February 26, 2009 07:58 PM UTC

This Is NOT The Way It's "Always Been"

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Denver Post reports:

Some Republicans said the comments also complicate the party’s efforts to embrace a new image and win over voters who have turned to Democrats in recent election cycles. Sean Duffy, a political consultant who was a senior aide to Gov. Bill Owens, said Republicans have to do a better job of making their arguments in ways that are more inclusive and tolerant…

Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, declined Wednesday to strongly criticize Renfroe’s remarks, saying only that while he agrees with Renfroe’s views on gay marriage, he would have made the argument in a different way to recognize the humanity of people on the other side.

Then he suggested Democrats are the ones at the Capitol picking some of the fights…

Veiga said she is surprised other Republican lawmakers have not come out forcefully to condemn the comments. She said when she brought her concerns to Penry, he told her only that her objection was “duly noted.”

Penry said Democrats are also guilty of saying offensive things. He pointed to Senate Majority Leader Brandon Shaffer suggesting during the debate on SB 88 that Democrats’ position was more “enlightened.”

Penry said he would not tell his colleagues what to say at the microphone.

It is not unprecedented, though, for party leaders to scold lawmakers for offensive remarks.

In 2005, in vetoing a bill outlawing workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians, Owens scolded fellow Republicans, saying debate over the bill was “marked by coarseness and insensitivity that was simply wrong.”

We don’t claim to fully understand what has happened in the last few weeks as the Colorado GOP has utterly lost control of their message, letting the worst extremists among them hog the limelight and dominate news coverage from the legislature. But we’re not alone in being pretty sure that it is much worse now than in prior years.

This isn’t a “free speech” issue, since people have a right to say whatever whacked-out thing they want in this country. But as elected leaders who have an obligation not only to effectively govern but also to retain some kind of political viability as a minority going into another election, what we’re seeing here is an uncontrolled faceplant. There’s nobody in charge, nobody who either has the authority or–growing possibility–the inclination to get control of this disaster before it turns off every psychologically well-adjusted voter in this state.

Bill Owens would never have let it happen.

It makes your head want to explode (and some Republicans are doing just that)–Rep. Don Marostica had his position on the Joint Budget Committee publicly threatened, and was forced to apologize by House leadership and Dick Wadhams for the offense of dismissing sacred cow “has-beens” Mark Hillman and Jon Caldara. In 2006, Rep. Jim Welker’s appalling “black moral poverty” emails got him unceremoniously pushed into early retirement by Republican leaders.

Today in Josh Penry’s Senate, Sen. Scott Renfroe compares homosexuality to murder and Sen. Dave Schultheis hopes on the record that babies get AIDS.

And nobody bats an eye?

Leadership. Faceplant. Spectacle. All over TV. Voters. Watching…