December 10, 2024 01:52 PM UTC

Cory Gardner Fails Upward Into Key PAC Chairmanship

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• by: Colorado Pols

Punchbowl News reported yesterday and we are duty-bound to note for the record:

Former Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) will become the chair of the board of the Senate Leadership Fund, the beginning of incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s takeover of the organization.

Steven Law, the long-time executive director of SLF, the top Senate Republican super PAC, and a close ally of outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, resigned last week.

Johnny DeStefano and Paula Dukes, who run Thune’s outside political operation, will work with Gardner to lead a process to find the new CEO and president. Law’s eventual replacement will be the first new leader in the organization’s 11-year history.

Gardner, a former chair of the NRSC, is expected to take an active role in SLF. He will raise money and communicate with the constellation of stakeholders in the super PAC. But Gardner won’t bring aides or consultants to SLF.

With the sole exception of that magical ingredient called winning, Gardner certainly has the requisite experience to chair the Senate Leadership Fund. It’s also timely for Gardner to take this role with his 2020 nemesis Sen. John Hickenlooper up for re-election in 2026, though the state’s battle-hardened Democratic dominance and the lack of a deep Republican bench of candidates make that the most aspirational of pipe dreams. At the same time, during Gardner’s sole term in the U.S. Senate he aspired to a bigger role in foreign policy, from cheerleading support for Taiwan to glad-handing with despots during the first Trump administration. If that was the job Gardner wanted during Trump’s second term, it would seem he was passed over.

At the end of the day, cold-calling rich donors is what pays the bills.