In this email, sent in July 2010, Thomas Nardelli, chief of staff for Walker at Milwaukee County, forwarded Rindfleisch and others a joke about someone who has what he calls a "nightmare." Click the image to see the full document. Credit: Document screenshot

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Madison — Even while arguing for racial outreach from his party, Gov. Scott Walker has had to deal with recent disclosures of racially charged statements from aides, with the latest two examples coming Wednesday in a massive dump of unsealed court documents.

Walker won county executive races in racially diverse Milwaukee County and once called out race-baiter David Duke for his divisive comments. But recent months have revealed embarrassing missteps by aides touching on the most provocative of racial stereotypes.

The issue takes on added significance as Walker is increasingly floated as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016 — a race that the GOP candidate will struggle to win without making inroads with minorities.

Unlike past cases, the newest examples coming to light Wednesday in the unsealed documents involved Walker staff members who served as his No. 1 and No. 2 aideswhile he served as Milwaukee County executive.

In April 2010, Walker's former deputy chief of staff Kelly Rindfleisch received an emailed joke from a friend about someone whose dogs supposedly qualified for welfare because they are "mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can't speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddys are."

Rindfleisch wrote back: "That is hilarious. And so true!"

The emails are around four years old but were disclosed for the first time Wednesdayas part of an appeal by Rindfleisch of her conviction for campaigning while being paid to do work for Milwaukee County taxpayers.

Many of the issues at play in those emails, such as a secret email system, were already known in whole or in part. But the racial statements are new to the public.

A request for comment from Walker's campaign was not immediately returned Thursday. Walker has spoken of doing more GOP outreach to minorities at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and has quietly supported making Cesar Chavez's birthday a voluntary state holiday.

Until now, none of those in Walker's administration or campaign making offensive remarks were close to the governor and when their statements were publicized they were almost instantly fired. In these latest cases, that isn't even an issue since neither of the former aides in question still serves the governor in any formal capacity.

In another email, sent in July 2010, Thomas Nardelli, Walker's chief of staff for Walker at Milwaukee County, forwarded Rindfleisch and others a joke about someone who has what he calls a "nightmare" about turning into a black, Jewish, disabled gay man who is unemployed.

"Oh God, please don't tell me I'm a Democrat," the email concludes.

A family member at Nardelli's house said Thursday he was not home.

Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) said Walker should condemn language that could be used to "rationalize and justify acts of discrimination."

In the unguarded emails, other vulnerable groups also came in for criticism from Rindfleisch. She predicted that news coverage of harm to patients at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex wouldn't move voters because "no one cares about crazy people."

Franklyn Gimbel, Rindfleisch's attorney, said the emails aren't relevant to her prosecution and should have never been taken by authorities or released to the public in response to lawsuits by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other media. The breadth of the government's seizure of Rindfleisch's emails, tens of thousands in all, violates her rights, Gimbel is arguing in an appeal currently before the state Court of Appeals.

"They've opened up the private doors of her dresser," he said of authorities. "It's a humongous trespass on her constitutional rights."

In December, Walker fired Taylor Palmisano as his campaign's deputy finance director after Journal Sentinel columnist Daniel Bice contacted the campaign about tweets made by Palmisano.

In one, Palmisano, 23, complained about an individual who was doing custodial work in a library in which she was working.

"I will choke that illegal mex cleaning in the library. Stop banging (expletive) chairs around and turn off your Walkman," she posted on March 9, 2011.

Two months earlier, she went to Twitter to write about her bus trip from Pasadena, Calif., to Las Vegas after watching the Wisconsin Badgers play in the Rose Bowl.

"This bus is my worst (expletive) nightmare Nobody speaks English & these ppl dont know how 2 control their kids #only3morehours #illegalaliens."

Palmisano later apologized for her remarks.

In August, Walker fired Steven Krieser, assistant deputy secretary at the state Department of Transportation, after he likened illegal immigrants to Satan during a Facebook debate over a bumper sticker declaring open season on foreigners living in the United States without documentation. That case was also brought to light by Bice.

"You may see Jesus when you look at them," Krieser wrote. "I see Satan."

Krieser wrote that a "stream of wretched criminals" is crossing the border without obstruction. These individuals, he said, "completely ruined" entire states and industries, breeding "the animus that many American citizens feel toward them."

Dave Umhoefer of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.