Is the Tea Party a strong force south of the metro?

The Star Tribune, reporting on the Republican endorsing convention in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District, says that the...

"...party's Second Congressional District convention in Red Wing on March 20 came within two votes of supporting a resolution supporting what state party chair Tony Sutton described as "the right of states to secede from the union."

The resolution was defeated, but only after Sutton, who was functioning as the convention's chair, departed from the usual neutrality that role requires by reminding his fellow Republicans that opposition to secession by states was a founding Republican principle in the late 1850s..."

One has to wonder what Mr. Sutton and Congressman John Kline make of this.