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July 10, 2023 11:57 AM UTC

Homeless Too? Colorado GOP's Self-Destruction Accelerating

  • 14 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
State GOP Chair Dave Williams.

The Colorado Republican Party, as readers know, is currently in a state of existential crisis after years of punishing defeats at the polls have left the party with the least amount of influence in the lifetimes of most people now living. Instead of learning a lesson from defeat and attempting to field more mainstream candidates, the party instead lurched even further toward the extreme right by electing firebrand former Rep. Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams as chairman last March. Williams’ takeover of the party completed a backlash against the “corporate wing” of the party responsible for defeating fringe primary challengers in 2022 including U.S. Senate candidate Ron Hanks and Dave Williams personally.

Since taking control of the party in March, Williams has alternated between score-settling attacks on fellow Republicans like his 2022 primary opponent Rep. Doug Lamborn and increasingly scurrilous and lurid appeals on wedge issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Just before the July 4th holiday, Williams sent out an email blast so over-the-top homophobic that the Colorado Log Cabin Republicans took the exceedingly rare step of criticizing their own chairman in a statement today:

The recent email dated June 29, 2023, with subject line Pride is evil sent out by the Colorado GOP, was narrow-minded and pandered to the far right. This rhetoric is an irritating splinter to the greater Colorado Republican Party & other common-sense voters in the state.

The broad biblical offense on “pride” addressed only to the “LGBTQA+” community was catering to the game of identity politics—something most conservatives abhor. We pray it was indeed short-sighted and unintentional. As Colorado Republicans, we are better than that.

Addressing these issues with care and refinement could have been an opportunity to reach out to young people, women, swing voters and moderate democrats growing weary of progressive politics. Instead, the presentation left many Coloradans feeling alienated.

The LCRs go on to say they support the policy goals of Republicans with respect to “sexualization of children,” which strikes us as an unnecessary accommodation of Williams’ wild allegations even while they try to condemn them. We’ve never really grasped the inherently contradictory reasoning necessary to be a Log Cabin Republican, and it doesn’t look like today will be the day we start. But it’s at least something.

Willliams’ bordering-on-NSFW email blasts are meant to shock reporters into covering his statements and like-minded Republicans into opening their wallets. The latter objective is particularly important since Williams has been unable to raise even enough money to cover payroll expenses, let alone plan for 2024. But in another discourteous exchange with fellow Republicans using the Colorado GOP’s official account, we learn the party’s financial problems may be coming to a head:

That’s Roger Hudson, a staffer for Colorado House Minority Leader Mike Lynch who was one of those recently attacked by the Colorado GOP, breaking the news that the Colorado Republican Party has been “asked to vacate” their longtime offices in Greenwood Village. If the party can’t make its payroll expenses, it wouldn’t be a surprise to learn they can’t pay their rent, either–though we obviously can’t confirm Hudson’s report and another Republican, Williams ally Weston Imer, denies it. If it is true that the Colorado GOP can’t even afford their office space anymore, it’s sign that the party is organizationally breaking down–unlike anything we’ve seen since Dan Maes won the party’s nomination for governor in 2010 and got 11% of the vote in the general election.

Soon the Colorado GOP may be Williams on a street corner with a file cabinet, and that’s it.

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14 thoughts on “Homeless Too? Colorado GOP’s Self-Destruction Accelerating”

  2. When I hear a personage like Roger D. Hudson calling for another Big Tent Republican party, somehow I don't see that happening. The Colorado GOP is in thrall to MAGAs of all kinds, including election deniers, and the far right crazies of the religious right. How does Mr. Hudson propose to overcome the opposition of those interest groups, that already control the party, to create his "Big Tent?"

    2. This will actually make Dave "Brandon" Williams more popular in the eyes of the real Magadonians in much the same way that Meatball Ron was making hay out of accusing Trump of being too kind to the LGBTQ communities.

      Williams getting into a pissing match with the Log Cabin folk gins up the crazies.

      BTW, I didn't even see a Log Cabin GOP booth at Denver Pride. Were they there? 

    3. But, you do have to give this generation of real GOPers their props for changing the stodgy and dated paradigm and jumping quickly to the almost inevitable.

      The more common progression is: broke, homeless, and then the unintelligible yelling at parking meters.  Williams and Co. started out with parking meter lectures and harangues.

  3. Looks like intentionally slow walking that fundraising is really paying off. Dave Williams is a managerial genius!

    There are four fundamental life cycles of a business, and if we treat the Colorado Republican Party as a business, which cycle do they most closely represent?

    1) Startup

    2) Growth

    3) Maturity

    4) Renewal or decline

     

  4. hadn’t noticed before, but one of the disbursement lines from the CO Republicans last FEC report (June 20, 2023) was [my emphasis]

    AMCHECKAZ

    PAYROLL PROCESSING FEES FROM MARCH 2023 – NO APRIL PAYROLL….

    04/17/23….$83.16

    As a reminder:

    Coverage dates: 01/01/2023 to 05/31/2023

    Beginning cash on hand  $325,747.68

    Ending cash on hand  $117,622.92

    Next report is due July 20.  Any bets?

     

  6. You have to be self-loathing to be a Log Cabin whatever.  Way back when I occasionally had the pleasure of talking to one of the leaders, but not often.  Many of the repub gay group dislike the Pride Flag, no need to point out you are gay type thing. 

    Funny was last year Boat Lady Cathy and I had pride flags on our boats. Local gay couple, repub all the way, was very vocal about flying the flag.  Cathy, straight lady, told them it was she, not me, that wanted to fly the flag.  It took the guys many months before giving up. They also dislike food pantries and charity in general, it keeps people from hunger and therefore working at pennies an hour, it is profit that is supposed to be for the owners.

    1. There are “conservative” gay men who dislike “breeders”, i.e. straight people. Never mind that now, most people can adopt or birth children, as our own Governor and many others have demonstrated.

      These guys tend to have money, because men do generally get paid more than women, and they tend to have contempt for anyone they see as “lesser”, i.e., poorer, have a less lucrative job, needing charity or public assistance to survive.

      They are fiscally conservative but socially liberal, and very quick to justify their support for Republican candidates, and their undying contempt for the “lower , undeserving classes”.  Many are also closet racists. They don’t even see themselves as privileged, and become angry when the subject is raised.

      I’ve had the misfortune to be a colleague or tenant of these privileged folk. 

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