Tammy Baldwin gave a short speech at the Democratic National Convention this evening in which she talked about growing up, and the values she was imparted with by her parents. Back home, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson’s Political Director Brian Nemoir decided to gay-bait Thompson’s supporters by attacking the fact that Baldwin is openly lesbian.

Nemoir claims that he sent an email to just a few contacts- apparently all conservative political bloggers in Wisconsin and made issue of a video of Baldwin partying down at 2010 Wisconsin Capital Pride Rally. Nemoir, who claims he did this on his own time, defended his actions by stating “I think there are issues in this race that are extremely significant that will be generated on a day-to-day basis and I look forward to coverage of those issues. [...] There are no shortages of issues to talk about in this campaign. That’s really what we should be talking about.”

This is a familiar strategy. ThinkProgress explained that “Apparently, Nemoir believes Baldwin’s sexual orientation is “extremely significant,” seeing as how he wants the media to discuss it, even if his gay-baiting was not conducted in his official capacity with the Thompson campaign. It’s unclear whether his use of such petty identity politics will compromise his future employment running Thompson’s public relations. Perhaps dancing and having a good time are simply anathema to Thompson’s ‘values.’”

ThinkProgress missed something, though. This is a typical pattern out of Republicans and Conservatives. They throw out these bombs, hoping that people will talk about them, then deride people for talking about them knowing that if no one challenged them, then they would get away with the attack, and if they were challenged, then they could demand an explanation as to why people weren’t talking about ‘important issues’.

Here’s the video that Nemoir sent out: