February 04, 2021 03:10 PM UTC

Lockwood Wants to Debate Gessler and Burton Brown About QAnon, Greene, Sedition

• 6 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

(What’s old and weird is new and slightly less weird – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Jonathan Lockwood, once considered a right-wing GOP activist, wants Colorado Republicans to have a “robust conversation about whether we will be the party of Lincoln or loonies.”

And he’s challenging his opponents in the race to lead the Colorado Republican Party to a “formal debate” addressing that question and others.

“Do they condemn QAnon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and sedition?” Lockwood asks of his GO opponents, Kristi Burton Brown, the current vice-chair of the Republican Party and Scott Gessler, a former GOP secretary of state in Colorado.

Let’s take Lockwood’s questions one at a time.

On condemning QAnon, the question is more tricky than it appears. Many Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), say they “don’t follow” QAnon.

But they don’t condemn the conspiracy theory, which focuses on Trump-hating satanic pedophiles embedded in the government.

How great if Lockwood could press Burton Brown and Gessler on whether they fully condemn QAnon.

On Lockwood’s question about Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), do Colorado’s GOP candidates agree with Republican Sen. Mitch McConnel of Kentucky that Greene’s “loony lies” are a “cancer” to the GOP?

With respect to sedition, Lockwood’s last question, his two opponents for Colorado GOP chair have already stood up in support of election conspiracy theories, which fed the mob that overran the U.S. Capitol last month.

On Facebook, Lockwood hits Burton Brown and Gessler, both lawyers, hard on the topic.

“Trump’s own attorneys won’t defend him but two attorneys I’m running against won’t stop defending him,” Lockwood writes. “We need the head of the Colorado GOP to be a leader, not a follower.”

So maybe Lockwood should table sedition for the time being and ask a few other questions that illuminate whether Colorado Republicans want to be Lincoln or loonies, such as:

Do the Republican candidates think Weld County should leave Colorado and join Wyoming? Do they think Boebert has the right stuff to be president one day? Do they think humans are causing global warming at all? Was current chair Congressman Ken Buck right to say definitively, “our votes are not being manipulated,” speaking about Colorado’s own election? Are they in favor of scrapping Colorado laws requiring universal background checks for gun purchases and limiting the number of bullets allowed in guns. What about Colorado’s red-flag law allowing law enforcement to take a gun from a person deemed dangerous by a judge? Is gay marriage good for Colorado?

Jonathan Lockwood won’t win his race to lead Colorado’s Republican Party, but he can talk sanity at dozens of small GOP gatherings across the state, like a Feb. 25 meeting of Republican Women of Weld County.

He might catch some shit for talking sense about QAnon, Greene, succession, and the like, but you’d think he’s gotta be able to convince some Republicans that the party of loonies isn’t going anywhere in Colorado anytime soon–unless Republicans do something about it.