November 25, 2013 01:31 PM UTC

Everybody's Coming To Get Rep. Jared Wright

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Grand Junction Sentinel's Charles Ashby reports, freshman Rep. Jared Wright, who won his seat despite a fierce campaign by fellow Mesa County Republicans to get him to pull out, is headed into a re-election battle against a Republican primary opponent and an eventual Democratic challenger–but most of all, against himself. It appears that the passage of a year's time hasn't helped Rep. Wright shore up his position:

Republican James Fletcher and Democrat Brad Webb want to assure state Rep. Jared Wright that they are not in cahoots.

Though the two men do have a common goal, to unseat Wright in House District 54, they laughed at the suggestion, which was made by the Fruita GOP incumbent in a recent campaign fundraising letter that Wright’s campaign sent out earlier this month.

“He didn’t come into this fight alone,” says Wright’s Nov. 15 letter to potential donors, referring to Webb. “With him he brought a ‘Republican’ to run in a primary race against me — a classic political triangulation technique.”

“…[Fletcher] has instead run a campaign completely, 100 percent trying to assassinate my character, attacking my family and trying to leverage the fact that I am not an insider politician against me,” Wright’s letter reads.

But Fletcher said he’s never said a single bad word about Wright’s family, though he has questioned his character, particularly since it was uncovered last year that Wright had amassed a $74,000 debt, filed for bankruptcy and was forced to leave the Fruita Police Department after an internal affairs investigation questioned his honesty and integrity.

Earlier this month, Rep. Wright kicked off his re-election campaign with help from GOP House Minority Leader Rep. Brian DelGrosso.–months after Palisade Republican J.J. Fletcher announced his intention to challenge Wright for the House District 54 nomination. That show of support from legislative leadership wasn't received well by locals. Former Mesa County GOP vice-chairman Kevin McCarney wrote to DelGrosso in response, "you have no idea the amount of deceit Mr. Wright used during his campaign to be elected last year."

It's still an open question as to whether incumbency will be enough to overcome the scandal that Wright stepped into before his first election. The seat, formerly occupied by Rep. Laura Bradford whose legislative career ended in a DUI/legislative immunity scandal, is more or less unwinnable for Democrats–enough so that Democrats didn't even have a candidate in the race when Wright's implosion began last year.

In 2014, Mesa County Republicans will either address this disgrace, or legitimize Wright for good.