October 13, 2022 10:07 AM UTC

Inside Pam Anderson's Inch-Deep Case For Election

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• by: Colorado Pols

After two contentious debates in the last week between the candidates running for Colorado Secretary of State, this often-overlooked but crucial downballot statewide race is finally getting its share of attention this week. Incumbent Secretary of State Jena Griswold is facing off against former GOP Jefferson County Clerk Pam Anderson in a race that has pitched between allegations of “partisanship” against Griswold and Anderson campaigning as a Republican for the state’s chief elections official in the immediate aftermath of GOP-engineered attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

In an in-depth interview with Ryan Warner of Colorado Public Radio, Anderson was finally confronted about campaigning with election deniers as part of the Republican ticket in Colorado this year, and Anderson’s response was unconvincing to say the least:

WARNER: One theme you have touched on now is taking the politics out of being Secretary of State, and out of elections, frankly, or the administration of them. While you have been clear that there was no widespread fraud, and that the 2020 election is legitimate, your opponent has criticized you for not doing more to stand up to Republican candidates who have spread misinformation. Two prominent ones that come to mind are the GOP candidate for Lieutenant Governor Danny Moore and the 7th Congressional District candidate Erik Aadland. Does it make you uncomfortable that The Big Lie is being parroted by prominent candidates in your own party?

ANDERSON: It makes me uncomfortable that my opponent is mischaracterizing what I’ve done. [Pols emphasis] The center point for my campaign is standing up against the lie, standing up against the conspiracy, which I have done not only to the candidates that I’ve run with on the same ticket …

WARNER: You’ve had those conversations?

ANDERSON: Absolutely. Gone into the room and pushed back on this false information. Provided accurate information like the loss but not stolen report, that demonstrates under the rule of law, the accuracy of the outcome of the election. I will continue to stand up and push back regardless of the source, Republican, Democrat, or unaffiliated for accurate evidence-based elections.

The problem is that there is absolutely zero evidence of Anderson having “pushed back on false information” while appearing on stage with election deniers including Lt. Gov. nominee Danny Moore, GOP conspiracy theorist attorney Randy Corporon, and plenty of others. We know that Anderson is not having these conversations, because she said herself that she doesn’t want to “divide or ostracize people” in reference to election conspiracy theories held by her campaign donors and supporters.

Every time Pam Anderson appears on the “GOP Unity Tour” with election deniers and does not call them out, publicly, on that stage, Anderson is making a liar of herself. If combating election misinformation really was Anderson’s “center point,” she would drive the election deniers she shares the stage with off the stage like Jesus throwing the moneychangers from the temple. How else would the audience know or care that Anderson disagrees with them?

In Tuesday night’s debate, as Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports, Griswold responded to the recent hullabaloo over mailings sent mistakenly to ineligible voters with registration instructions–an admitted mistake disclosed by Griswold’s office that has been blown out of all misinformed proportion by Republicans who omit that those ineligible people cannot actually register to vote. Anderson’s admittedly less hyperbolic criticism during the debate nonetheless managed to blow back on her own record as Jeffco clerk:

“It was a data glitch, and I believe this has happened in prior administrations,” Griswold said. “But now we’re in such a hot political atmosphere that data glitches can fuel major disinformation. I think if we were in a different political atmosphere, this probably wouldn’t get the coverage that it does, but to be very clear, the atmosphere we’re in right now is because the former president of the United States tried to steal the presidency, and has continued to push out major disinformation. So, I’ll always be transparent, we’ll always make sure that if we see a problem, that we’re going to fix it, but I think we should be really clear on why there’s so much focus.”

She added that Anderson encountered a similar problem shortly after taking office as Jefferson County clerk in 2007, when a vendor mistakenly sent notices to 22,000 of the suburban county’s residents, telling them they hadn’t voted in the last election, even though they had. [Pols emphasis]

If you were one of those 22,000 Jefferson County residents who were erroneously told they didn’t vote in 2006, you’d be pretty alarmed, wouldn’t you? Reminded of her own mistake as Jeffco clerk, Anderson’s attack on Griswold sputtered into who owns their mistakes better:

[Anderson] maintained that she took full responsibility for the mistake in Jefferson County when she was overseeing elections there.

In the end, Pam Anderson’s problem is not within herself, but the lane that Anderson sees for herself in today’s political environment simply does not exist. The allegations of “partisanship” against Jena Griswold boil down to her aggressively confronting Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which is something that Pam Anderson should support if she believes what she told Colorado Public Radio above. Despite attempts to gin up controversy over minor issues that don’t effect the results of any election, no one has found any material fault with Griswold’s oversight of elections in Colorado. That’s the only standard Griswold should be measured by.

And as it turns out, Pam Anderson makes mistakes like everybody else.

Anderson’s biggest mistake? Sticking with the Party of Trump. We’re seeing in Anderson’s struggles how that choice, keeping one foot in the MAGA and real worlds, is untenable.