May 01, 2018 08:19 AM UTC

Doug Robinson Talks Petitions, Opponents, and Baumgardner

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

ICYMI: Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Robinson (Mitt Romney’s Nephew) was a guest on “The Get More Smarter Show” last week, where he talked about topics ranging from Colorado’s goofy ballot access process to how he would deal with sexual harassment allegations at the State Capitol.

Click here to watch the entire interview, and read on for some of the more notable tidbits:

[On challenging legality of petition signatures submitted by Republican candidate Walker Stapleton]:

We weren’t looking to do that. I just wanted to stand up and do the right thing…

…[There was one case] at the Columbine Library where there was a Walker Stapleton solicitor and the guy came over and just said, ‘Oh, I just moved here from Florida.’ And he was fully engaging about how he’d just come in here to do this. Red flags went up, we Googled him online and so on. And we said, well maybe we need to look at this a little closer.

This is something — I’m glad I brought it up, because this process is fraught with stuff that needs to change.

We need to change it, absolutely. The whole reason behind it, I think, is that you want to make sure that it’s not just anybody who is getting on the ballot…even within the existing system, the rules are vague.

And then this problem of people coming in from out of state to do it…that’s got to be cleaned up, too.

[On bringing up Walker Stapleton’s record stemming from a DUI/hit-and-run case]:

You have to speak truth about the other candidates…

I think it’s relevant because of the importance of the race in November. The Democrats are going to have that information out there for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s going to be all of the time. So I think we do need to think about who can best represent our state. As Republicans, we want to win. We think we have a better vision for how Colorado goes, and we want to put our candidate who is best able to win that race. We know that whether it’s Jared Polis or Cary Kennedy or Mike Johnston or Donna Lynne, they’re all going to have resources behind them. This is going to be a national fight…

Yes, it’s important, because people need to understand, hey this sort of stuff is going to come out, and that can really put our candidate at a disadvantage when you have [an opponent] who doesn’t have those things in their background.

[On Stapleton and PERA reform]:

I’m tired of the talk. I’m tired of people saying they’ve been a voice on this issue or that issue. Yet, you’ve been on the board for seven years and it’s not done. The problem is bigger today that it was before…

I’m upset about this. In remember in 2010, PERA was in a big crisis and they said they made changes and they fixed it. And now it’s almost double the liability that it was at that time, and the stock market has more than doubled during that time…

You know what the real problem is? It’s a governance issue.

[On how he would respond to sexual harassment allegations, specifically against former Rep. Steve Lebsock and state Sen. Randy Baumgardner]:

I would have ousted them all. All of them. I have no tolerance for that in government…

In my business I had to fire a guy for inappropriate emails with another woman in the office…We didn’t debate about it. We met with him and said, ‘Is this you? What are you doing? Pack your bags.’

[Baumgardner] should be gone. Republican, Democrat, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have tolerance for that…I would not tolerate it if I were Governor.

Click here for more episodes of “The Get More Smarter Show.”