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March 25, 2011 06:05 PM UTC

Would Wadhams have been re-elected, had he run again?

  • 29 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

You have to wonder whether Dick Wadhams would have been re-elected this weekend, if he’d run for another term as CO State GOP Chair.

It’s a fun question, and reporters should try it out on some of the GOP insiders gathering Saturday to elect a new state party chair.

I don’t recall any Republican wishing Wadhams hadn’t bowed out. You don’t hear it from the activists at the state chair forums. You don’t hear it from the state chair candidates themselves, some of whom will go as far as to say they consider Wadhams a friend.

You have to conclude that the Colorado GOP machine would have booted him out anyway.

Not as much for failing to unite the different Republican factions in the state, which you’re hearing a lot about these days, but for not doing the basic blocking and tackling (tracking, smacking, etc.) that he was supposed to be so good at.

The insinuation that the State GOP didn’t do its basic job during the last election cycle put Wadhams on the defensive well before he announced he wouldn’t run again for state chair.

Before he gave up, Wadhams tried to fight back, as he told the Greeley Tribune way back in January.

Wadhams, who said Buck ran a strong campaign and should be lauded for his accomplishments, said the role of outside groups can be overstated. He noted that conservative outside groups such as Crossroads GPS spent as much in Colorado as independent Democratic groups did. And, he said, trackers don’t always make a decisive difference in the campaign.

“Sen. Bennet was tracked. In 2009 after he got appointed, we had somebody filming him as he ran around the state. In 2010, the Republican Senatorial Committee did as well,” he said. “The tracking serves to remind candidates that there’s never a moment when they can let their guard down. A candidate has to be careful of what they say regardless of where or when in the process they’re talking. Tracking only works if you say something controversial.”

Could a man who felt he had to say this to a reporter be re-elected this Saturday. Probably not.

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29 thoughts on “Would Wadhams have been re-elected, had he run again?”

  1. Never thought I’d say that, but the guy has pretty much taken himself out of public life, and I don’t really think it’s appropriate to give him a hard time for being honest about the realities of running in a statewide race. Or, for that matter, even a very small race–I’ve heard of some crazy things happening as far as digging for dirt on candidates who aren’t running for anything terribly prestigious.

    I don’t know, it may be just my personal problem (and if so, I won’t begrudge the rest of you a comments section full of snark) but it’s never really fun for me to keep giving someone a hard time after they’ve left politics. Wadhams was not my favorite person by a long shot for most of his career, and I still consider him a bigoted POS in a lot of ways, but at least he had the dignity to step down after the 2010 Republican implosion in Colorado. We’ll all fuck up in our lives at some point; the best we can hope for is to know when to get out of the way after we’ve done so in an irreparable manner.

          1. his posts while dressed in a groovy vest, psychedelic shirt, headband, bell bottoms and sandals in a Kansas motel room! You’re right, it could be worse!

        1. Cronk the policy wonk.

          Not bad.

          Rearrange the letters in my real last name a little bit and you’ll find I sympathize with Wadhams for his indubitably awful middle school experiences.

  2. Wadhams has been hitting people below the belt for years.  If he can’t take some blowback I have even less respect for him. Kick him in the balls.  Repeatedly.

    2. I just prefer to be above his level and, so long as he stays out of the picture, refrain from dishing it out.

      Damnit, Pols, I hate it when y’all make me defend people I don’t like!

      1. but agree his exit from the Chairmanship has already been discussed to death, from the will he/won’t he stage to the present.  Since the election is tomorrow maybe a diary on the chances of the candidates involved would be a little more interesting and current?

        1. I always defend the underdog and this is definitely the first time I’ve seen Wadhams in that position. Would much rather analyze the chances of his various possible successors in between finishing writing this thing I’m writing so I can go out and get a tan.

  3. Wadhams is serving out his term. He changed his mind about running for an unprecedented third term. Unless there’s an atypical use of the word “resign,” I’m not sure your headline conveys the right meaning, Jason.

    1. resigned instead of not running again is inaccurate and has more negative connotations. An unfair, if unconscious, gratuitous dig and in Wadhams case there are plenty of fair digs to choose from.  

  4. I will just hate not having the man to kick around any more.  As one of the people who was treated absolutely shabbily by him for years, I say Karma is a bitch.

  6. First the Hotaling incident and now Scott Howard is involved?! The same Scott Howard who left the Frazier campaign after an email was sent out accusing their primary opponent of rape (http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2010/04/20/dirty-tricks-in-the-7th-cd-lang-sias-military-record-is-stellar/8769/) . I was a Lang Sias supporter and although the Frazier campaign itself ran a pretty clean campaign, I remember this email being sent out two days before the Assembly. Mr. Howard left the campaign pretty quickly after this email was sent out and the word on the street is that everyone figured out the email was from him.  I have been struggling to figure out just who I will support but after hearing about Senator Harvey’s shady associates, I just cannot support him. This party will be a joke if Senator Harvey becomes chair and hires these individuals. Harvey should come out and explain why these people are involved with him and he needs to promise not to hire any of them.  

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