October 06, 2023 03:54 PM UTC

Civil War: Dave Williams Ghost-Writes Dick Wadhams Hit Job?

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• by: Colorado Pols

A guest op-ed appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette last Tuesday, ostensibly written by freshman whack-right Republican state Rep. Ken “Skin” DeGraaf and castigating former Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams for Wadhams’ increasingly intense criticism of the current party chairman, former Rep. Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams:

Dick Wadhams, although a former Chairman of the Colorado GOP, is a prime example of the problems that plague Republicans. While he wags his finger, he ignores his tenure that was marked by a series of electoral failures, to include John Hickenlooper’s 2010 victory that almost made the GOP a minor party…

As the Colorado Republican Party is being consulted into irrelevance, it seems the costly advice yields little-to-no tangible results. Consultants tout their vast experience and insider knowledge, but their uninspiring message continues to not inspire. The past 20-plus years demonstrate this hard reality. Despite their supposed expertise, the Colorado GOP has consistently lost ground and suffered worse results after next. What’s beyond shameful is they then try to blame their failures on grassroots activists who never controlled the party. But, a grifter’s gotta grift, and there’s no room for personal responsibility in that.

They tell voters cycle after cycle that if Republicans nominate their milquetoast candidates, and campaign with their unconvincing message, then the GOP will win again. Well, tell that to Senator Joe O’Dea, or Secretary Pam Anderson. [Pols emphasis] By the way, has anyone heard anything from either of these flag-bearers in our fight against totalitarianism? Nor have I, and the silence is deafening…

This does sum up pretty well the theory held by the disaffected far right wing of Colorado Republicans who took power at the state party this year with Dave Williams. These people honestly believe that the “corporate” Republicans who won the primary elections in 2022 like Joe O’Dea and Williams’ own primary opponent Rep. Doug Lamborn were inferior candidates to the GOP primary losers, such as Williams, Rep. “Raging” Ron Hanks and indicted election denier Tina Peters. All of us outside the MAGA unreality bubble are of course aware that these minor candidate crackpots would be much less competitive, but the primary losers have the advantage of never having had their far-fetched theory tested in a general election.

It’s one of a numbers of reasons Colorado Democrats are increasingly excited about 2024.

But when the target of all this red-on-red vitriol read this op-ed, the voice Dick Wadhams heard ringing out from the page wasn’t Ken DeGraaf’s at all. Yesterday, Wadhams appeared on shock jock Peter Boyles’ AM radio show to let his fury at Dave Williams fly.

And holy crap, did the fury fly:

BOYLES: Do you believe that, the claimant that is Ken DeGraaf wrote this? Why do I…
WADHAMS: No Peter.
BOYLES: See? I’m like you.
WADHAMS: Not for a moment, Peter. Dave Williams wrote that piece. He is a gutless coward. He wouldn’t put his name on this, he got this state rep there who’s only been around Colorado Springs and the Colorado Republican Party for a couple of years. So he talks to this guy into signing this, he is a gutless coward and wouldn’t put his name on this.
BOYLES: I didn’t think that this DeGraaf character wrote it. I mean, and I’ve known Dave Williams, I consider him you know a friend though we disagree on so many things politically, but I really got the sense, and we’ll see if he’ll talk to us this morning, that he, he didn’t write it. That he…
WADHAMS: He didn’t write it.
BOYLES: That DeGraaf didn’t write it.
WADHAMS: Yeah. He, he claims that these were DeGraaf’s words, but they aren’t. This is Dave Williams, he’s a gutless coward, he wants–and he’s driving the Republican Party into the ground, Peter. They’re not raising any money. They’re trying to piss off every unaffiliated voter in Colorado, they’re trying to deny 900,000 Republicans the right to vote in a primary. He’s a disaster, he’s a liar, and that’s the sum total of who this guy is. That’s all there is to it.

We’re inclined to agree that this op-ed reads very much like one of Dave Williams’ angry email screeds about pride parades and/or Republicans who don’t pass the purity test. On the House floor during his first session in the legislature, DeGraaf certainly accounted for his fair share of rambling at the mic and then some, but he was not nearly as comfortable stringing words together as his partner in extended extemporaneous blather Rep. Scott “There Is No” Bottoms.

Either way, what we’re seeing here is the front line of the Colorado Republican Party’s ongoing ideological civil war. Wadhams, who has watched helplessly for the past decade as the dysfunctional far right came to dominate state GOP politics while surrendering the last vestiges of actual power to Democrats, is factually correct–but in every other respect Wadhams is hopelessly out of touch with the direction Dave Williams is taking the party.

We’ve said it before. Dave Williams’ Republican Party is not about winning elections. First and foremost, they’re about settling internal scores regardless of the division that creates. Then they’re about greasing the wheels for unelectable candidates who otherwise lose primaries. Finally in November of 2024 it will be about rebuilding after another general election pummeling. But that’s far enough over the horizon that Williams isn’t even a little bit concerned.

In time, Dick Wadhams will see the proverbial back side of Dave Williams.

But the Republican Party’s identity crisis will go on long after both of them are done dueling op-eds.