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October 21, 2022 11:10 AM UTC

"Secession Barb" Lies About, Then Owns Her Greatest Folly

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by: Colorado Pols

Last night, 9NEWS hosted the candidates running in Colorado’s hottest congressional race, the newly created Eighth Congressional District pitting Democratic state Rep. Yadira Caraveo against GOP state Sen. and former Weld County Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer. Kirkmeyer took the opportunity during this debate to shamelessly run away from her long-held “no exceptions” position on abortion rights, unconvincingly stating “at this point no” in response to a question about a nationwide abortion ban after ridiculously claiming that she never supportedone–but also conceding that her position on the issue has in some respects “evolved.”

Then the questions turned to Kirkmeyer’s involvement in the ill-fated 2013 campaign by several rural Colorado counties to secede and form the new state of “North Colorado.” And if you thought Kirkmeyer was bold in shamelessly reinventing herself on abortion, check out how she frames the ballot measure she supported for secession–which as a reminder failed even in Kirkmeyer’s own Weld County, envisioned as “North Colorado’s” future capital:

Kyle Clark: Ms. Kirkmeyer, you were one of the leaders of an effort in 2013 to have northeast Colorado secede, to break away and create a new state over political differences. Secession attempt did not pass, your own county Weld voted it down. Would you take that same problem-solving approach to Congress?

Barb Kirkmeyer: Where I would go out and actually listen to my constituents and follow what they wanted to…

Clark: Break away if you don’t get what you want?

Kirkmeyer: Well actually we didn’t put on the ballot to break away, [Pols emphasis] we put on the ballot at the request of our citizens, after we had several forums around our county to talk about it, after the issues that were occurring, where basically there was a war on rural Colorado…

Here is the verbatim text of the ballot measure voted on in Weld County in the 2013 elections:

Shall the Board of County Commissioners of Weld County, in concert with the county commissioners of other Colorado counties, pursue becoming the 51st state of the United States of America?

The secession ballot measure Kirkmeyer not just supported but was instrumental in getting on the ballot was to break away from the state of Colorado and form “the 51st state.” We have no doubt that Kirkmeyer’s defenders are prepared with some kind of contorted Herschel Walker-style explanation as to how Kirkmeyer didn’t just straight-up lie to Kyle Clark. But in this case, it couldn’t be more obvious that Kirkmeyer simply didn’t want to own the consequences of the flop initiative she supported nine years ago and chose to lie about it at the most fundamental level.

But then Kirkmeyer did something we didn’t expect. Rather than pausing to let Kyle Clark follow up, Kirkmeyer proceeded unbidden to list all the reasons why she supported the secession measure, in the process admitting that yes, it was indeed a secession measure:

Kirkmeyer: It felt like there was a war on Weld County. Where they weren’t doing snowplowing on state highways in rural Colorado, where they passed laws, uh, that were specific to rural Colorado with regard to increasing utility costs, and it wasn’t applied to the urban districts. When we asked then-Gov. Hickenlooper to declare a drought, and figure out how to help us with getting water to the number one agriculture county in the state and he said no.

There was a lot that was going on. People were very upset. When we asked them, you know, went out and had the discussion with them, they asked the county board of commissioners to put on the ballot a discussion about whether or not, should we go through the process. [Pols emphasis] That’s what was on there.

And then, again at no one’s urging, Kirkmeyer proudly announces she would do secession again:

Would I go through that process again? Yes, I would [Pols emphasis] because even Gov. Hickenlooper, who is now U.S. Senator Hickenlooper, said after this effort that it made the state stronger, that it made him listen more to rural Colorado, and that he would give us a better ear.

Now folks, we don’t want to make then-Gov. and now Sen. John Hickenlooper appear disingenuous in his olive branch to the secessionists after their ballot measure collapsed in a heap of late-night television joke fodder, but we’re going to go out on a limb and suggest that the secession effort accomplished absolutely nothing except to embarrass everyone who participated in it. Gov. Hickenlooper, who was not “waging war” on either rural Colorado in general or Weld County in particular either before or since, had no reason to treat this crackpot campaign as some kind of watershed moment.

Like any politician with discrediting follies on their record, Kirkmeyer had two options for dealing with the secession question: denial or full-throated embrace. And just like Danny Moore’s inexplicably making a case for election denial right after denying his previous position, Kirkmeyer lied about the secession measure she supported before proceeding to take full ownership of it–choosing a third option, denial and full-throated embrace.

All we can say is, it’s downright Trumpish. Even before Donald Trump, the secessionists always were.

One thought on ““Secession Barb” Lies About, Then Owns Her Greatest Folly”

MichaelBowman says:

October 21, 2022 at 11:45 am

Abraham Lincoln re secession

“~~Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.”

Inaugural Speech March 4, 1861

Weld County wasn’t built by bootstrappers alone.

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"Secession Barb" Lies About, Then Owns Her Greatest Folly

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