After the Colorado GOP meeting last Saturday in which 400 Republican electors narrowly chose Congressman Ken Buck as the new State Party chair, the usual kvetching and bickering has bubbled up among Republicans. The wailing and rending of garments has centered around the fact that the Grassroots favorite (and my choice) Rep. Susan Beckman lost by less than 20 votes; thus, according to many, installing a cabal of vile “establishment“ leaders who will once again dish out mega-treasure to the greedy consultant class that helped lead Republicans over the cliff in November.
Some are talking about deserting the Party because they find it insufficiently conservative, or insufficiently Trumpian, or too Trumpian, or just don’t like former state chair Steve House, who is Buck’s pick to to run the Party’s day-to-day operations. Many of these same people actually failed to grasp that the only choices we had in the 2016 election were former Democrat and TV reality star/mega-millionaire/ unknown quantity Donald J. Trump or international criminal and Russian colluder (which we knew even then from the Clinton Cash book) Hillary Clinton. They demonstrated their disgust with Trump by refusing to vote for him and so our Republican nominee Trump lost Colorado by 4 points. But by gosh, they stood by their principles – so there! Scruples are more important than elections doncha know.
Same deal here. To any Republican or Republican-leaning Unaffiliated who’s thinking about dropping out – just take a look at how the Democrats under the golden dome are taking your basic freedoms apart limb from limb. The Red Flag Gun Grab bill; the End of Oil and Gas and thousands of jobs bill; the Radical Sex Ed bill, the Destruction of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) bill, the Elimination of Coloradans’ Vote in Presidential Elections bill, and on and on.
The hard truth is this: the only way to stop the ongoing devastation of our beloved Colorado is to elect more Republicans. Last year we had one more Republican than Democrat in the State Senate, and that one-vote majority saved us from a multitude of evils that are now coming to pass.
So the kvetchers choice this time will not be between Trump and Clinton, but between supporting the Party no matter what or deserting it and becoming responsible for the complete obliteration of our basic freedoms and our right to live our lives as we, not the Almighty Government, see fit.
Some Republicans have a curious tendency to turn the officials they in fact have elected as “grassroots” into the dread “establishment” once they take office. Suddenly the very candidates they have worked hard to get into office become the enemy.
Congressman Buck for example. He bravely displayed his grassroots credentials with his bold book Drain the Swamp, exposing the corruption in D.C., and endangering his own position in the Party with his brutal honesty. Republicans and Democrats in D.C. were subjected equally to his lashing over their unfairness, their outright corruption of the legislative process, and other transgressions. He’s also a prominent member of the strong conservative House Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus didn’t even exist a few years ago and now has a huge voice. Conservativism is growing more powerful, but like most things, it’s happening incrementally. Patience is rewarded in politics – just ask the four radical wealthy “Blueprint” Democrats, one of whom is now our governor. It took them about 15 years to conquer Colorado.
So now because of the perverse Republican tendency to trash their own, Rep. Buck–who started in politics as a grassroots DA–is branded a shady “establishment insider.” This is self-destructive and just silly. If our mission as Republicans is to elect more Republicans, why do we not celebrate our elected leaders instead of turning on them? Rep. Buck is one of the most conservative members of Congress, and yet he’s been attacked for allegedly voting against The Wall. No matter that he didn’t in fact vote against The Wall, but against a bloated budget bill of which The Wall was a very small part.
The Democrats just love it when we cannibalize our own elected officials. They take gleeful advantage of our divisiveness and the refusal of some to vote for any Republican who doesn’t meet their purist demands. Preserving their “principles” is their priority over voting Republican. But when we don’t work for the Party’s candidates or refuse to vote for them – guess what – MORE Democrats get elected. And then we get the tyranny of the leftists under which our state is groaning now, with more to come.
The purists like to prate about their “values.” Big picture my friends: supporting Republicans, both elected and future candidates, is the ONLY way we will win the majority back for those values and wrestle our great Colorado back from the liberty-stealing clutches of the Democrats.
Joy Overbeck is a Townhall columnist and co-founder of activist Facebook page: Get Er Done Right Colorado.
