A GOP chair who fires on his own troops

Who is working the hardest to elect Democrats in Colorado?

A leading candidate is state Republican Chair Dave Williams, who seems to want to run either a perpetual primary campaign against his former opponent or lead a pro-Trump advocacy group. But he doesn't appear heavily motivated to do the hard, often thankless job of building an effective, well-financed Republican Party.

A former state legislator, Williams was a controversial choice to lead the state party. He built his brand as a fierce defender of all things Trump — a president I voted for twice. He has claimed the 2020 election was stolen and often discusses the benefits of the former president's restoration to the White House, despite a growing primary field of other GOP candidates.

This is totally fine to do — as an individual candidate, elected official or ideological advocate.

But as state party chair, that's not even close to his job. And it's not effective or productive when the only hope of putting the GOP back on the road to recovery is to appeal outside of Trump World to disaffected Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

A few months ago, I decided to give the chairman the benefit of the doubt and interviewed him and wrote about it in this space. He, of course, expressed his desire to expand the party's base and win elections — while stressing his determination to "beat the snot out of Democrats."

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He decided to test out his game by beating the snot out of Republicans.

In the wake of the vote in Congress to raise the debt ceiling, Williams delivered a strident attack on all Republicans who voted for the measure, and specifically his former primary opponent, Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (he lost to Lamborn last year by 18 points).

In a blast email, he basically called Lamborn a liar and a hypocrite and said "Colorado Republicans are fed up with say-anything politicians like Doug Lamborn..."

This is not only wildly inappropriate for a party chair but seems utterly unmoored from any serious strategy to build a robust, statewide election-winning organization. In fact, he included a plea for donations at the end of the anti-GOP email by touting his efforts to "put the Democrats on defense."

It's a head-scratcher to figure out how stridently attacking Republicans puts Democrats on defense.

It's not a requirement for Republicans to like Congressman Lamborn. But there are seven Democrats in the delegation, including one (freshman liberal Rep. Yadira Caraveo) who is already a national target for defeat. That's where the GOP flamethrower needs to relentlessly focus.

The chairman, in claiming to speak for all Colorado Republicans, may have a good grip on the pulse of his party, but more often I hear Colorado Republicans say that we are fed up with losing.

It would be a good idea for Chairman Williams to tack the following stats up on his office wall, and on his fridge at home. Here is the ground currently held by Colorado Republicans at the federal and state levels:

Ironically, in a recent missive, the chairman focused attention on a newly announced vote-harvesting effort on the left aimed at unseating GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert. Instead of asking to raise funds so that the Williams-led GOP can do its own vote harvesting effort, the email instead inadvertently spotlighted the contrast between the left — aggressively and substantively gearing up — and the rhetorically heavy, organizationally inert Colorado GOP.

Any partisan organization — whether a local, state or national party — exists for one reason: to build an effective, efficient election-winning operation. This is the mission and in Colorado, the mission field is wide open.

The damage being done daily to our state, and our values, by the institutional left should make the task of electing conservatives so urgent at GOP headquarters that wasting time, energy and resources on efforts that distract from this singular need would be eagerly avoided.

This vital task — doing the heavy organizational lifting needed to save Colorado — doesn't seem to be at the top of Dave Williams's to do list.

What the GOP chairman seems unaware of is there already exists an organization focused on attacking Republicans.

It's called the Democratic Party. And it is doing just fine without his help.

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.

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