Washington ( CNN ) -- The National Tea Party Federation , which seeks to represent the Tea Party political movement around the country , has expelled the Tea Party Express because of an inflammatory blog post its leader , Mark Williams , wrote last week responding to criticism from the NAACP . Williams ' blog post satirized a fictional letter from what he called `` Colored People '' to President Abraham Lincoln . Even before this current controversy , the group was criticized by some within the Tea Party movement for being run by Republican consultants and for trying to influence GOP primaries far from its base in Sacramento , California . CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser sums up the Tea Party Express and its place in the larger Tea Party movement : . High profile : The Tea Party Express is one of the best-known groups in the movement because of its three high-profile bus caravans and rallies . Sarah Palin spoke at the beginning of its third caravan , which began in Searchlight , Nevada , and its next-to-the-last stop in Boston , Massachusetts , before it ended with a Tax Day rally in Washington . Political impact : The Tea Party Express has become a major player in Republican politics , spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads for Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown in Massachusetts who upset Democrat Martha Coakley to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy 's seat . More recently , the organization helped little-known Sharron Angle win the Republican primary in Nevada to face Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , endorsing her and spending about a half-million dollars on ads for her . The organization says it plans to spend more to help her get elected . The group also targeted incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett in Utah for his vote on the Troubled Assets Recovery Program and helped defeat his bid for a fourth term . It then backed underdog Mike Lee 's successful primary campaign and Lee now appears to be a shoo-in to win the general election in November and join the Senate next year . Political action : The group runs the `` Our Country Deserves Better PAC-Tea Party Express.org '' political action committee , which was formed in 2008 to help raise money to oppose presidential candidate Barack Obama . It was created by Republican political consultant Joe Wierzbicki , who appears to have come up with the original Tea Party Express cross-country caravan . What 's next ? : The Tea Party Express is targeting GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska and has endorsed her little-know primary challenger Joe Miller . It plans a Monday event to announce its support .
CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser sums up the Tea Party Express . The National Tea Party Federation expels the Tea Party Express . Score: 6 An inflammatory blog post its leader wrote about the NAACP .