July 20, 2022 11:47 AM UTC

Heidi Ganahl's Inexplicable Defense of Danny Moore

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republican gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl was originally scheduled to hold her first public event today with Danny Moore, her running mate and Lieutenant Governor pick. The Ganahl campaign wisely rescheduled the Aurora event after remembering that today is the 10th anniversary of the Aurora Theater Shootings, in which 10 people were killed and 70 others injured. Instead, Ganahl and Moore will appear for the first time in public at an event on Friday.

Thus we have a few more days to try to understand why Ganahl selected a “Big Lie” adherent as a running mate after spending the last 10 months trying to duck questions about whether or not she believes the 2020 election was fraudulent. This decision led to news headlines like the one below from The Denver Post:

During an appearance on The Mandy Connell Show on KOA Radio earlier this week, Ganahl took a strange approach to explaining why she chose Moore. Her basic answer was that Moore is not really an election denier, which is an inexplicable narrative attempt given the mountains of evidence to the contrary. Here’s that exchange:

MANDY CONNELL: So, before the show, I started looking at the news coverage of the announcement of Danny [Moore]….the news coverage all leads with ‘Ganahl picks election denier.’ What exactly is the story behind that as you understand it.

HEIDI GANAHL: Danny is not an election denier. He had concerns, just like many people across Colorado and this country did, about what happened in the election and election integrity…and as a citizen was asking questions and made a post on Facebook that caused some drama when he was on the [Colorado Congressional] Redistricting Commission. [Pols emphasis]

“Danny [Moore] is not an election denier,” says Ganahl. Saying it doesn’t make it true.

As multiple news outlets reported in March 2021, Moore did a lot more than just post something on Facebook on a single occasion. There was so much evidence for this, in fact, that 9News anchor Kyle Clark said matter-of-factly, “Danny Moore is an election rigging conspiracy theorist.” In his defense, Moore tried to make an absurd argument that he was just trying to “spark a conversation.”

Moore was still denying being a denier and going with this silly excuse in May 2021, which is an important part of this timeline. Because as The Colorado Times Recorder reported, Danny Moore hosted attorney and coup architect John Eastman at his home for an event in April 2021. During an informal “election integrity” forum on April 24, 2021, Eastman both praised and defended Moore:

JOHN EASTMAN: Defend Danny Moore! [Pols emphasis] He just got removed as the chairman of the redistricting commission but he’s still on the commission. He’s terrific. He hosted me for a Leadership Program of the Rockies event at his house, just Wednesday night. Defend him. They’re going to go after him, because he’s trying to make this an honest process. And so, let him know that he has your support.

If Danny Moore is not an election denier, then it is REALLY WEIRD that he spends so much time talking about how the 2020 election was fraudulent. It is even stranger that he would open up his home to other election deniers, including the man who tried to orchestrate a coup based on nonsense claims of a fraudulent election.

Does Ganahl think that she can just make this all go away if she keeps saying, “Danny Moore is not an election denier?” This is as ludicrous as standing on the pavement this week and saying, It’s not hot outside. You wouldn’t stand next to her, sweating profusely, and respond, Yeah, you’re right; this is a very comfortable temperature.

Instead of lying about your running mate and his belief in the “Big Lie,” it would have been much easier to select a Lieutenant Governor who didn’t have this in his background. This also would have allowed Ganahl herself to back away from her long refusal to give a straight answer about the “Big Lie.” But now, Ganahl is back to square one after everything she said (or refused to say) over the last 10 months about election fraud.

It’s tough to say with a straight face that you are not an election denier when you pick an election denier for your running mate. But this, apparently, is exactly what Heidi Ganahl wants to be doing for the last 3 months of her campaign.