As Kyle Clark reports for 9News, — confirmed by Charles Ashby of The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel — the moment you knew was eventually coming has arrived: Embattled Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters has announced that she will seek the Republican nomination for Secretary of State (SOS) instead of running for re-election in 2022.
This news is a bit of a surprise in that Peters had previously said that she would not run for SOS, though this is also a move that she has hinted toward in the past. What changed in recent days/weeks is probably that Peters continues to find herself in all sorts of legal trouble related to her efforts last year to break into her own voting systems in order to prove some sort of 2020 election fraud.
Because of both her growing legal problems and her rising fame among the right-wing base of Republicans in Colorado, a Peters run for SOS always felt inescapable. Peters is a devout follower of Donald Trump, who ran for President in 2016 at least in part to help shield himself from his own legal woes. There is a certain sort of twisted logic to running for higher office in the hope that increasing your public profile makes investigators more reluctant to keep digging into your history; don’t think for a minute that this isn’t a significant factor in Peters’ decision.
Peters is also feeling the love in her own little bubble. She showed up last week to an FEC United event in Castle Rock, Colorado where speakers were quite literally calling for the hanging of elected officials such as Democratic SOS Jena Griswold. She was greeted there as a conquering hero rather than a bumbling criminal:
Shortly after Smith’s threat of violence, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters arrived to a standing ovation from the crowd. pic.twitter.com/J9oLPogSRc
— Chase Woodruff (@dcwoodruff) February 11, 2022
The decision by Peters to run for SOS is, to put it lightly, problematic for the Colorado Republican Party. With Peters in the race, it’s much more difficult for the likes of gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl to get distance from her shenanigans, which undoubtedly do not play well with average voters. Every Republican candidate for every office in Colorado is now going to get asked about whether or not they support Peters and her run for SOS; if you want to win a Republican Primary without crippling your changes in a General Election, there’s no great answer here.
The Peters’ candidacy is also a donkey kick to Republican efforts to win back the SOS office in 2022. The GOP found a “good on paper” candidate in former Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder Pam Anderson, but Anderson’s public acceptance of — you know — reality puts her at odds with the GOP base that will be voting in a June Primary Election. In this environment, Peters is immediately the odds-on favorite to win the Republican nomination in 2022, and the circus she brings along with her will be helpful to other conspiracy-minded candidates such as Senate candidate Ron Hanks.
Republicans did this to themselves by playing footsie with election fraud conspiracies and the people who promote them. Tina Peters for SOS was sadly…inevitable.
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Tina is the gift that keeps on giving to Mesa County political pundits.
Things you have to believe in order to support Peters:
– Trump won the election. There is no evidence of this and all evidence disproves it, but a majority of Rs believe, so okay.
– The fraud was so pervasive it extended to Mesa County, Colorado, a county Trump won with 2/3 of the vote. In a state Biden won by 14%. Very strange place for the bad guys to leave their prints, but DOMINION.
– The best way for the County’s chief election official to investigate the potential fraud is to (criminally) circumvent the procedures in place to protect the election’s safety. Sure, if you believe the first two, I guess the end justifies the means, but do they condone Democrat election officials breaking the law when they think something is amiss?
– The only way to expose the fraud is to secretly provide confidential and highly secure voting data to a pillow salesman, who, among other things is a highly partisan supporter of Trump. Logic dictates they must also be okay with the Denver Clerk and Recorder giving confidential information to Soros. I just realized as I typed this that they already believe this or will believe it, as soon as Trump says it.
I get it, you pissed your guy lost. But at some point you have to wake up from the imaginary world you are living in.
True. Otherwise, you just end up being a Nasty Old (Wo)Man Suffering from Dementia.
If I didn't know better, I would swear this is the plot of David Sirota's next movie! #toofingbizarre
When is the deadline for changing party registration before the primary?
I cannot miss the opportunity to vote for Pam Anderson for the GOP nomination for Secretary of State.
And the day after the primary, I switch back.
Colorado has "same day registration" at the voting service centers. So, you can walk in, work with a election judge to re-register as a Republican, surrender your Democratic primary ballot, get the Republican primary ballot, mark and drop the ballot into the ballot box at the center, and then re-register on your way out.
Or, if you want to be convenient and have a Colorado driver's license, you can register online and have a ballot sent to you. Register Unaffiliated and you can have BOTH Democratic and Republican primary ballots sent, and you can choose which one to vote and return until 7 pm of election day.
Thanks….. that's a lot easier than I thought.
Tina Peters is a hero in the bubble for sure. For everyone else with a functioning mind, she's a complete Trumpy nutter hell bent on destroying and rigging a very secure electoral system, just so her side can cheat to win. Trumpism over state, Trumpism over country, along with a belief that the laws I don't like are meant to be circumvented, or completely ignored. No thanks to this rage-a-holic banana republic shit.
Are they going to assemble a complete ticket of nut cases or just cherry pick offices like Sec. of State, US Senate, US House CD 3 and CD 8?
Because if they do the former, they have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to nut case candidate recruitment. Tim Neville for governor with Vicky Marble for lt. governor. One of the constitutional sheriffs for AG (it doesn't matter which since they're fungible). Roger Edwards for Treasurer.
The possibilities are mind boggling.
So, the pNasty ticket?
Yes, we're always chock full of nutters here in Colorado. Probably the same amount per capita as before, but now they're much more vocal. We all know who to thank for that.
Peters' Last Stand.
. . . er, I mean, "latest scam."
(Probably as much of an effort to raise bail money, as it is a "serious" campaign for office — she's gotta' be considered a flight risk??)
I'm sort of wondering — if Tina Peters ran and actually won the election, could someone go to court and a judge could AGAIN block her ability to function as an Election Officer based on prior activity.
I think the only recourses would be convictions or a recall effort.