A group of Republican activists on Wednesday called on grassroots conservatives to take control of the Colorado GOP in the wake of a historic thumping suffered by Republican candidates in this month's election.
"Our Republican Party leadership has failed us," said Aaron Wood, an organizer of a press conference held across the street from state GOP headquarters in Greenwood Village.
Wood, founder of the conservative Freedom Fathers group, and a dozen others took turns speaking from the bed of a pickup truck in the parking lot of a Western-wear retailer as roughly 100 supporters braved sub-freezing temperatures to hear their pleas to restore the state's Republican Party to its conservative foundations.
Some of the speakers demanded that the state GOP adopt a rule requiring that the party nominate its candidates at party assemblies, instead of allowing voters who aren't registered Republicans to have a say. The state's semi-open primary system lets unaffiliated voters, who make up a plurality of the state's electorate, cast ballots in the two major parties' nominating contests.
"We are simply regular people who are sick of losing everything, feeling unsafe and watching the destruction of Colorado under the Democrat governor, Jared Polis," Wood said. "Polis’ complete control of our state and the partnership of Republicans-in-name-only must end. We have had enough."
Polis won election Nov. 8 to a second term, defeating Republican challenger Heidi Ganahl, a University of Colorado regent, by nearly 20 percentage points — the widest margin in a Colorado gubernatorial race in two decades.
Speaker after speaker at the press conference blasted state GOP chair Kristi Burton Brown, whose two-year term running the state party ends in March.
Through a spokesman, Burton Brown declined to comment. Earlier on Wednesday, she said she plans to announce by the end of December whether she's seeking a second term as state chair.
A potential candidate for the party position blamed Burton Brown for Republican losses in the November election.
"Our country's being taken away from us," said Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who provided the pickup truck the speakers used as a podium. "It starts with the treachery of the GOP in our state. You know, there's these speakers that are going to talk about the infractions of Kristi Burton Brown, the inactivity of Kristi Burton Brown, to stand up and inform the chairs in every county on how to come against the election fraud."
Peters, who lost this summer's GOP primary for secretary of state by a wide margin, is scheduled to go on trial in Grand Junction in March on 10 felony and misdemeanor counts stemming from allegations she tampered with election equipment in her office last spring. On Wednesday, the county's former election manager, Sandra Brown, pleaded guilty to two charges related to the case and agreed to testify against Peters.
Peters has denied all the allegations against her, arguing they are politically motivated.
Peters told Colorado Politics after she addressed the crowd that she's open to running for state party chair.
"If the people ask me to, and if it's the right thing, then I will do it," she said. "But it has to come from the people."
State Rep. Dave Williams, R-Colorado Springs, and former congressional candidate Erik Aadland are also weighing bids for the top party job, they told Colorado Politics on Wednesday.
Peters told the crowd that GOP candidates lost in Colorado, in part, because Burton Brown insisted that they refrain from talking about unsupported claims that Colorado's elections are rigged.
"We've got to take back our state," Peters said. "We have to do it now. We have to get every single person involved and informed."
Added Peters: "We are not a blue state. We're not even a purple state. We are a red state."
Once considered a top battleground state, Colorado has shifted firmly toward the blue end of the spectrum in recent years. Its voters have elected only one Republican to top statewide office in the last decade — former U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, in 2014 — and have voted for Democratic nominees in the past four presidential elections.
Following the Democrats' sweep earlier this month, Republicans hold less power in Colorado at the state and federal level than at any time since the 1930s.
Anil Mathai, a former Adams County GOP chair, sounded a theme echoed by other speakers at the press conference, lamenting that the state GOP has turned its fate over to political consultants who get paid whether Republican candidates win or lose.
"We have a Republican Party that is full of whores," Mathai said. "They listened to the consultants, right? They keep telling you about messaging, right? They are liars — they have done something different. They have not held to the Republican platform, which is conservative. They've not held to the U.S. Constitution. And then you wonder why these asswipes can't win a race."
Mathai drew some of the event's loudest cheers when he said that Colorado Republicans need to opt out of the state's primaries, so unaffiliated voters can't participate, as some Republicans have attempted unsuccessfully in recent years.
"it's time for us to win our state party back," Mathai shouted. "And first of all, whoever wins — shut down the stupid open primaries! It's for Republicans to pick Republican candidates, right? What the hell were we thinking, letting Democrats pick our candidates? Kick out all those consultants, because all they care about is money. It is principles of a party and personalities, right? We can turn this thing around, but it requires everyone to stand up and fight."
Several of the speakers urged their supporters to run for local party positions in coming months so that they can participate in the state party leadership vote this spring.
Dick Wadhams, a leading Republican strategist and former three-term state party chair, told Colorado Politics that he was impressed by how "nonsensical" the activists' arguments sounded, after watching the press conference online.
He added that he was struck that none of the speakers mentioned former President Donald Trump and the role the unpopular former president has had on the state's changing electorate.
"Not once did I hear the words Trump or MAGA. Not once," Wadhams said. "Trump is the looming presence over the Colorado elections that resulted in the defeats we had the last three election cycles."
Instead, Wadhams said, the activists at Wednesday's press conference appear to be making Burton Brown into a scapegoat for the party's inability to win elections.
"'It’s all Kristi Burton Brown's fault, it’s all Colorado Republican leaders and consultants,'" he said. "It’s kind of mind-boggling that people are so out of touch with what has been going on in Colorado for the last 10 years in terms of a changing electorate, an electorate that has largely rejected Trump and has held Republicans across the board responsible for Trump."
"The problem is that so many people don’t understand the role of the state party and the limited power it has," Wadhams continued. "These accusations that Kristi Burton Brown singlehandedly defeated the candidates that they supported is just nonsensical. Kristi Burton Brown oversaw the caucus and assembly process that designated their favorite candidates onto the ballot."
After pausing to laugh, Wadhams added: "If Kristi Burton Brown was trying to undermine the process, she’s not very effective, because their people won the state assembly. It’s hard to keep track of all the nonsensical, inconsistent, bizarre claims that they make and how contradictory they are. The same people who bemoan that Kristi Burton Brown should’ve done this, should’ve done that, then they accuse her of abusing power."
Wadhams said the groups could succeed in taking over the party but suggested that won't yield the success they envision.
"I have no doubt that they’re going to be a very powerful force at the state central committee, and they might win this," he said. "If they win it, I hope they have fun and they continue to drive the Colorado Republican Party into irrelevancy and defeat."
