Bill Armstrong Endorses Kopp, Buck in 2014 GOP Primaries

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by: Colorado Pols

Former U.S. Senator Bill Armstrong, now president of politically activist Colorado Christian University and board member of the influential Campus Crusade for Christ, this week saw fit to endorse Republican primary candidates for governor and next year's Senate race–each having crowded fields eager for the support of Christian conservatives. For governor, this icon of the religious right in Colorado endorses former state Sen. Mike Kopp:

When I served in the United States Senate, I saw first-hand the importance of having a real leader in the Executive Office. Ronald Reagan stared down the Soviet Union, and put our economy back on a prosperous track. I was honored to stand next to him as we worked towards the ideals of smaller government and peace through strength.

We are lacking true leadership in the Governor’s office, and I know Mike will fix that – immediately. He understands the need to allow Colorado to opt-out of the ObamaCare disaster. He understands the importance of protecting our Second Amendment rights. He understands the need to get the government out of the way so our economy can prosper.

Not a shabby endorsement, but Armstrong saves the real red meat for Ken Buck's 2014 do-over bid:

2014 is the best political opportunity for our party in a generation. Democrats are in disarray. No wonder their poll numbers are skidding. Just think of the disasters they've caused — Obamacare, the IRS scandal, NSA surveillance, Benghazi, the slowest economic recovery in modern history and fiscal debauchery that has produced a mammoth federal debt of over $17 trillion. [Original emphasis]

With virtually every high-voltage issue breaking our way, we have a great chance to hold the U.S. House of Representatives and regain control of the Senate. We deserve to win and the odds are that we will. But whether we actually fulfill our dream of getting the Senate back or fall short may very well depend on what happens here in Colorado in next year's Senate campaign.

To maximize our chance to win the Colorado seat, and help put the GOP over the top nationally, we must nominate our strongest, most experienced, most electable candidate. That's why I support Ken Buck. He has the fire in the belly and the big league campaign experience it takes to win, especially to unseat an entrenched incumbent. So I am backing Ken to the hilt…

Whether or not you agree that "2014 is the best political opportunity" for Republicans "in a generation," the question of whether 2010 U.S. Senate race loser Buck is the individual best suited to capitalize on said opportunity is by no means settled among Republicans. But that doesn't appear to be stopping Buck from consolidating a great deal of support early on in his primary, and he is way out in front of the pack in early polling.

Likewise, Armstrong's endorsement will be helpful to fellow religious conservative Mike Kopp as he tries to move up in a field of better-known but competitively dubious Republican gubernatorial primary contenders. At the moment, Kopp is deep in the single digits in his primary as Scott Gessler and Tom Tancredo hog the spotlight, so he's got nowhere to go but up.

In both cases, it's a welcome blessing just in time for Christmas.

11 thoughts on “Bill Armstrong Endorses Kopp, Buck in 2014 GOP Primaries”

Craig says:

December 20, 2013 at 12:43 pm

Dear Bill,

You need to get out of your bubble. There was a time, when you and I were just kids and idealists, but we knew facts from fiction. What you have spewed above is pure fiction, and I'm guessing that you don't even know it. Most of your "scandals" aren't scandals at all, in fact most of the Amreican people don't care about them. It was your George Bush and his acolytes in Congress which sent the American economy into the tank and this is what caused the huge deficits we have had. Remember, when Clinton was President we had a budget surplus and were well on our way toward paying off the outrageous debt we had run up as adults. Now, instead, because of a bunch of drunken Republicans and a Republican President, we're going to leave this massive debt to our kids and grand-kids. Oh, and by the way Bill, when did you become such a civil libertarian? The NSA syping? Really Bill? You have no right to talk. You should have been out front like a lot of us who used to support you explaining the dangers of this and opposing the PATRIOT Act from day one. But you weren't, because it was your boys doing it.

I remember the Bill Armstrong who was the swing vote in approving the Mined Land Reclamation Act. I've always thought that that ugly scar of a mine in Colorado Springs which takes away from the view of Pikes Peak was the reason why. I remember the young state senator who voted for the most liberal abortion law in the country. That's the man I miss. Not this guy who parrots talkiing points and has no real idea what's going on or what people care about.

Bill, I suspect that you were surprised about the last election night when Obama was re-elected. Don't you think you ought to question the veracity of those who convinced you that Romney was going to win?

You need to get out. You need to ask your old Aurora friends what they think, at least those few of us who are left. Many of us aren't even Republicans anymore. Most of us don't vote for many Republicans any more. What's wrong with that picture? Do you even know there's something wrong with that picture?

I remember the Bill Armstrong who stood on a rickety table on the eastern plains of Colorado on a cold, snowy night and explained to the farmers that we just couldn't afford the farm subsidies any more, took the heat graciously, stuck to his guns and left the room with everyone's respect, if not support. Now, you've become just another mouthpiece of the unthinking right-wing media machine. There's a reason why Colorado was lost to the Democrats Bill, and it wasn't because Republicans weren't conservative enough.

Sincerely,

The Fastest Tounge in the West

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1. davebarnes says:
  
  December 20, 2013 at 1:01 pm
  
  Wow! Just awesome writing Craig.
  
  I actually voted for Bill Armstrong and saw him as a principled man of the center-right.
  
  This press release (with Benghazi) is sad.
  
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BlueCat says:

December 20, 2013 at 1:38 pm

This is so much the story of what has happened to the Colorado GOP. In a completely different environment, my Littleton proper neighborhood, I've seen neighbors very much like you, Craig, leave the Republican party and vote for Dems more often than for Rs for very similar reasons. Armstrong's support of someone like Buck, pretty close to a male Sarah Palin in so many ways, is particularly disappointing.

As lifelong pro-labor Dem, I would never have considered voting for Armstrong at any stage of his career but I respected him as serious and intelligent pol, a man of personal integrity, with whom I almost entirely disagreed.

It's not possible to do that anymore. It's not just that Buck is such a fool but also that running him for statewide office is so dumb. Electable? Seriously? I knew Armstrong was an unapologetic traditional conservative but had no idea he was so stupid.

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1. davebarnes says:
  
  December 20, 2013 at 4:04 pm
  
  What?
  Ken Buck wears high heels?
  Ken Buck wears Kazuo Kawasaki glasses?
  
  I am not a fan of Ken's by any measure, but he did graduate from Princeton and I am sure that he has read a newspaper.
  
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  1. BlueCat says:
    
    December 20, 2013 at 5:12 pm
    
    You'd never know it when he opens his mouth in the here and now and that's what counts.
    
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  2. speedyexpress48 says:
    
    December 22, 2013 at 2:51 pm
    
    He might have graduated from Princeton, but he sold himself out to the village idiots long ago.
    
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notaskinnycook says:

December 20, 2013 at 3:49 pm

Aw Bluecat, take it easy on Armstong. There's something about that photo that makes me wonder whether the cheese is as firmly on his cracker as it once was. I, like you, once respected and disagreed with pretty much everything Armstong stood for. Now, I think I just feel kinda sorry for the old guy.

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hawkeye says:

December 20, 2013 at 10:06 pm

Bill Armstrong would make a good "poster boy" of what's left of the Colorado GOP … that is, a bunch of old white guys … but, without high heels.:wink:

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Hawkeye-X says:

December 21, 2013 at 7:33 pm

Like I said, all Republicans are criminals and worthless human beings.

All of the Republicans should be rounded up and sent to Gitmo where it should be bombed via a MOAB.

Republicans do not represent the majority of the society and is already rapidly descending to more than worthless – they should be permanently shunned and all right-wing policies buried and sealed in a cement casket somewhere.

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1. mamajama55 says:
  
  December 22, 2013 at 7:11 pm
  Hawkeye,
  
  I don't know why you're still posting on here after your despicable outing of Negev (even if you were mistaken), or, more disgusting to me, your suggestion that he should just shoot himself. I haven't seen you apologize, nor even admit that you might have been over the top.. But since you are here, you may as well read my thoughts on the matter.
  
  Read your last post. Then…Just try exchanging "Democrats" or "liberals" in there, and think what that might sound like coming from Bill O'Reilly or Glen Beck. Because, honestly, Hawkeye-X or Hawkeye or whoever TF you are, you write like a photo negative image of Glenn Beck. Seriously? Round them up and bomb them? Put them in a cement casket and bury them? I'm no fan of Republican ideology, but these are human beings we have to live with and make a society with somehow.
  
  Rita Mae Brown wrote in an early Quest feminist literary journal, in her essay: "It's all Dixie cups to me".
  Earlier, I noted that we suffer head- on collisions with the ghosts of our former selves. There's a difference between inspecting your self/past and discarding your self/past. Another way to look at it is to think of your past and the collective past as a boomerang. Throw it away, turn your head and watch out, the boomerang will come back at you. For instance: suppose before you became a feminist you were a dogmatic Lutheran. Now after femi- nism you are a dogmatic Lesbian. You won't see this repeating pattern be- cause you think you threw the Dixie- cup away. Your friends may see the pattern. Any mention on their part will probably be resented because you thought you'd cut the thread to your oppressed past and your former be- havior.
  So a dogmatic, hateful, violence-fantasizing Republican, or one raised by such parents, becomes a dogmatic, hateful, violence-fantasizing Progressive Democrat. The inside doesn't change; only the outer "dixie cup" is discarded for a newer rebranding.
  
  You probably wiill resent this pop psycho-analysis from someone who doesn't know you and never will, but it goes in the same closet as my famed fashion sense. My kids tell me that my fashion sense goes by the acronym "IDGAF". You figure it out.
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  1. BlueCat says:
    
    December 23, 2013 at 9:18 am
    
    Please note. We have a Hawkeye who is not Hawkeye-X, the one to which your reply ought to be addressed. Close to identical names do make it confusing so we have to be careful about distinguishing them. Hawkeye, of course, did not make the comments you refer to or attempt to out anybody.
    
    Were you here when we had a dwyer and and a dywer? The dywer was often such a spot on parody it was easy to miss the difference in letter order. Boy did that aggravate poor dwyer!
    
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