As briefly noted by several media outlets, the Colorado Statesman’s Ernest Luning reports:
[O]n Tuesday, state Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, told The Statesman she intends to run hard for her El Paso County seat despite sharing it under the new maps with House Majority Leader Amy Stephens, R-Monument.
“I look forward to a vigorous reelection campaign in the upcoming months,” Looper said, noting that Stephens has already drawn a primary challenge in retired Air Force Major General Gar Graham…
That’s right, folks, since about the first week of this month–meaning before the finalization of reapportionment maps–there has been another challenger lurking out there against House Majority Leader Amy Stephens. In the Colorado Springs Independent earlier in December, a fascinating report about retired Gen. Gar Graham’s thoughts on the possibility of a three-way fight between himself, Rep. Marsha Looper of Calhan, and Stephens:
“Gar, I’m gonna ask you one final question,” [Host Ken] Clark [of Grassroots Radio] asked, “because this is something that concerns me personally. If you are thrust into District 19, and it looks like we are going to have a three-way race – Gar, Amy, and Marsha Looper – what are you gonna do then?”
“If, in fact, it turns into a 19-20 blend,” Graham began, “and we have three candidates, my first order of business, my first priority is to sit down with Marsha and discuss, ‘How are we going to make sure Amy doesn’t go back to Denver?’ That’s No. 1. No. 2, then I want to pay a little bit of attention to Rep. Looper’s record. I really haven’t studied it; I don’t know much about the lady. And No. 3, I’m gonna make sure we pay attention to what the voters want. Now there’s a fair amount of anti-incumbent feeling right now, and I think that’s because a lot of our problems are from the people who are in there. …”
“I gotta tell you, I was really looking forward to the toe-to-toe battle between Rep. Looper and Rep. Stephens,” Clark responded, “because I do know Rep. Looper very, very well; she is rock solid. … So, Gar, I would ask that you study that very, very hard. The worst thing, I think, that could happen is that we end up with a three-way race and Amy gets put back in there.” [Pols emphasis]
And that’s consistent with what we’re hearing from supporters from Rep. Looper in her primary bid against Majority Leader Stephens. Gen. Graham’s candidacy is being pushed by hard-right elements in El Paso County loyal to former Sen. Dave Schultheis and the Republican Study Committee of Colorado, which you might recall suffered a large reduction in membership following accusations of political meddling in the spring–including the loss of Majority Leader Stephens. What Looper’s intercessors with the Schultheis wing of the party are saying is that she can oust Stephens on the new map, and Gen. Graham’s entry isn’t worth the risk.
But reportedly, the Dave Schultheises of the world are not convinced.
And this brings us to a story from Lynn Bartels of the Denver paper this weekend on the same general subject. Since the finalization of reapportionment maps earlier this month, one of the principal charges leveled by Republicans is that of “misogyny”–citing the combination of Stephens vs. Looper in HD-19 as their best example to substantiate a rather ugly accusation.
Bartels has repudiated this claim a couple of times; first in a blog post noting such luminary events for women in GOP politics as Jane Norton’s loss to Ken Buck, then this weekend’s more detailed story citing Gen. Graham’s Schultheis-backed run against Stephens and Looper. Bartels is very clear that Graham’s reasons for running predate the controversy over reapportionment, going back to Stephens’ sponsorship of the “AmyCare” health insurance exchange bill. Taking just the 2006 GOP primaries as one example, Bartels recounts three female Republican legislative candidates who were defeated by men. In the last decade as Bartels reports, the percentage of Republican women in the Colorado legislature plunged before recovering somewhat last election cycle–to a level still only half that of Democratic women.
Bartels’ full story is worth the read: it seems that there are plenty of Republican women willing to comment on red-on-red “misogyny,” the kind Republicans don’t put in their press releases.
Bottom line: it was always perilous for the GOP to claim Democrats were “biased against women” in the production of these maps, and now they’re being shown exactly why. To answer the charge that Democrats may have drawn maps problematic for individual Republican women incumbents, tales of Republicans taking a more direct approach amongst themselves.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Weekend Open Thread
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Weekend Open Thread
BY: MichaelBowman
IN: How Will Denver’s Activist Archbishop Play With The New American Pope?
BY: notaskinnycook
IN: Gabe Evans, National Poster Child For Vulnerable Republicans
BY: Ben Folds5
IN: Weekend Open Thread
BY: notaskinnycook
IN: Weekend Open Thread
BY: Ben Folds5
IN: So, About That Labor Peace Act…
BY: spaceman2021
IN: So, About That Labor Peace Act…
BY: Meiner49er
IN: So, About That Labor Peace Act…
BY: Ben Folds5
IN: Friday Open Thread
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!
Amy Stephens is one of the top fundraisers for the House GOP. If she is tied down in a primary fight the whole Republican House caucus will suffer.
Democrats did attack conservative women with these maps. Democrats did so because they knew they could deflect the charge of misogyny because they consider themselves the “traditional” representatives of women.
The attack from Bartels is unfair, but Pols has taken it to a new level of hypocrisy. Should Ed Perlmutter be declared a misogynist for defeating Peggy Lamm in ’06? Should the same be said of Barack Obama after his defeat of Hillary Clinton? In the Bartels/Pols view of the world, should EVERY Republican woman be guaranteed victory or their primary opponents declared misogynist? I guess so!
The part about Schultheis is the best, though. Since when did the GOP ever have control of Dave Schultheis? Bartels knows better than that. This proves she was writing a hit piece to anyone who understands Republican politics.
Democrats knew what they were doing, and they knew what they’d say to try and escape responsibility for what they did. It’s not going to work. The violence done against conservative women by Democrats is too obvious to paper over with your stereotypes.
Thank you, Say Hey Kid, for reminding everybody what this is really all about.
On account of I’d like to retain my sanity.
Two legs
bad!better.The two balls that count in the “Republican” Party of today. Especially in El Paso. AGOP you made me laugh this time. Obviously you’re too young to remember what your “Republican” Party has been doing for years. Just so you know, in the 1980’s and early 1990’s moderate Republican women from the suburbs dominated the State Legislature which was controlled by Republicans. In 1992 you decided that those Republican women were “RINO’s” and you had to get rid of them with a bunch of men who were more perfect. Well, you did in the primary, but what you didn’t realize was that those women and a bunch of men like me became Rhinos and we beat your butt. Can you say Mike Feeley???? Well, you did yourselves in with Arapahoe County and Jeffco swing voters. We still remember. We’re still all pro-choice. We still all vote, we just don’t vote for Republicans any more. Why have the “Republicans” in this state fallen to such low estate over the last 20 years. Cause we beat your ass in the suburbs. You have no one to blame but your mysoginist leaders. Hahahahahahahaha. The really funny thing is that now you’ve lost the next generation, our daughters and grand daughters. My two daughters are a Democrat and an unaffiliate. Now why would that be when daddy was a big wheel in the Republican Party when they were growing up? Well, it’s because their mother and their father god mad. And, we’re getting even. Have a good time ArapIrrelevant.
that Amy Stephens is being attacked as a “lefty”.
Sometimes all the news comes from the Onion.
Rep. Stephens is, if anything, a very conservative Republican but that no longer matters in the Republican Party. In today’s Republican Party, you must pass every litmus test 100% of the time, everytime the test is given. Any deviation from ironclad ideology is unacceptable and a Republican who commits even one sin is drummed out of the party. Rigidity is now a Republican virtue. Thinking for yourself or thinking through an issue is intolerable. Republican ideology has the virtue of simplicity but following it blindly will only lead to ruin. If he was alive, President Lincoln would be ashamed of what the Republican Party has become.
Kim Jung Il – if HE were alive – would be hopeful for Republican Amerika!
misogynistic, mofo SOB. Thinks he can trample roughshod and unchecked over top of our beloved fair-haired, flower-of-Colorado-womanhood House Majority Leader — wants to cheat her out of her rightful seat, does he? Well, . . .
Say what? . . . You say he’s a General? . . . A Republican General? . . . A rock solid c-o-n-s-e-r-v-a-t-i-v-e Republican General? Well, . . .
Well, Hell, why didn’t you something earlier, friend — we’ve been hoping for some patriotic, constitution-following salt of the earth that would finally run that liberal, health-car-loving witch out of town — it’s far past to finally halt her pinko reign of terror; to once and for all end her demented plans for destroying this fine state. Go Gar!
(This important message brought to you by the Colorado GOP, . . . because whatever you do, IOKIYAR in Colorado.)