April 12, 2019 10:14 AM UTC

New GOP Vice Chair, Who Founded the Personhood Movement, Thinks Trump Is Asset in Colorado

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

“One of the things we have to do here in Colorado is talk about how the policies that our president has enacted benefit people here in Colorado and benefit our businesses,” Kristi Burton Brown, Vice Chair of the Colorado Republican Party, told KNUS host Chuck Bonniwell yesterday.

“That’s one thing we have to do as Republicans, is connect our policies to people,” said Brown on air. “And that takes messaging. It also takes candidates who are likable, who can connect with people.”

Brown’s view mirrors comments last month by Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, also a Republican.

“I like the president, and we’ve got to make sure we have an opportunity for the American people to get to like the President,” Gardner told KNUS 710-AM’s Steffan Tubbs. “And I think they like his policies. I think they do.”

Neither Gardner nor Brown specified which Trump policies are allegedly popular here, but in the past Gardner has referenced Trump’s unpopular tax law.

Brown, who launched Colorado’s personhood movement in 2008, once lauded Gardner as being one of the “main stupporters” of the personhood amendment, which aimed to ban all abortion in Colorado but was rejected overwhelmingly three times here.

But the Trump Administration’s anti-choice policies, backed by Gardner and likely by Brown, do not appear to be popular in Colorado.

On the radio, Brown said both Gardner and Trump have a “great shot” at winning next year, explaining that Republicans need to develop a “strategic plan” to reach key demographic groups, especially Hispanics.

“We haven’t even really begun to tap into the groups that will work with us,” said Brown, who’s now an “allied attorney” with Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion organization that’s been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. “We haven’t even begun to tap into the grassroots in Colorado.”

Brown’s focus on refining GOP campaign tactics is consistent with other state Republicans, who believe the GOP can win again in Colorado by embracing Trump and without changing its substantive stances on issues, like healthcare, education, guns, abortion, and more.

Bonniwell said on air that he was told by national Republicans that Cory Gardner “cannot win” in 2020, and Colorado is considered a “tertiary,” low-priority state by Trump’s campaign.

“They do not think they can win,” said Bonniwell, an anti-establishment GOP leader and publisher of the Cherry Creek Chronicle. “They have not appointed a Trump [Colorado] director.”

“Generally, [Gardner] is inking his deal with the Livingston Group for his 2020 livelihood, which his mentor did,” said Bonniwell on air. The Livingston Group is a Washington DC lobbying firm.

“We’re just getting started here,” replied Burton. “And I think there is a lot we can do in Colorado…. We need to not give up yet. We have hardly begun to fight yet in Colorado. The Democrats are fighting a war against us. Let’s take it right to them. We can take our state back. We can win elections.”

Burton said leaders of the Colorado Republican Party are pro-Trump.

“I think President Trump has a great shot at winning in 2020 in Colorado,” said Brown.