Tea Party Promises and Empty Talking Points May Doom Neville

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by: Colorado Pols

Republican Scott Tipton got elected to Congress in 2010 in part by saying pretty much whatever the hell he wanted to say without any real eyebrow raising from GOP supporters. But since he hasn’t been able to come close to accomplishing, well, anything he promised, the right-wing and Tea Party factions of the GOP are pretty pissed off.

This is a lesson that new Republican state senator Tim Neville may want to remember. Neville upset state Rep. Jim Kerr last week for the right to replace Mike Kopp, who resigned from SD-22 to spend more time with his family. Neville seems destined to face a primary next summer, which could be as nasty as the 2006 battle that got Kopp elected over the appointed Kiki Traylor, and if he does, he’ll probably half some serious ‘splaining to do. Neville won the vacancy by promising unicorns and rainbows to the GOP faithful, as The Colorado Statesman notes:

He promised to “pass a Right to Work law in this state,” said it was time to “put an end to illegal immigration in this state” and vowed to stop “Gov. John Hickenlooper’s sanctuary city policy.” He also promised: “I will fight to protect our rights to keep and bear arms” and pledged to “oppose all tax increases, even those disguised as fees.”

Uh, yeah. Good luck with all that. Kerr was more judicious in his promises, in large part because he’s been in the legislature for nearly 8 years and has an idea of what you can actually accomplish; his reluctance to promise the moon may have cost him the vacancy appointment, but at least he wasn’t going to throw out empty platitudes. Come next summer, plenty of potential Republican candidates will be able to point to Neville’s nonsense with extravagant promises of their own…and this will all start back up again, and again, and again.

Because of the timing of Kopp’s exit, SD-22 will see consecutive elections in 2012 and 2014, which opens up what could be a long and vicious cycle of Tea Party talking points nonsense. Kopp, in fact, seemed resigned to at least a primary in 2012:

“I don’t want to prognosticate too early, however, the maps I saw of this district lead me to believe the real fight will be a family feud, a primary type of fight,” he said, and then he hastened to add: ” I’m not saying there will be, I’m not encouraging that, but if there’s going to be a fight, that’s where it’s going to be.”

We wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Neville, like Traylor in 2006, only lasted one session in the legislature before being ousted in a primary (although for entirely different reasons than Traylor, who was a moderate candidate). Republican supporters were apparently enamored with Neville’s “leadership” in the 2011 Jefferson County School Board races, oddly ignoring the fact that the two Republican-backed candidates were absolutely destroyed at the ballot box. Preston Branaugh and Jim Powers were both awful candidates who ran awful campaigns; if Neville was indeed instrumental in that fiasco, it doesn’t bode well for his 2012 prospects.

13 thoughts on “Tea Party Promises and Empty Talking Points May Doom Neville”

ArapaGOP says:

November 9, 2011 at 11:52 pm

SB-200 was a flash point for this decision more than the school board races. Kerr’s defeat is being noticed by Republicans, but not for the reasons you think.

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1. Aristotle says:
  
  November 10, 2011 at 12:01 am
  
  What ARE the reasons, if not the ones Pols thinks?
  
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  1. redstateblues says:
    
    November 10, 2011 at 12:09 am
    
    Conservatives are finally realizing that merely being conservative ins’t enough. You have to be a double plus arch-conservative if you want to make it in today’s GOP.
    
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2. MissingPundit says:
  
  November 10, 2011 at 12:14 am
  
  I think our eyes are pretty wide open about what happened during the Amycare fight, and a lot of what I was expecting has come to pass. The SD22 vacancy is just the latest episode.
  
  At some point, it would be refreshing if a Republican could denounce the “radical right” at times other than losing an election.
  
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MissingPundit says:

November 10, 2011 at 12:30 am

Cadman’s your minority leader. Renfroe’s in leadership. And Penry and Brophy got sidelined for heresy.

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Craig says:

November 10, 2011 at 12:54 am

The last bastion of Republicanism in Jeffco falls. Please, my friends in South Jeffco, join me in destroying these people who have stolen the “Republican Party” and turned it into the party of using governmental power to enforce its will. A party where no dissent is allowed. A party where service and activism mean nothing if you are not 100% on their issues. A party who seeks out and tries to elect the same pretty boys for every office, i.e. the ones who can take instructions and aren’t very smart. The party that hates women. I’ve been telling you for 25 years what was going on. You’ve given me a hard time. It’s time to admit that I was right. Join me. Dump the “Republican” party.

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1. ArapaGOP says:
  
  November 10, 2011 at 1:15 am
  
  That you say you’re a former Republican, but you tell people to “dump” the Party. I know many good Republicans who disagree with decisions that are made, and they stay to make a difference.
  
  I think you’re either a pathetic quitter or you were never a real Republican to begin with. What do you say about that?
  
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  1. MADCO says:
    
    November 10, 2011 at 1:19 am
    
    And yet, you object when people call you names.
    
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  2. Craig says:
    
    November 10, 2011 at 3:13 am
    
    But you miss that one. I started campaigning for REpublicans in 1970 for Clark and Green for CU Board of Regents and Armstrong for Lt. Gov. I was raised in your county and was everything from young gopher to Area Leader. When I came back from college and law school, I moved to Jeffco in 1982. In 1986 I became the Vice Chair of the Jeffco Republican Party. In 1989 I became the youngest Chair of the Jeffco Republican Party ever. That year, the party only lost one, one, one race in Jeffco. We controlled every, every seat in the legislature. I even worked with Pat Miller to get her elected. In 1992 I was elected a national delegate to the Bush convention over Congressman Schaefer’s sitting district director and his chief fundraiser. I have been asked to run for lots of offices and I was on lots and lots of committees for the state party. I was Vice Chair of the 5th Congressional. Care to match qualifications with me? *&^$%&%##@!!! Most other people on this web-site know very well who I am. I’ll put my reputation and my Republican bona-fides up against you any day, you sniveling little jerk.
    
    As for your stay and fight attitude, I tried that for ten years. Then I realized that it was unthinking, ridiculous people like you that were really running things and that I was not welcome. I didn’t leave the party, it threw me out because I dared to be an old-fashioned conservative rather than todays faux “Repulicans” who just want to use government power to get people to do what they want, who wouldn’t know small government if they saw it, who want to revisit decisions made 50, 70, 100 years ago, who have no ideas, who will buy anything fed to them by their radio and television masters, who sold out this country at every turn and who are nothing but power hungray wanna bes who don’t have anything better to do and who see politics as a great calling.
    
    You make me sick. You are the problem. The only way to solve the problem is to destroy those who today think they are Republicans. I am laughing, laughing on the money brokers who are finally learning that the inmates are governing the asylum now. They are stuck with Mitt Romney. Hahahahahahaha! Gag on it. The inmates run the asylum now, you have let the genie out of the bottle. Please, please, have fun trying to put it back in. It’ll be my continuing pleasure to watch the pretty boys who you guys put up as candidates who have no brain, no courage, no nothing except blind ambition and blind ideology destroy themselves. I don’t need to do anything except with my old Republican friends and toast to your idiocy.
    
    Understand now?
    
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    1. Sir Robin says:
      
      November 10, 2011 at 4:34 am
      
      That was a refreshing read from a true Republican. Thank you for representing and speaking out for those who have been pushed out by this renegade group of ….well, you said it best Craig,
      
      Thanks again!
      
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2. MADCO says:
  
  November 10, 2011 at 1:22 am
  
  If Presidents T. Roosevelt, Eisnhower or Reagan were alive and running today, they’d have to run as D’s or independents.
  
  No way the GOTP of 2011 would allow trust busting, conversion of land to national parks, the dismantling and defunding of the military industrial complex, nor raising taxes to stabilize social security and react seriously to the deficit.
  
  Lincoln and NIxon were always RINO – and could continue to run as such.
  
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  1. Craig says:
    
    November 10, 2011 at 3:23 am
    
    George Bush the 1st, Gerald Ford, one of the kindest, gentlest and thinking guys ever to serve in the White House. No one is good enough for these guys they might as well run “Republican Platform” as their candidate, because that’s all the thinking these guys they nominate today. Really, you have only to look at the embarassment of the Jeffco GOP today see what the problem with the “Republican” Party today is. They can’t win elections. It started in 1992 when they ran nuts against incumbent “moderates” and lost to liberal Dems like Mike Feeley. It’s only gotten worse since then. Parties are about winning elections and nothing else. This party thinks its on a Crusade. Fine, but you aren’t winning many elections any more. One, count them one Republican State Senator from Jeffco. Three, count them three State Reps from Jeffco and one of them is a pretty main-stream Republican from my time and another, well, he just got dissed by the party for hearasy. The Jeffco Republican Party is why this state has had Democratic Governors and Democratic Legislatures for the last 10 years. It was lost in the “Country Club” Republican areas where I reside and where all my friends reside. You’re not getting them back. They’re done with you and Republicans deserve it. Hahahahahahaha. I was just one of the early ones to figure it out because I saw it from the inside, up close and personal. Hahahahahahaha. Suck it.
    
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    1. MADCO says:
      
      November 10, 2011 at 5:27 pm
      
      And for good reason.
      
      But the Republican party lie has always been that it’s about ideology, not suppression. That class warfare is the tool of the left and the poor. That gov’t non interference and maximum personal freedom is what the R’s want, while the D’s want socialism or even communism. That R”s love all religions, and just happen to mostly be Chrisitan. That, after all those trivial social issues that no one really cares about (except we all do) the R’s are the party of fiscal responsibility.
      
      It’s all a political lie. The difference between political lies and other lies ? No one continues believing or defending the other lies when the lie is exposed.
      
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