June 15, 2018 12:06 PM UTC

Governor Candidate Doug Robinson Is "Least Likely to have a Closet Full of Skeletons," Says Conservative Activist

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• by: Erik Maulbetsch

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

In a short video endorsement posted on Thursday, conservative activist Laura Carno lists her five reasons for endorsing Doug Robinson for Republican nominee for governor. Her fifth reason:

“Doug is a good, decent man and I love his wife Diane. He is also the least likely to have a closet full of skeletons.“

As she is speaking in the video, the hashtag “#ChoirBoy” appears on the screen.

Carno, however, does not explain on camera why she thinks the other Republican candidates for governor, Walker Stapleton, Greg Lopez and Victor Mitchell, are more likely to have as-yet-unknown politically damaging stories in their past.

Asked to elaborate, Carno, a longtime political operative who currently leads Coloradans for Civil Liberties, a gun rights advocacy group affiliated with the Independence Institute, explained her concerns:

“This happens a lot where the oppo research is held back and there are lots of rumors out there on all three of the other guys.

And certainly this isn’t my main reason. I’m closest aligned with [Robinson] on policy, but there’s stuff out there that everybody’s saying- these potential legal things that a couple of the guys have in their background and they’re not using it much on each other. You know that Jared Polis or Cary Kennedy’s camps have stuff on deck and that’s very difficult for Republicans to push past.

These are things that are already kind of out there. There has been this DUI hit and run discussed on the Walker Stapleton side. People sort of brush around the edges of it, but if there’s something to it, Democrats are going to use it.

So if he’s our guy, which is what polling looks like, I have concerns that a Walker Stapleton win in the primary means that the Democrat wins, because there’s stuff out there- based on what people are hinting about- I haven’t seen any of the documentation but I’m assuming the Democrats have that.”

Carno also emphasized that Robinson is a “good and decent man” whom she really likes, describing him as a “cheerful warrior with a heart of gold.”

The “DUI hit and run” news about Walker Stapleton that Carno mentions was reported in 2010 during his campaign for treasurer. From the Denver Post story:

A San Francisco police report from 1999 says Colorado Treasurer-elect Walker Stapleton smelled of alcohol, was “loud and belligerent” and was driving away from the scene of an accident, initially refusing to stop even after officers arrived.

Stapleton…said the police report of the accident…doesn’t paint a full picture… He said he’s still trying to get copies of other documents — his initial statement to police and records from the district attorney’s office — to show the accident was not a hit-and-run.

To date, Stapleton has yet to produce those additional records he said he was trying to obtain. Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, whose gubernatorial campaign ended in April, also raised the Stapleton DUI issue in her speech at the Republican state assembly.

It’s not clear what “potential legal” issues, referenced by Carno, if any, are not yet known about other Republicans in the race.

This story was first published by the Colorado Times Recorder.