July 23, 2009 08:11 PM UTC

Dick Wadhams Loves Primaries*

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Grand Junction Sentinel reports, holding a straight face with remarkable professionalism:

Republicans are looking at potential showdowns among Grand Junction Republicans Scott McInnis and Josh Penry, plus Dan Maes of Evergreen, for the right to run against incumbent Gov. Bill Ritter.

They also are looking at a match-up between Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier and Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck with the winner taking on Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.

Meanwhile, a second Republican is bidding for the party’s nomination for Colorado state treasurer, setting up the possibility of a primary battle for the right to take on incumbent Democrat Cary Kennedy.

J.J. Ament, the son of Don Ament, a former state senator and agriculture commissioner, announced his bid on Monday. J.J. Ament would face Walker Stapleton, whose campaign already has begun and who is touting his ability to collect campaign cash.

“I’ve never been one to think that primaries are bad,” said Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party… [Pols emphasis]

Hopefully you put down whatever you were drinking before you read that last part–the rest of you blew the contents out of your nose laughing hysterically like we did. Wadhams…doesn’t think primaries…are bad? Did anybody bother to give Wayne Wolf or Scott McInnis a call for an alternative view? Because we’re guessing they have one, with lots of swearing! For Wadhams to say he’s ‘never thought primaries are bad’ is not just fictional, but so divorced from reality that it seems likely to outrage a fair number of people who know better–and have scars to prove it.

And any of you who might just be joining us from an alternate reality or a cave with no radio reception, seriously, don’t be fooled: this is not and never will be how Dick Wadhams rolls. Much evidence suggests Wadhams is already working to clear the field behind the scenes in the races that matter, and there’s a “public” winnowing in the works too–as Politics West reports:

In what Republicans say is their most competitive primary season since 1986, State Party Chairman Dick Wadhams has devised a high-drama way to separate the men from the boys (and yes, all the GOP candidates for top offices are male.)

The night before the party’s September central committee meeting in Keystone, Wadhams is putting on a candidate forum for gubernatorial and U.S. Senate contenders followed by a straw poll of the who’s who of GOP leaders and activists from across the state.

“We’ll be just a little more than a year out from the election at that point,” Wadhams said. “We can throw a little drama into it. It’ll be an interesting test for that moment in time.”

Between this insider-dominated event and Q3 fundraising numbers that will come out a couple of weeks later, watch for leadership to try like hell to lock in their favored candidates this year–well before rank-and-file Republicans get the chance to even learn names, let alone vote on them.