Morris Dees, founder and president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a Democrat who notoriously started his $190 million organization with the donor list from the 1972 McGovern campaign, for which he served as chief fundraiser.

A listing of Dees’ political contributions since 1979 — going back to the Jimmy Carter re-election campaign — shows that he had only ever given money to Democrats. Until last year, that is, when he gave $250 to the GOP primary campaign of Martha Roby, who’s running for Congress in Alabama’s 2nd District.

The 2nd District GOP campaign — which I covered in February, reporting on Tea Party-backed candidate Rick Barber — is now a four-way race, with Stephanie Bell and John Bowling “Bo” McKinney joining the field of Republicans seeking the nomination in the June 1 primary to take on “Blue Dog” Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright in November.

It’s a very conservative district, and the Barber campaign today cried foul over a false accusation that their candidate favored the “Value Added Tax.” (He’s always supported the Fair Tax.) As damaging as such an accusation could be in a Republican primary, it might not be as bad as Roby taking $250 from Dees, whose SPLC recently slammed Glenn Beck in a scary report about right-wing extremists.