June 14, 2016 10:31 AM UTC

Liston vs. Joshi: Weirder and Weirder

• 4 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

We wrote recently about the swiftly nastifying Republican primary in El Paso County’s House District 16, where incumbent Rep. Janak “Dr. Nick” Joshi is battling to hold off a strong challenge from former Rep. Larry Liston. After breaking with longstanding General Assembly protocol by using Liston’s appearance in a humorous sketch-comedy bit known as the “Hummers” against him in a campaign ad, Team Joshi launched a website, LarryLies.com, with a radio buy ripping Liston on a variety of conservative wedge issues.

Well folks, yesterday this video was posted to LarryLies.com, and it’s sure to jack up the acrimony in this race as ballots start to come back:

We don’t know anything about the incident as told by a woman named Peg Hankins in the video above, but she describes asking then-Rep. Liston a question at an event of some kind and getting manhandled in response–to the extent that she claims to have had bruises on her arms from Liston grabbing her. There’s no mention of any police report or further action taken by the woman against Liston, which means we of course have no way of corroborating any of these accusations.

It’s tough to say how this might affect the HD-16 primary, since we doubt LarryLies.com is in sufficient circulation among primary voters in this district to make a difference one way or the other. We’ll have to see if Joshi’s campaign is able to generate media coverage of this woman’s story–and whether that coverage gives this story credibility or takes it away.

Either way, yeesh. It’s sure getting ugly down there.