April 22, 2022 11:11 AM UTC

Republican Candidates Say the Darndest Things

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• by: Colorado Pols

The June 28th Primary Election is just about two months away, and most of the action will take place among Republicans. With primaries for U.S. Senate, Governor, Secretary of State, and Congress (C0-03, CO-04, CO-05, CO-07, and CO-08), there are at least 20 different Republican candidates trying to get their message out to the GOP faithful.

There are so many campaigns and candidates searching for time on a forum dais or a right-wing radio show that it’s difficult to keep track of who said what and when. Rather than go through each race individually, we decided to focus on some of the more, shall we say, interesting comments of the last week or so.

“Hang the rest of them”

Republican Senate candidate Ron Hanks was on KOA’s morning news show this week when the interview with Marty Lenz and April Zesbaugh took an odd turn. Hanks insisted that the Jan. 6 insurrection was conducted by Antifa; when he was challenged on this, Hanks fought back before calling for thousands of Americans to be hanged:

MARTY LENZ: Do you have any regrets about being in and around the crowd the day of the US Capitol riot?

RON HANKS: Not at all. Those were millions of peaceful Americans. It was a peaceful rally. The people I met out there were phenomenal and I think to impugn a million peaceful Americans is folly, and Bennett has done it. But in the spirit of bipartisanship, so has Mitch McConnell. So I have nothing but disdain for the both of them for doing that, for impugning the motives of one million Americans. That’s totally wrong. [Pols emphasis]

LENZ: So, you’re a military man. And I’m not talking about the ones peaceful prior to it. The ones that incurred on the Capitol and broke in and went after Capitol Police. You’re somebody that’s served in the military [and] that looks like that’s an insurrection. Do you see that differently?

RON HANKS: I see the million people I was with. If you are talking the Antifa types that were scaling the scaffolding…[Pols emphasis]

LENZ: No. With all due respect, they were not Antifa. I know you intellectually know that. I know you know that.

RON HANKS: Well, I don’t think you know that.[Pols emphasis]

LENZ: I think that is readily accessible observational reality respectfully to you on that. I think that’s a bridge too far for many people, sir, respectfully.

RON HANKS: Well, fair enough. A million peaceful Americans concerned about their country. That’s who I was there with. Hang the rest of them. That’s a disgrace. [Pols emphasis]

APRIL ZESBAUGH: Ron, we’re going to leave it there today, thanks for joining us.

There’s plenty more after the jump…

Ron Hanks Says Trash = Socialism

So, apparently Sheronna Bishop — Lauren Boebert’s former campaign manager and Tina Peters’s right-hand person — has an online show of some sort. Ron Hanks was a guest on the show last week — while driving his car, no less — and before signing off Hanks took pains to add a weird complaint:

RON HANKS: One last thing, Sherrona, I don’t know how much time I have, but I have to tell you we live in a beautiful state here in Colorado, but I have just been totally decimated by the amount of trash we’ve got blowing around on the freeways, on the side roads and, you know, we’re thinking about going out to the different counties and starting a campaign where before we get into a town hall, we start picking up trash by the bagful for an hour or two hours and start trying to clean this up.

Because you know, this is what socialism looked like in Eastern Europe when I was over there. [Pols emphasis] We can’t let it look like that where we don’t care about the state and the country anymore. So in addition to my website, they’ll see me on the side of the road picking up some trash because this is driving me nuts here.

Joe O’Dea Goes Trump Dodging

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea was at a meet-and-greet in Denver last week when he got a question about Donald Trump. O’Dea’s endorsement from Trump is probably already in the mail! Here’s that exchange:

UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: So what are your thoughts about Donald Trump running again, in the next election cycle?

JOE O’DEA: You know, that’s a long way off. Trump’s going to do what Trump’s going to do. I’m not sure what he’s going to do.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: As a Republican, would you support him or not?

JOE O’DEA: If he happens to be the candidate, then I think, you know, and the other choice is Joe Biden, I guess, what do you think?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, I guess if there’s another Republican candidate to come up against Donald Trump…

JOE O’DEA: Again, I can’t control it. I’m worried about Joe O’Dea. I’m worried about getting elected here in November, I’m going to stay focused on me.

White Nationalist Policies = “America First”

Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine, who is the top line candidate on the Republican Primary ballot in the race for CO-08, was on The Leland Conway Show recently and had a strange answer when asked to explain the demographics of this new congressional district:

LORI SAINE: And a lot of the district, I would say, 35 to 40 percent are also Hispanics. And I don’t know if you caught this, but 9News did a piece warning everyone the Hispanics are moving towards white nationalist policies. I would call that a.k.a America First, by the way, so they are not going to be voting in a tribal bloc for Democrats this year. [Pols emphasis]

And I know that the Democrats here in Colorado and nationally are freaking out about that. They do not embrace the family values of the Hispanics in Colorado District eight. I do.

Candidates for Governor Get Silly on Protests

Last week the two remaining Republican candidates for Governor took part in their first post-assembly debate. We thought about doing another “Debate Diary” for the discussion between Greg Lopez and Hiedi Heidi Ganahl, but you’ve already seen or heard most of what these two candidates have to say.

Now…that doesn’t mean it isn’t instructive (and also entertaining) to take a look at some of the individual responses from Lopez and Ganahl. One of our favorite exchanges during the forum last Thursday hosted by the Foothills Republicans in Jefferson County came in response to a question from moderator Dick Wadhams; he asked how Lopez and Ganahl would have handled the May 2020 protests in Denver that evolved from the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Lopez responded first:

GREG LOPEZ: Here’s what I would have done. The Governor is responsible for being the voice and face of the people. That’s his job. And if we can’t protect the people’s house, how can we protect anybody? I would have stand tall [sic] throughout the night, and told all of those rioters, ‘If you step one step on this lawn [the Capitol grounds] and we’re going to arrest you. You can do your riots all up and down the street, but if you step on this lawn, I’m going to make sure that I’m going to arrest you.’ Because we need to send a strong message: You do not destroy the people’s house.

Lopez’s Republican opponent largely agreed on this tactic. But Heidi Ganahl would have turned it up a notch by using a bullhorn!

HEIDI GANAHL: I agree. I agree. He [Polis] should have stood strong that night — taken a bullhorn and told them to knock if off or they would be arrested and thrown in jail. How dare they affect our Capitol like that.

We’d write more here, but we don’t really think that’s necessary. These comments all speak for themselves.