February 18, 2023 03:00 PM UTC

Former Sen. Kevin Lundberg Bigfoots Colorado GOP Chair Race

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #2: Tina Peters has defeated-but-never-admitting-it Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in her corner, anyway:

Lost causes unite we guess.

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UPDATE: Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports on the entry of two more relatively familiar names in the race to be the next Colorado Republican Party chairperson:

Throwing their hats in the ring are former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, former state Rep. Dave Williams of Colorado Springs and former state Sen. Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud. All three had earlier said they were considering bids for state chair.

In terms of name recognition and built-in factions of support within the party, both blowhard former Rep. Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams and indicted ex-Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters are superior to the minor candidates who were in the running before the end of last week. With that said, former Sen. Kevin Lundberg has the experience, gravitas, and twinkle of unrepentant craziness to make this his race to lose.

Though we’ll concede the first-ever Colorado GOP chair to report to prison would be interesting too.

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For those of you following the so-far uninspiring race to succeed outgoing Colorado Republican Party chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown, currently consisting of a grab-bag of recent GOP losing candidates and hard-right malcontents, what follows is pretty big news: former state Sen. Kevin Lundberg, an ideological pole star of the far right in the Colorado General Assembly during his long tenure in both the House and Senate, is jumping in the race.

Last Thursday I announced my candidacy for state chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. The Republican state central committee will meet on March 11 to select the chair, vice-chair and secretary positions for the Colorado GOP. Several people are seeking this position (seven as of this writing), so there should be many opportunities for healthy debate before the meeting convenes in Loveland on March 11.

I am offering my skills for this election cycle and I bring to the table my active involvement with the Colorado GOP for many decades, 16 years in the legislature, and my deep desire to bring the party back to the solid principles the Party of Lincoln was originally founded upon.

Here are the specific priorities I have identified (so far) that should be addressed as soon as possible by the Colorado Republican Party.

Fix the Brand

We are the party of common sense, rooted in liberty loving, small government, family friendly, God-given principles. The other party has become the party of leftist Wokeism, as Arkansas Governor Sanders aptly put it, “The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy. “.. Aggressively challenge any other narrative.

Challenge the Unconstitutional Open Primary

Let Republicans and Democrats and every other political party pick their own candidates in their primary elections. We must challenge the unconstitutional open primary in federal court as soon as possible…

For those who didn’t have the pleasure of getting to know former Sen. Lundberg during his many years in office, Lundberg was denying climate change, comparing abortion to the Holocaust and warning of the moral hazard of birth control pills years before the current generation of Republicans were in office or aspiring to it. Lundberg was originally elected to the Colorado House in 2002, which was the last year that Colorado Republicans dominated in a general election. Since that time, Lundberg has watched helplessly as Republicans steadily lost everything, leaving office right after Gov. Jared Polis’ landslide election in 2018.

It’s not a surprise to see someone of greater standing within the Colorado Republican Party get in this race, since the current field of candidates ranging from merely unqualified to more-or-less openly acknowledged grifting operations (here’s looking at you, Casper Stockham). After being beaten back to the smallest minority since FDR was President over the last three general elections, the Colorado GOP has been more or less written off as a competitive political operation for the foreseeable future. That has the natural tendency to reduce interest in the job of party chairman.

But not for Kevin Lundberg, who may well possess the perfect combination of name ID, experience, and ideological enthusiasm to lead the Colorado Republican Party from its current low point to…

More low points, probably. But he’s the most qualified candidate in the race now, and it isn’t close.