June 16, 2023 10:50 AM UTC

Settled: Dave Williams Thinks Republican Donors Are Stupid

• 18 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: KRDO-TV political reporter Spencer Soicher with an eye-opening apropos report on growing dissatisfaction with Dave Williams’ performance as Colorado GOP chairman:

“I don’t think anyone wants to see an angry state party in Colorado,” [Pols emphasis] former Colorado GOP Chair Kristi Burton Brown said. Burton Brown didn’t seek another term after the November election struggles…

“I think defending conservative principles isn’t about being angry and cussing people out, like has also been done in the last few months publicly,” Burton Brown said of Williams’ recent actions. She is careful not to criticize Williams heavily, saying she knows the role of a former chair versus a current.

…”I certainly don’t believe that the head of the party should ever be attacking members of their own party,” [Monument Mayor Mitch] LaKind said.

He and Burton Brown both question a recent deal the party reached with the Colorado Libertarian Party.

The dissatisfaction is public now. Absent a major change of course, it will only grow.

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Embattled Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams is facing rapidly compounding internal criticism after a rocky start to his term featuring allegations of using his position to pursue his personal political vendettas–and more importantly for Republicans who want to be competitive–failing to raise even enough money to cover the party’s payroll expenses.

Wednesday morning, Williams appeared on GOP electoral failure-turned-radio host George Brauchler’s AM talk show to explain himself in the friendliest possible confines. And after about ten minutes of small-talking around the issue, Brauchler finally raised the all-important question:

GEORGE BRAUCHLER: One of the other things that got a little bit of traction in the media was the first quarter 2023 fundraising of the party. The stuff I read online was that it was 15,000 bucks, which seems anemic. [Pols emphasis] Respond to that in terms of where are we with the fundraising? What challenges do you see out there? How do we overcome them?

The answer Williams gave to this question is one of the most ridiculous things we’ve ever heard.

DAVE WILLIAMS: Sure. I mean, a part of the reason that we’re not seeing as much money come in is because it was deliberate. [Pols emphasis]

That’s right, folks. Williams says not even raising enough money to cover payroll was part of a plan.

When I took over, I didn’t get access to all of the party’s assets or bank accounts right away.

And so I’ve deliberately slow walked major party fundraising [Pols emphasis] until I could get a handle on it and more or less plug the leaks that we have in our past spending habits or, you know, not put money into a leaking sieve, so to speak…

First of all, we have a not-so-veiled swipe at the former Colorado GOP chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown, who Williams is alleging didn’t hand off financial information in a timely manner. It’s on this basis that Williams claims it was necessary to “deliberately slow walk” fundraising until he could, in Williams’ words, “untangle the mess that I walked into.” We’re guessing that KBB will have a response to this allegation, and we doubt that her response will agree with Williams’ assessment of the transfer of power.

But the more basic problem here, of course, is the preposterous idea that “deliberately slow walking” fundraising is ever something that a campaign or political party does. No serious person “gets a handle” on finances by cutting the money coming in — it’s all about the money going out. Williams’ real problem is the funding that indicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters hoped to funnel in from the Mike “MyPillow Guy” Lindell network clearly hasn’t come, and the traditional big-name Republican Party donors like the Anschutz and Coors families haven’t stepped in to fill the gap. Without money to pay employees and fund organizing for the next election, the Colorado Republican Party is basically a noisy Twitter account.

Comparing the party’s financial situation with previous off-years, you can see the failure to both raise and spend money is severely impacting the party’s operations much more now than in the past. Every day the Colorado GOP sits idle awaiting funds to do their work, they’re losing ground ahead of the 2024 elections.

Take a look at the chart below, which is the account that the Colorado Republican Party traditionally taps in order to pay for things like rent, employee benefits, etc. Over the last decade, this account has never reported raising or spending less money in April of an off-year than it did in 2023:

After trying to pretend this grave existential crisis for a party already on the brink in a blue state is not just normal but part of some kind of grand strategy, it’s a legitimate question how any Republican donor can take Dave Williams seriously ever again. At the end of the day, Williams just doesn’t have serious answers for the serious problems Colorado Republicans are confronted with.

There will either be an intervention, or two more years in the wilderness.