September 24, 2012 09:10 PM UTC

Fight Back Colorado's First Target? State Rep. Robert Ramirez.

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• by: Colorado Pols

Fight Back Colorado, the political action committee organized in response to Republican blockage of civil unions legislation in the State House earlier this year, has now officially jumped into the general election fray, setting its sights on State Rep. Robert Ramirez with the release of a new targeted mailer.

From Westword:

Fight Back Colorado, a group devoted to defeating anti-civil union lawmakers, has announced its first target: Representative Robert Ramirez, a Westminster Republican who narrowly won his race two years ago and who Fight Back Colorado says flip-flopped on civil unions. The group has sent mailers to voters in Jefferson County that depict Ramirez as a bomber pilot and say he’s “taking Jeffco the wrong way!”

“He didn’t vote on civil unions, but he committed to support civil unions and then, when the time came, he basically turned his back on the community,” says Roger Sherman, treasurer and spokesman for Fight Back Colorado, which was formed after legislators defeated civil unions. “We had counted on him, and a legislator ought to be held accountable for his word. When he flip-flopped, he became a target.”

Ramirez says he supports rights for same-sex couples, but doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage. “I told them I supported civil unions, but I don’t support the bill they brought through last time,” he says. “The bill they brought through last time was marriage.”

In many ways, Ramirez is a symbolically perfect candidate for the group to attack. The Republican originally pledged to support this year’s civil unions legislation before attending a traditional marriage rally on the steps of the Capitol the day after his party’s leadership killed the bill. By launching its opening salvo at Ramirez, Fight Back Colorado is sending the message that nobody who opposed civil unions is safe, least of all the guy who lacks even the backbone to stand by his beliefs.

Attacking Ramirez makes perfect sense from an ideological perspective. More importantly, however, it’s also sound strategy. Republicans were able to block a floor vote on civil unions because they maintain a one-seat majority in the House — a majority Ramirez secured in 2010 when he beat incumbent Democrat Debbie Benefield by fewer than 200 votes.

As one of the weakest incumbent House Republicans in the state right now, the path towards enacting civil unions inevitably runs through HD-29. Democrats and their liberal infrastructure groups simply cannot take back the House and pass civil unions legislation without winning against Ramirez. It’s a critical pick-up, necessary to pad against losses caused elsewhere by redistricting.

Although Ramirez’s dynamo Democratic challenger Tracy Kraft-Tharp could probably win the race without any outside help, these late-game independent expenditure attacks make her job that much easier as election day approaches.

In fact, Ramirez has been so flaky a legislator and incapable a campaigner that all Kraft-Tharp has to do at this point is not be him.