The Denver Gazette has handed Colorado Republicans their latest episode of “Why Are You Like This?”: state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer and former Denver mayoral candidate Greg Lopez replacement-era conservative headache Darrell Bottoms say they won’t back Victor Marx if he wins the GOP primary for governor.
Beautiful. Inspirational. Nothing says “ready to govern Colorado” like announcing before the voters finish voting that your own party’s nominee might be too radioactive for you to touch without barbecue tongs.
The basic mess is simple: Marx is running for governor, he’s reportedly the fundraising leader, and two Republican rivals are already saying they won’t support him if primary voters pick him. That turns this from normal campaign elbowing into a full-blown family knife fight in the church basement.
And yes, candidates are allowed to question each other. That’s the point of a primary. Vet the record. Test the temperament. Ask whether the guy can survive a general election in a state where unaffiliated voters decide races and Democrats have built a political machine with the tenderness of a wood chipper.
But there’s a difference between “I’m the better candidate” and “if the peasants choose wrong, I may help set the village on fire.”
This is the Colorado GOP’s eternal disease: screaming that Democrats have turned the state into a one-party playground while Republicans spend primary season greasing the slide. They tell voters Colorado is burning, then show up with a bucket, a Bible, a branding consultant, and three separate plans to punch each other in the face.
If Marx is unvetted, say that. If his record is thin, say that. If his campaign has weird messianic smoke coming out of the tailpipe, say that too. Voters deserve more than bumper-sticker courage and a donor list. A fundraising lead is not a baptismal certificate from the political heavens.
But Kirkmeyer and Bottoms don’t get a free halo here either. When rivals say they won’t support the nominee before the nominee exists, it smells less like statesmanship and more like sour-grapes panic because the base isn’t ordering from the approved-candidate menu.
This is how a party convinces normal voters it’s not a government-in-waiting but a hostage negotiation with yard signs.
Meanwhile, Colorado Democrats don’t even have to break a sweat. They can sit back in Denver, nibble ethically sourced popcorn, and watch Republicans do opposition research on themselves for free. Why spend money making the GOP nominee look unelectable when the GOP candidates are already standing on stage with a staple gun and a stack of warning labels?
And that’s the voter consequence nobody in the folding-chair debate hall wants to admit. Conservative voters are exhausted. They’re sick of losing. They’re sick of lectures about unity from people who treat unity like a coupon that expires the second they fall behind in a poll.
Colorado is drifting deeper blue. Housing is brutal. Fees breed like prairie dogs. The Front Range is clogged, expensive, and run by people who think every failure just needs a task force and another acronym. Rural Colorado gets patted on the head, ignored, and billed for the privilege.
So when Republicans finally get a chance to look serious, disciplined, and ready to compete, what do they do? They start pre-disqualifying their own possible nominee like the primary is a loyalty test administered by people who can’t win a general election with a map, a miracle, and a hostage negotiator.
If Colorado Republicans want to convince voters they can govern, maybe don’t begin by announcing the party may refuse to support the person its own voters choose. That’s not leadership. That’s a circular firing squad with campaign finance reports.
Source: The Denver Gazette
Just Stop It
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