September 26, 2023 02:00 PM UTC

Another Republican Candidate Gives Libertarians The Finger

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Ernest Luning at the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports–after botching their attempt at revenge against GOP-flipped-Democratic Sen. Kevin Priola in a recall that never got off the ground, Republicans have a candidate to try again for this swing seat the old-fashioned way:

Platteville Republican Scott Bright, the owner of a chain of child care centers, announced on Monday that he’s running for the state Senate seat held by term-limited Democrat Kevin Priola, who switched parties a year ago.

In a statement, the 53-year-old Bright said he wants to help spur “a conservative renaissance in the state legislature focused on protecting our communities and defending the values of smaller government, low taxes and better schools.”

“The American dream is under assault by Colorado Democrats’ agenda of higher taxes, job-filing [sic?-Pols] regulations, hostility toward education innovation and criminal-coddling politics,” said Bright…

Although Republicans won’t have Kevin Priola to kick around anymore as they had hoped when he defected to the Democratic Party last year, the fight for Senate District 13 is expected to be one of the main event races next year as Republicans try to stave off a Democratic supermajority in the Colorado Senate–one of the last places in the state where Republicans wield even significant minority influence. Redistricting made this seat a bit more difficult for Democrats than it was before, but it’s not out of reach if Colorado Democrats continue their recent trend of running up the score beyond predictions.

Naturally, Colorado Republicans would want to have every possible advantage lined up for this prime pickup opportunity, wouldn’t they? Here we run into a big, now-familiar problem:

Bright told Colorado Politics that he doesn’t intend to sign a pledge released earlier this summer by the Colorado Libertarian Party [Pols emphasis] as part of a deal reached with the state GOP to avoid potential third-party spoiler candidates, though the Republican noted that he agrees with the elements of the document.

“I fully support all 19 points articulated by the Libertarian Party, but it’s un-American to be strong-armed into signing a document ‘or else,'” Bright said in an emailed statement.

For a while, it looked like the Colorado Libertarian Party’s much-ballyhooed Republican candidate pledge to avoid a third-party spoiler in their race was dead after Rep. Lauren Boebert and other Republican candidates announced they had no intention of signing it. Since then, however, the Libertarians have retaliated against Boebert with a challenger in CD-3, expressly citing Boebert’s failure to sign the pledge as the reason for getting in the race. After holding on to her seat by a mere 546 votes, a Libertarian spoiler could easily make the difference between winning and losing.

Another race where Republicans do not need a Libertarian pulling votes from their candidate is Senate District 13. This is setting up to be another case where the Republican/Libertarian unholy alliance that was supposed to grease the wheels for Republicans willing to kiss the Libertarian ring is instead ripe for backfire. We still haven’t heard a response from Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave Williams on the question of how exactly Lauren Boebert doesn’t pass the Libertarian purity test to be a “liberty-minded candidate.”

When Williams is done explaining what happened with Boebert, there will be others.