Dick Wadhams
Just when it appears that Colorado voters might be growing tired of far-left Democratic policies, the current “leadership” of the Colorado Republican Party is intent on proving it is a bunch of conspiracy-obsessed clowns and buffoons.
Coloradans spoke loudly and clearly in overwhelmingly defeating Proposition HH, the TABOR-killing, tax-raising scheme conjured up by Gov. Jared Polis and his Democratic legislative enablers. Only a year after being reelected by 20 points, Polis was rejected by a massive 60-40 margin. Despite this drubbing, Polis and the Democratic legislature passed Proposition HH-light during the special session, taunting beleaguered taxpayers with the continued prospect of huge property tax hikes in 2024.
For the first time since defeated former President Donald Trump lost Colorado by four points to crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016 and by 14 points to doddering Joe Biden in 2020, and Republicans lost every statewide race in 2018 and 2022, there is a flicker of optimism that voters can look past the stench of Trump and possibly vote for Republicans on the merits of the issues.
Maybe Colorado is not a deep-blue state after all and remains right-of-center on fundamental tax and spending issues that could bode well in 2024 state legislative elections. This should be the focus of responsible Republican leadership.
But the current “chairman” of the Colorado Republican Party, Dave Williams, who lost to Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn in a primary in 2022, is focused on preventing 940,000 Republicans from voting in a primary election and stealing the right of 1.7 million unaffiliated voters, who represent 48% of the electorate, to vote in taxpayer-funded party primaries.
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The heavy lifting to defeat Proposition HH was led by the Independence Institute and Advance Colorado Action and the Republican legislative leadership — Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer and state Rep. Rose Pugliese.
Williams was narrowly elected by the 400-member Colorado Republican State Central Committee after promising one of his opponents, criminally indicted Tina Peters, he would appoint her as the executive director of the party in exchange for her support. After apparently getting cold feet at the prospect of a convicted felon possibly serving as executive director from a jail cell, Williams reneged on that promise and said Peters would be the party’s director of election integrity. It is debatable which position for Peters was more absurd.
Before former state Rep. Ron Hanks unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in Colorado in 2022, he lost a race for Congress in California. Hanks is a stolen-election conspiracist who claims the Chinese stole Colorado’s electoral votes from Donald Trump by infiltrating Dominion Voting Systems equipment, which is used by the vast majority of county clerks. The Chinese presumably stole the primary from Hanks as well.
To open his conspiracy-driven campaign video, he used a rifle to destroy a defunct copier with a “Dominion” sign attached to it. One can only imagine the message Hanks was attempting to transmit to Dominion by this buffoonish but violent act.
Now that Williams jilted the criminally indicted Peters, he has appointed Hanks as the new “Colorado Republican Ballot and Election Security Committee Chairman.” No joke.
On Thanksgiving eve, “Election Security Chairman” Hanks launched a crusade to discredit and reject the 2023 election — the election where voters soundly rejected Polis and Democratic legislators — by asking Republican members of county canvass boards to not certify the results. Hanks is convinced the election results are a Democratic ruse to set up yet another theft of Colorado’s electoral votes from Trump in 2024.
Williams recently appeared on the podcast of a fellow conspiracist, the self-proclaimed white nationalist Laura Loomer, where he declared there is no such thing as a fair election in Colorado.
Stolen-lection conspiracist Kari Lake, who claims she is the real governor of Arizona despite being defeated in 2022, was invited by Williams to speak at a recent state party dinner.
The always-entertaining Peters goes to trial in Grand Junction early next year, but she recently filed a lawsuit claiming her rights were violated by Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, a Republican, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. Peters is asking for the criminal indictments issued by a Mesa County grand jury alleging she improperly tampered with Mesa County election equipment, among many other charges to be dismissed.
Peters has a new legal team that includes a Virginia law firm that filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Georgia secretary of state in an attempt to not certify the 2020 presidential results. Sounds like Peters and this new firm are a match made in heaven.
All this would be laughable if not for the eminently serious consequences of the irrelevant and discredited Colorado Republican Party they are creating. Colorado has not seen this level of Democratic dominance since the Great Depression in the 1930s, but Democratic Socialists and anti-Semitic activists are moving the party to the far left. Democrats feel no threat from a Republican Party mired in the stench of MAGA/stolen-election conspiracies.
Clowns and buffoons such as Williams, Peters and Hanks have made the Colorado Republican Party a three-ring conspiracy circus. And Democrats and the far left are laughing all the way to the next election.
Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who worked for nine years for U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong before managing campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.