August 27, 2024 11:09 AM UTC

Colorado GOP's Schoening Trucks On As If Nothing Has Happened

• 2 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Colorado Republican Party “Director of Special Initiatives” Darcy Schoening took a brief break from her usual unsolicited blast emails in hate-filled “support” of Republican legislative candidates to promote an event coming up tomorrow, the next regularly-scheduled “Capitol Club Luncheon” headlined by…Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave “Buh Bye Brandon” Williams, who according to the flyer below sent out this morning is still the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party:

As readers know, Williams has vowed to ignore the vote by dissident members of the Colorado GOP Central Committee on Saturday ousting Williams along with Williams’ loyal lieutenants Hope Scheppelman and Anna Ferguson. A meeting set by Scheppelman for this coming Saturday, a meeting Williams is telling his supporters not to boycott unlike last Saturday’s, is the only gathering Williams intends to recognize.

Unfortunately for everyone else headlining tomorrow’s luncheon, the question is not so simple. With maybe-chairman Eli Bremer shoring up support in Denver and in D.C. after being voted in Saturday, continuing to legitimize Williams’ operation by appearing with him at this event is a potentially fateful decision for these candidates. It doesn’t matter electorally since he has absolutely no chance of winning, but we’re particularly surprised to see CO-01 GOP candidate Valdamar Archuleta appear along Williams after Archuleta very publicly opposed the anti-Pride Month messages from the party that helped tip the scales against Williams. Most of the legislative candidates appearing at this event have been the beneficiaries of the party’s controversial email blasts, but unlike Cleave Simpson none of them ever pushed back.

Although Darcy Schoening was not one of the party officers voted out by name last Saturday, her close association with Williams and role in the party’s controversial wedge-issue message strategy makes it unlikely that she would remain on board if Bremer prevails in the parliamentary squabble to determine which meeting and which vote is the one that counts. Continuing to promote Williams as the party chairman makes it even less likely that Schoening will stick around, even if her politics aren’t that much different from Bremer’s–who himself ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022 largely on a platform of transphobic scare tactics.

In the end, there can be only one Colorado Republican Party chairman. But the present state of disarray makes it impossible for Republican candidates to plan for next week, let alone the next two critical months.