February 03, 2022 01:37 PM UTC

Gino Campana Buys Up Kellyanne Conway To Land Trump Nod

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

As Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports, of the whole pack of minor candidates trying to self-fund and rabblerouse themselves to prominence in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, wealthy businessrando Gino Campana has worked harder than any of them to publicly align himself with Donald Trump—trumpeting the MAGA world luminaries who have endorsed Campana’s campaign, and hosting Trump officials to give MAGA pep talks at campaign events.

Today, Campana announced the hire of one of biggest names in Trump’s closest circle to serve as a “senior advisor” to the campaign, none other than former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway of “alternative facts” infamy:

Kellyanne Conway, a longtime senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, is signing on to Colorado Republican Gino Campana’s campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Michael Bennet, a Campana spokesman said Thursday.

Conway, the veteran pollster and political strategist who managed Trump’s winning 2016 presidential campaign, worked at the White House from 2017 to 2020 as senior counselor to the president. She’ll be a senior advisor to Campana, one of eight Republicans challenging Bennet’s bid for a third term.

Calling Campana “a strong leader who will fight for the people and not be part of the status quo in Washington,” Conway said in a written statement that she looks forward to helping the former Fort Collins city councilman’s campaign.

Kellyanne Conway is one of the most polarizing figures from the Trump administration, whose willingness to state and maintain absurd positions issued by the White House with a straight face made her a hero among the faithful and the butt of jokes for late-night television for four years. Attempting to defend the ridiculous claim by then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer that Trump’s first inauguration was the biggest public event since Woodstock, Conway coined the term “alternative facts” that has been used to lampoon residents of the Trump misinformation bubble ever since. Most recently, Conway was sacked from the Air Force Academy advisory board to which she had received a patronage appointment in the final days of Trump’s administration. Were it not that Trump still holds his iron grip on the Republican Party, Conway would already find herself in the Dick Morris netherworld of zero credibility.

At this point, it’s clear that Gino Campana has not thought beyond the June 28th Republican primary–because currying favor with the Trump world is only useful to Campana up to that time, after which it becomes a huge liability. In 2018, Walker Stapleton ran hard on his support for Trump in the primary only to be brutalized by anti-Trump sentiment in the general election. Trump wasn’t on the ballot either that year or this year, but in both cases Republicans running in Colorado are wilfully placing themselves in Trump’s shadow. In 2018, it helped cost Stapleton the race. In 2022, Campana seems to be making the right transactions to obtain Trump’s endorsement in the primary. But how much will that endorsement cost Campana in November?

Looks like Gino Campana will shake that Etch-a-Sketch if and when he comes to it.