Colorado’s Republicans are stubbornly marching in the wrong direction, and if the party fails to rebrand itself, the odds of a 2020 comeback are highly unlikely.

When Ken Buck was elected GOP state chair he said, “we need to teach (Democrats) how to spell r-e-c-a-l-l”. Back in March when they elected Buck, Republicans were reportedly crafting a plan to oust at least six Democrats including Gov. Jared Polis.

This week the recall campaigns targeting state Sens. Pete Lee and Brittany Peterson failed after supporters were unable to collect enough signatures. This comes on the heels of failed attempts to recall Polis and other state lawmakers like state Rep. Bri Buentello.

And, no one will soon forget the incredibly bad and insensitive decision to target state Rep. Tom Sullivan, the father of Alex Sullivan who was murdered in the Aurora theatre shooting. The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners targeted Sullivan based upon his support for the red-flag legislation. Sullivan found an unlikely ally in the person he defeated in 2018, former Rep. Cole Wist, a well-respected Republican who was also previously targeted by RMGO. Wist criticized RMGO and said RMGO owned the Republican party.

The remaining recall campaign takes aim at Senate President Leroy Garcia. These unsuccessful recalls aren’t exactly the kind of “strategery” that will put Republicans back in power anytime soon.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to get back on track. After all, Colorado is a purple state. Colorado party registration shows that Democrats have a narrow advantage over Republicans 30.6% to 29% with the majority being unaffiliated voters at 40%.

Based upon that data, one would expect Colorado’s state government to be balanced. It’s not.

In the election tsunami of November 2018, Colorado became just one of 14 state governments under Democratic control, having won the office of the governor, state house and state senate. But few people predicted the sweeping election results would have also included the attorney general, state treasurer and secretary of state.

State Republicans have done a great deal of Monday morning quarterbacking since the 2018 rout in an effort to turn back the tide, but beyond the recall problem they are missing their mark.

In recent weeks, other players are making their cases for a comeback. In announcing his candidacy for the 6th Congressional District, former GOP Chair Steve House cited technology as the way in which Republicans could energize younger voters. “I think there should be storage lockers instead of truck-based deliveries during the day in Denver and there should be a way to go from an Uber to a scooter to transport me where I want, because it’s good for the environment, it’s good for traffic.” With all due respect, this is not a recipe for success either, and I’m not sure what Congress has to do with this. Uber’s technology is not new, and this isn’t going to energize anyone.

At this point, these early efforts and the president’s continued unpopularity don’t bode well. Many Republican leaders have said that the problem lies in the fact that they have done a poor job of getting their message out.

Rep. Buck would be well served by asking the question, “what if our message is already out?”

Republicans have a president who single-handedly energized Colorado women and unaffiliated voters and promises to do so again in 2020.

Exacerbating this problem, Republicans are trying to appease their conservative base with issues that are at odds with mainstream Colorado values on environmental issues, reproductive choice, and gun control.

I think the solution for Republicans could lie with Rep. Cole Wist. As a state legislator, Wist brought a thoughtful approach. While he supported traditional Republican ideas like limited government and the free market economy, he also supported common sense proposals like the red-flag bill, an issue that Americans overwhelmingly support. A September 2-5 Washington Post-ABC poll found that 85 percent of Republicans support implementing red flag provisions allowing guns to be taken from people judged to be a danger to themselves or others. For that, Wist was targeted by RMGO, who takes credit for his defeat.

Credit the RMGO for defeating Wist and helping elect Sullivan.

Dudley Brown, head of RMGO, told Westword, “Republicans don’t dare vote against us. There are very few who will. They’re a dying and going extinct breed, and it’s because we’ve hunted them. Let’s call them ‘black rhinos’. We hunt them, and there’s no bag limit, and you don’t have to have a plug in your gun, and you don’t even have to have a tag for them. And I don’t even clean ‘em–I just leave them lying in the field. For the humor-impaired, we’re talking politically here.”

Dudley is hilarious, right?

Until the Republican party can nominate and support candidates who meet the voters where they are, stand up to the pugnacious Brown, and have real concrete ideas to help Coloradans, they will continue to lose elections in Colorado.

Doug Friednash is a Denver native, a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck and the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

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