September 15, 2012 07:36 PM UTC

Rogue Elephants Toe Jam

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• by: American Patriot

(Edited slightly for front-paging (split at the jump). This blog could use more insider gossip from outside the Denver/Boulder/Jeffco area. – promoted by ProgressiveCowgirl)

A Commentary by American Patriot

There’s a new joke making the rounds in the happy valley (that place that is known to outside world as Mesa County Colorado).  Question: What’s that red stuff between the rogue elephant’s toes?  Answer; It’s Toe Jam, Wright?  And then everyone laughs.  Everyone that is, except the embattled Republican House district 54 candidate, Jared Wright who is the butt of the joke because of his current predicament of being caught between two warring factions of the Mesa County Republican Party.

The fight is all about power and money; about who will control the power of the Republican Party on the western slope.  It’s the old guard GOP resisting a hostile takeover by a new insurgent faction who has at various times declared themselves to be “conservative” or “Tea Party”.  What they really are; is a GOP created shill group “in RINO clothing that doesn’t fit very well” whose genesis was rooted (ironically) in the GOP old guard’s efforts to co-opt the Tea Party movement by creating the umbrella group Western Slope Conservative Alliance.

But the best laid plans of mice and elephants often go awry and that’s what happened when the RINO umbrella group turned on their old guard masters.  http://www.gjsentinel.com/news…  That’s the power part of the rogue elephant brawl.  Then came HB12-1280 (the gambling bill) which would have fast tracked an end run around the voters (with a no competition clause) to establish a race track and casino on the old Mesa County Fairgrounds; a pot of gold which the newcomers immediately laid claim to when their former board president Jennifer Bailey defected from her staff job with the Tipton administration to become a lobbyist for 12-1280 and at the same time to join the re-election campaign of HD 55 Ray Scott who was the bill’s co-sponsor.

But that’s when Murphy’s Law kicked in and the real Tea Party (GJResult) caught scent of the special interest gambling plot and voiced their concerns in an email blast to their database.  Eyebrows were raised and questions were asked and eventually those questions got around to the Fruita Cop turned candidate (who was at the time considered the Republican anointed one) in what has been described by some insiders as an ambush and by others as a clandestine meeting referred to locally as the meeting of “Snow White and the seven doofs”.

That meeting reportedly occurred in the home of Jennifer and Gary Bailey (the former and current Western Slope Conservative Alliance board Presidents respectively) and that’s where the proverbial stuff hit the fan.  That’s where Jared Wright went from a shoe in to toe jam when he declared himself to be in opposition to the passage of the gambling bill.  Posted on Jared Wright’s campaign website is an email he received threatening a “smear campaign” by his former supporters if their campaign contributions were not returned.  

But in Mesa County, such an email would hardly raise eyebrows except for the fact that the email emanated from the spouse of none other than the Mesa County Republican Party Secretary (Phyllis Hunsinger), and that gave it weight. http://wright54.com/ Then came Jared Wright’s campaign manager denouncing him on local TV followed by a robo-call campaign announced by current Western Slope Conservative Alliance Pres Gary Bailey which asked happy valley Republicans to flood Jared Wright’s campaign with calls for him to step down and relinquish his nomination as the GOP HD54 candidate.

And all of this came amid reports in the local newspapers of misconduct, lying and insubordination from his former employer (Fruita Co PD) and the revelation that Mr. Wright had filed for bankruptcy protection; a cardinal sin among the GOP elitists.  There were revelations of a thousand dollar tanning salon membership, the purchase of expensive jewelry and classic cars and a great gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands as the “toe jams” campaign went into a terminal velocity free fall.

And the happy valley contingent’s of Dems were forced into the spectator role because someone had dropped the ball and they didn’t have a dog in that fight. With the Republican’s cannibalizing their own candidate, the rise of a disconcerting bipartisan support for the only viable alternative came in the form of the fiscally conservative Libertarian HD 54 candidate Tim Menger who had been endorsed earlier by two local Tea Parties.  Mr. Menger (who can only be described as a reluctant candidate) was thrust into the spotlight and rose to the occasion by declaring publicly that he would not accept contributions from special interests or for that matter from anyone else.  He would be taking on the invincible GOP machine right here in happy valley without spending a dime which could only be interpreted as a death wish or mucho Grande coconuts according to whom you talk to.  One thing is certain; he got the voter’s attention.

Now comes the rumor that the “toe jam” Wright candidate is contemplating a tell all news conference that will expose the strong arm bandits and Chicago style “thuggery” that passes for politics as usual in the happy valley.  It appears that growing coconuts is contagious here in the western slope banana republic with color TV.

Now there is a great gnashing of teeth, wailing and wringing of hands by both warring GOP factions one of which is contemplating the result of GOP indoctrinated happy valley voters, habitually voting a straight Republican ticket that would elect their worst nightmare, a reformer Cop who knows where the bodies are buried and has an axe to grind.  The other faction is contemplating their own nightmare of being soundly whipped in their own field by a spendthrift Libertarian, Joe Six-Pack that came out of nowhere, while they are resisting a hostile takeover.

The capitalist entrepreneurial spirit, which is alive and well in the local Tea Party is trying to capitalize by finding a way to charge the Dems admission to the dog and pony show under the banner ‘we’re all Libertarians now’. If there is a moral to this story, it must be that when you decide you want to gamble, sometimes you lose and the smart money is down on the Libertarian winning by a furlong with “toe jam” (being a good mutter) placing second and both factions of the GOP scratched from the next race as a result of being handicapped by voters who are so fed up with GOP infighting in the happy valley that they’ve decided they wouldn’t take an elephant to a dog fight even if it was favored to win.