Colorado's Last GOP Governor Finally Tells Trump It's Over

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by: Colorado Pols

Former Gov. Bill Owens (R).

9NEWS’ Dacia Johnson reports, former GOP Gov. Bill Owens checks in somewhere in the middle of the pack of Republican officials and alumni breaking the news to President Donald Trump that his dead-ender quest to overturn the unambiguous result of the 2020 election is over:

A former Colorado Republican governor is asking President Donald Trump to “respect the will of the voters,” using his own election as an example.

Bill Owens was the governor of Colorado from 1999-2007 and on Facebook said, “in 1998 I was the first Republican to be elected Governor of the State of Colorado in 24 years … I won that 1998 race by 8,297 votes out of 1.3 million cast.”

But in his Facebook post yesterday, Gov. Owens says it’s time for Trump to hang up his spurs:

For the good of the country and our democracy President Trump needs to respect the will of the voters, accede to the wishes of the electorate, and help prepare the way for the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden. And—no matter our own personal political views—we should, as Americans, do the same.

Of course it’s a welcome sign to see some Republicans starting to abandon Donald Trump as he continues his equal parts damaging and pathetic temper tantrum over losing the 2020 presidential election by in excess of six million votes and counting, and an Electoral College margin equal to what Trump himself called a “landslide” four years ago. The problem is that this accelerating withdrawal of support from Trump is at least two weeks too late, and is coming only after it’s become clear that a majority of the Republican base has internalized a fictional narrative that the election was stolen.

That’s why, instead of expressing gratitude for Bill Owens “breaking ranks” three weeks after the election, and Chris Christie doing the same yesterday, and every Republican about to join them in the coming days, we’re obliged to ask: why wasn’t it three days? By letting this shameful, baseless second-guessing of American democracy go on as long as it has, tremendous harm has already been done. Millions of Americans now think democracy failed, when it in fact succeeded in its most difficult test since the Civil War.

More was needed. More is needed. And no gratitude is in order for so belatedly speaking up.

12 thoughts on “Colorado’s Last GOP Governor Finally Tells Trump It’s Over”

JeffcoBlue says:

November 23, 2020 at 10:42 am

Fuck Bill Owens. I never did personally, but plenty of other girls sure did!

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1. Diogenesdemar says:
  
  November 23, 2020 at 11:46 am
  
  Funny to hear this guy’s advising anyone else, it’s time to stop fucking around.
  
  Too bad for Ol’ Goody Woody that he didn’t know enough to have several stacks of $130,000 on hand . . .
  
  . . . oh, yeah, and a Slovenian porn-star photo-op hired accomplice.
  
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MichaelBowman says:

November 23, 2020 at 10:55 am

Someone ask Carrots how this works out.

(again, a tweet for everything)

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Gilpin Guy says:

November 23, 2020 at 11:30 am

I keep hearing this meme of "tremendous harm being done because Trump is acting like Trump" and don't get it. Who is being harmed and in what ways?

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1. JohnInDenver says:
  
  November 23, 2020 at 12:57 pm
  
  A brief intro to the importance of a transition is spelled out in the Atlantic Magazine:
  
  Why You Don’t Mess Around With Presidential Transitions
  
  It may help to imagine a presidential transition as a private-sector company going through a merger. With only two months of preparation, the new CEO must take over a $2 trillion enterprise with 4 million employees and hire 4,000 managers, 1,500 of whom have to be vetted by a hostile board of directors. Then, on his first day in the corner office, the new top man must be ready to face the most difficult challenges of running the business while simultaneously launching a brand refresh and implementing an entirely new strategic plan. Oh, and he’ll have to do all of his prep work through Zoom, during a pandemic spike that he’s supposed to manage between meetings about how to revive a crumpled economy. “Every day matters in a transition, and every day that is lost is more important than the previous day,” David Marchick, the director of the Center for Presidential Transition, told me. “You can’t make it up.”
  
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2. notaskinnycook says:
  
  November 23, 2020 at 9:22 pm
  
  The Screaming Yam is enjoying trying to set Biden up to fail. It won’t work. The President-elect has too much government experience and he’s choosing equally qualified people. From the picks he’s already made, it seems he’s “getting the band back together” from the Obama Administration. I think he’ll be okay, which will really aggravate Yammie-pie.
  
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MADCO says:

November 23, 2020 at 2:55 pm

I am sure that now trump will start paying attention.

I mean, no way he's going to ignore a former governor of Colorado that almost no one in Colorado remembers

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gertie97 says:

November 23, 2020 at 3:07 pm

Owens had the class to speak up. Where are the rest of his ilk?

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1. kwtree says:
  
  November 23, 2020 at 10:46 pm
  
  Let’s have an ilk hunt!
  
  We’re hunting living GOP politicians who have run or won for Governor or another statewide office. Colorado Sun explored Colorado Republican responses in depth: “Where do Colorado Republicans go from here?”
  
  But I wanted to know if any of them had something cogent to say about Trump’s attempt to declare that votes be damned, he could declare himself the winner, and never concede to Biden.
  
  Walker Stapleton: Quotes his cousin George Bush’s congrats to Joe Biden on Walker’s Twitter feed. Kind of a big hint there – if cuz Dubya did it, then mebbe Trump should. But only a hint.
  
  George Brauchler: Tweets about the recount for the successor to his 18th District DA job. (John Kellner (R) currently leading by ~ 1400 votes – recount pending . Local GOP is claiming fraud, of course.). Brauchler isn’t waiting for the recount – he is transitioning to the R candidate because “Every day is needed for a seamless transition”. So he’s declaring an R victory before the recount even happens. Hm.
  
  Cory Gardner: Trump concession? No “gotcha questions”, please. Par for the course for Coreless.
  
  Wayne Williams: Dominion voting machines work fine in Colorado. No comment about Trump’s accusations about Dominion elsewhere.
  
  So yeah, guess Owens is the best of his ilk.
  
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RepealAndReplace says:

November 24, 2020 at 11:23 am

How times have changed…..

In 1998 when he ran for governor, I saw Owens as some type of extremist RWNJ. Little did I know that he was a pragmatic conservative. By that measure, he could not possibly win elected office today in that party.

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RavenDawg says:

November 24, 2020 at 3:44 pm

When the rats leave a doomed ship does one take it as an act of courage or simply an indication of the state of the ship?

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1. RepealAndReplace says:
  
  November 24, 2020 at 4:13 pm
  
  Hey, most of the rats are still imbibing on the Kool-Aid as the water level is rising up to their beady little eyes.
  
  The ones who know that the ship is doomed are the smart ones.
  
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