Ken Buck, the Colorado Tea Party candidate for the US Senate, thinks the Tea Partiers are “dumbasses.”

Of course, he didn’t say that in public. He was caught on tape by a Democratic Party worker in an unguarded moment. In other words, when he was telling the truth.

KUSA - U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck refers to members of the Tea Party who question the President’s citizenship as “dumbasses” in an audio recording obtained by 9NEWS and The Denver Post.

The Colorado Republican candidate’s voice was captured on a pocket tape recorder without his knowledge by a Colorado Democratic Party worker in a parking lot before a June event in Crowley County.

He had just come from an event in Pueblo where there was a reference to whether President Obama was an American citizen. The comment apparently comes without provocation from the Democratic Party worker, who has been following and videotaping Buck all over the state of Colorado for months.

“Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera,” Buck said to the worker while laughing. “God, what am I supposed to do?”

And now Buck is backpedaling pathetically.

Asked about the comments on Sunday at a political rally in Adams County, Buck said he wishes he had used different language and that he had not lumped all Tea Party members into one statement, but that he remains frustrated that some people are focusing on birth certificates rather than the country’s $13 trillion debt and its $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

“The language is inappropriate,” he told 9NEWS and The Post. “After 16 months on the campaign trail, I was tired and frustrated that I can’t get that message through that we are going to go off a cliff if we don’t start dealing with this debt.

“It is not the Tea Party movement on the whole. The Tea Party movement gets it. It’s the Constitution, it’s the debt, it’s the other issues, but there are a couple people that are frankly frustrating for all candidates. I mean if you talked to other candidates and they’re being honest with you, they’ll say I know that. Now, they may not have used my choice words, but they have the same feelings.”

Takeaway point: even the Tea Party’s own favored candidates think they’re crazy.

(Hat tip: freetoken.)