March 01, 2013 02:31 PM UTC

Colorado GOP Chair Race Quietly Getting Nasty

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• by: Colorado Pols

SATURDAY UPDATE #2: The Denver Post reports that Ryan Call defeated challenger Mark Baisley and will remain GOP chairman, final vote 272в…“ votes for Call to Baisley's 158в…” votes.There's some kind of methodology that explains the fractional vote totals, but we think it's more fun to let our readers speculate how Republicans arrived at a precise 272в…“ votes. If it's any consolation, as of this writing so did the Post.
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SATURDAY UPDATE: Good heavens! Look what spontaneously appeared in our inbox last night (image right, click for higher resolution).

Good stuff today from the Colorado Statesman's Ernest Luning on the race for Colorado GOP chairman:

Colorado Republicans meet this weekend to elect a state chairman in the wake of last November’s resounding losses at the polls and both announced candidates say the GOP needs to undergo a massive overhaul in order to compete with what they both acknowledge is a superior Democratic organization.

Republican state central committee members — county officers, elected officials and bonus delegates, awarded by county based on the vote received by GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney — will chose between incumbent state chairman Ryan Call and Douglas County GOP chairman Mark Baisley at the biennial reorganizational meeting on Saturday morning at Cherry Creek High School in Greenwood Village…

“There’s no question that we had a tough election,” Call said, resulting from “a significant shift from a reliably Republican electorate” in the state. “Our electorate is shifting, demographically, politically, and we can’t keep doing things the way we’ve been doing it the last four or five years”

Describing a set of “bold and dramatic moves” he hopes to take if he wins a second, two-year term, Call said the state GOP must build “an ever-present and year-round campaign operation,” including voter registration drives, neighborhood canvases and coordinated town hall meetings.

In the wake of yet another electoral drubbing last year, Republicans are rightly looking at their senior staff to see if the problem lies there. In the case of Ryan Call, you've got a party chairman who has at least paid lip service to the need for moderating reform, and to present a more palatable image to the next generation of voters–younger, more diverse, and socially tolerant voters that the party has been mostly successful alienating.

Call's lip service, and even occasional criticism of his fellow Republicans in support of improving the party's image has not just failed to manifest in visible terms, as the party continues to put its most extremist foot forward on a host of issues. In the person of Call's "Tea Party"-favored opponent, former Douglas County party chair Mark Baisley, Call's attempt to put lipstick on the proverbial pig is being actively resisted. 

“We need to think more in terms of chess instead of checkers, where we make a move, they make a move. We need to think two, three steps ahead, where they come to bloody us with their ‘War on Women,’ we can play the video of Joe Salazar,” he said, referencing remarks made earlier in February by the House Democrat during floor debate over gun control measures when he suggested that women might not accurately assess whether they’re about to be raped and shoot someone when no threat exists.

Baisley also stressed the importance of cultivating coalitions in communities. Traveling the state, Baisley said, he encounters plenty of “folks that just feel left out, they don’t feel like they’re part of the party across the state. They want to be, but they don’t feel like they’re connecting.”

Baisley wants to respond to damaging established GOP memes with weak-minded gotchas instead of countering the meme itself–and the standard "Tea Party" refrain, bringing in "folks that just feel left out." In support of Baisley, the knives are coming out for Call. Here's an email from Shari Bjorklund, former GOP legislative candidate:

Maybe we should try a new approach and NOT elect weak Progressive Republicans to lead our party!  Ryan Call is a progressive (liberal) Republican.  Besides working to keep conservative Republicans out of the party and actively donating to Democrats, Ryan Call is the registered agent for the group Progressives for Immigration Reform.

Supporters of Baisley are also making as much hay as they can of a 2011 traffic stop, where Call was arrested on a failure-to-appear charge related to an unpaid traffic ticket. Call quickly bonded out of jail, but it's a fair point that attorneys should pay their traffic tickets. Not to be outdone, Call's supporters are circulating Baisley's history of his recent "Obama economy" financial troubles. In addition to RINO vs. "Tea Party," it's a battle of petty mudslinging.

How will it end? The GOP central committee meets tomorrow morning, so you won't have to wait long.