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February 14, 2013 02:23 PM UTC

Freshman GOP lawmaker rejects advice not "to go to meetings, and not fill out surveys, and not really take strong stances on anything"

  • 8 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(They are who they are – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Denver Attorney Randy Corporon is one of those Tea Party activists who thinks Republicans are losing elections because, as he said on the radio recently, they've "gotten away from the conservative values that make Republicans win."

If that's true, then why not talk about "conservative values" until you turn red, and Colorado reddens up right along with you?

Maybe it's because Republicans are listening to consultants who tell them to shut up about what they really believe. 

When he arrived at the Legislature, freshman State Rep. Justin Everett was told not "to go to meetings, and not fill out surveys, and not really take strong stances on anything," Everett told Corporon last month on KLZ radio's Grassroots Radio Colorado.

"Obviously, I didn't do that," Everett said on the radio in January, saying essentially that he won't be silenced and pointing to issues he discussed right there on Grassroots Radio Colorado as proof that he will continue to speak out. (Apparently, other GOP lawmakers whose legislation was featured in a Denver Post article over the weekend, won't back down either.)

You'd think the good folks on Grassroots Radio Colorado would want to know who told Everett to tone it down at the Legislature, because it sounds like the Grassroots Radio Colorado hosts are the ones whom Republicans are trying to keep guys like Everett from chatting with. But the question wasn't raised.

So I asked Everett who was the person who told him to avoid meetings, not take strong positions, etc.

"I think it was some of the consultants that were hired," he wrote, adding that he filled out every survey he had time for, and attended every meeting he could possibly make.

"I'm not going to turn my back on Tea Party people," he said in one interview during the campaign, during which he certainly came out with some strong positions against, for example, providing grade-grade school education to undocumented children.

Everett said on the radio Jan. 11: "We’re going to go through this battle every two years, about, 'Yeah, we need to move to the Left, further left, further left.' And then of course, there will be those of us who will push back. 'Actually, we need to move further right,' because it seems that we’re always compromising with the Democrats, much to their side, and that’s how we end up with $17 trillion deficits, and you know, our Constitution basically being used as toilet paper."

The Constitution as toilet paper? Ouch.

"And all those [state legislative] races that were supposedly competitive races ended up not being competitive races because our candidates just weren't taking strong stances, on anything," Everett told Corporon, who was a guest host on Grassroots Radio Colorado.

Everett's comment about being advised not to fill out surveys might explain why so few Republicans bothered to fill out The Denver Post's 2012 candidate survey, which had basic questions about candidates' stances on key issues, during the last election. Do GOP candidates plan on ignoring The Post's basic voter guide again? (Hint: If I'm The Denver Post, I might want to check on this.)

Everett, by the way, filled out The Post's survey, and my guess is he'll do it again. Listen for him on Grassroots Radio Colorado.

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8 thoughts on “Freshman GOP lawmaker rejects advice not “to go to meetings, and not fill out surveys, and not really take strong stances on anything””

    1. Back when Shrub was still Prez, with Darth Cheney pulling the strings, I suggested to cartoonist Ed Stein that he draw a political cartoon similar to the photo above.

      He said, "Alas, it's already been done".

  2. When 90% of American citizens (90% probably don't agree on being nice to grandma) are for universal background checks, the less said by the party that opposes them the better.

    I've been hearing lots of discussion lately about whether the GOP problem is the message or the messengers. I think that misses the point.  It's that the message was always a cover and it isn't working anymore.

    They used to be able to distract the majority from what they were actually doing with nice catch phrase messaging.  People liked the message and didn't notice the reality.  Now, what with the relentless march to Tea Party crazyville, people are noticing what the party actually does stand for and what it spends all it's energy trying to do.

    On issue after issue large majorities are opposed to the GOP's stands. The difference is that the reality of what today's GOP is has become so blatantly obvious that the good old Orwellian/Rovian/Luntzian/ messaging isn't working anymore. The cloak of invisibility is gone.

    It's partly over-reach and partly because they can't control the Tea Party monster they created so the fabric of their lock step hegemony has been ripped to shreds. It's not the message or the messenger. It's plain old reality rearing its ugly (to Republicans) head. Reality to the GOP message machine is like garlic to vampires.

  3. Everett is a pretty smart dude.  Not saying that from this post – saying it from personal experience talking to him, debating him, and disagreeing with him. 

    1. So you think Everett would be smarter to go along with not going to meetings, taking stances or filling out surveys? In a system of government that empowers people through their elected representaives,  doesn't keeping your stands on issues secret or "toned down" make it impossible for voters to have any way of knowing whether or not they would like for you to be their representative? 

      That's only "smart" if what you want is to trick people whose views you know you don't  represent into voting for you because you know that you can't win democratic elections without hiding what you really think and plan to do.  I guess there's nothing wrong with that kind of  smartness except that it undermines our entire system of representative government through democratric elections; elections in which people should have some way of knowing who the hell they're voting for.

    1. You also said "Not saying that from this post-" so it sounded as if you didn't think he was being smart, despite his general smartness, in the matter discussed in the post…. his refusal to shut up about what he thinks.  Sorry if I misunderstood.

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