in explicit terms what is and is not acceptable, and racism is never acceptable.