editor’s note: Colorado Republicans will elect a new party chairman today. The election begins around 10 a.m. in Castle Rock. The winner will succeed Dick Wadhams, who has served since 2007.
Colorado Republicans won some significant victories in 2010 while suffering some profoundly disappointing losses. Both reveal the challenge in 2012 and beyond.
Scott Tipton unseated Rep. John Salazar and Cory Gardner unseated Rep. Betsy Markey, giving Republicans a 4-3 majority in our U.S. House delegation. Scott Gessler unseated Secretary of State Bernie Buescher and Walker Stapleton unseated Treasurer Cary Kennedy. And Republicans won our first legislative majority since 2002 by winning the Colorado House of Representatives.
But even with those successes, our losses for governor and U.S. senator cloud an election that offered so much opportunity for my party. The lessons we learned from this election are not new, but you’d never know it by the reaction of some Republicans.
On Election Day 2010, our turnout operation resulted in a huge advantage for our statewide candidates, with 106,000 more Republicans voting than Democrats. So why did the races for governor and senator slip away with this turnout advantage and the favorable political environment Republicans enjoyed in 2010?
There are two common threads that run through the candidacies of successful Colorado Republican candidates, such as Sen. Bill Armstrong, Sen. Hank Brown, Sen. Wayne Allard and Gov. Bill Owens.
First, they had all served in the state legislature and went on to the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected to the U.S. Senate, or, in the case of Owens, served as state treasurer before being elected governor. In other words, by the time each of these respected Colorado leaders ran for major statewide office, there was very little we didn’t know about their personal and professional backgrounds.
The 2010 Republican nominee for governor, Dan Maes, certainly benefited from the plagiarism-charged implosion of his primary opponent, former Congressman Scott McInnis. But the Maes nomination was also propelled by thousands of new Republican activists and voters who were intent on supporting someone like Maes who had no previous political or elected experience and whose professional credentials were not scrutinized.
Second, Sens. Armstrong, Brown and Allard, along with Gov. Owens, all ran mainstream conservative campaigns focused on fiscal responsibility and national security that also appealed to unaffiliated voters. They did not allow themselves to get pulled into discussions or positions that seemed out of the mainstream.
Our Republican Senate candidate, Ken Buck, allowed himself to be pulled into discussions about repealing the popular vote for senators and whether he supported the personhood amendment, which many pro-life leaders opposed and has now been overwhelmingly rejected twice in Colorado.
These distractions and controversies resulted in many unaffiliated voters who were predisposed to vote Republican to abandon Buck while they voted for Stapleton, Gessler, Tipton, Gardner, and Attorney General John Suthers.
In the aftermath of the 2010 election, I have been amazed that some Republican leaders see our challenge as merely being one of “uniting the conservative base” of our party. Clearly, the “conservative base” was united behind Ken Buck, but it wasn’t enough to win. And it never is.
Colorado will be a presidential battleground state once again in 2012 and U.S. Senate and governor races loom again in 2014. Our ability to win will be determined by whether we have candidates of substance and achievement who run on mainstream conservative issues that not only “unite the conservative base” but appeal to unaffiliated voters, especially unaffiliated women.
Winning in competitive, independent-minded Colorado is more than just winning the Republican primary.
