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November 09, 2008 05:42 PM UTC

GOP Infighting Intensifies: Wadhams' Job In Danger

  • 42 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post reports:

Colorado Republicans, sifting through the ashes of three disastrous election cycles, are in the midst of a vigorous debate over how to win again in a state where their future looks bleak.

That struggle is likely to play out over the next few months, key players say, starting with a fight over the party’s leadership.

Insiders say big defeats Tuesday at the presidential, Senate and House levels could play out two ways: an invigorating period of rebuilding and new ideas or a divisive fight over the party’s direction that could debilitate it for years.

Either would be fueled by a sense that, despite an unfavorable national headwind, the 2008 election in Colorado was nonetheless badly mishandled and that the party over the past four years has squandered significant advantages in voter registrations, outmaneuvered by Democrats at nearly every turn… [Pols emphasis]

Ever since it became clear that the GOP was headed for another massive defeat in Colorado–a recognition punctuated by Senate candidate Scott McInnis’ harsh criticism a week before the election of the Party’s “too right to win” candidates and the scuttling of his campaign for the now-defeated Bob Schaffer–everyone knew that heads were going to roll.

Dick Wadhams, for example.

Several influential Republicans, who asked not to be named, singled out state party chairman Dick Wadhams for criticism after he devoted much of his time to the U.S. Senate race rather than state legislative or other down-ticket contests.

Wadhams pointed out that he had hired an executive director to work on other races, but his response to the criticism makes clear the depth of the divisions the party is now trying to fix.

“The people who are criticizing me don’t even have the guts to speak publicly. They are cowards,” Wadhams said… [Pols emphasis]

Wadhams said he is “strongly considering” staying on as state chairman. But a battle over informal leadership of the party and its direction is already unfolding, with two key figures emerging early, both with sights on the gubernatorial race two years from now.

“Strongly considering staying on?” Since when was he not? That’s the clearest indicator yet–we’ll be surprised to see Wadhams on the GOP payroll come January. The anger over Wadhams’ performance is every bit as widespread as this article’s anonymous sources imply from what we hear, if not more so. He won’t be flim-flamming or cussing his way out of it.

The “two key figures” emerging are, of course, McInnis and outgoing Rep. Tom Tancredo. Tancredo in particular is promising to ‘modernize’ the party’s infrastructure, according to the Post, with “a Republican version of progressive attack groups like Progress Now Action that have dogged GOP candidates up and down the state.” Which sounds good on the surface, but no matter how efficient a “Colorado Model” attack machine Tancredo were to build, it would still be pushing Tancredo’s hard-right no-traction message. Are they confusing the package for the product once again?

Bottom line: with or without Wadhams, with or without a permanent infrastructure to compete with what the Democrats perfected here as the “Colorado Model” and are now exporting nationally…it’s going to be a long road back.

Republicans concede that tactically, Democrats have simply evolved quicker and more effectively, often running brilliant campaigns that Republicans believe mask the shortcomings of Democratic candidates.

And they’ve been outflanked by deep-pocketed Democratic donors who have funded an impressive network of groups outside the party structure that have organized, e-mailed and blogged the party to electoral success…

Getting the tactics right will be comparatively easy, many Republican insiders predict, compared with the coming fight over the party’s soul.

A poll follows.

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42 thoughts on “GOP Infighting Intensifies: Wadhams’ Job In Danger”

  1. Right now the local and national Repubs are getting a lot of press coverage to yell and scream all of their incorrect 6 second sound bites.  The Meida is covering the Repubs constantly and dutifully writing the talking points; today, tomorrow and forever all of the “handwringing” the Repubs want.

    They have their main goal accomplished – getting their message out.  Why change?

    2. He is jaw droppingly out of touch with our state.

      Take his insistence on calling Mark Udall a “Boulder Liberal” as a prime example. The Denver Post says “Liberal” label loses political punch in wake of GOP losses.

      And once again, Dick Wadhams just doesn’t get it:

      “This whole election turned on the unpopularity of George Bush and the collapse of the economy and finally the charisma of Barack Obama,” said Dick Wadhams, campaign manager for Republican Bob Schaffer, who lost the Senate race to Udall. “There would be no other circumstance where a Boulder liberal could be elected to the U.S. Senate or a liberal like Barack Obama could be elected president of the United States.”

      Udall “ran” from the “liberal” label, Wadhams said, proof that he knew Colorado voters reject liberal philosophies.

      Ben Nighthorse Campbell disagrees:

      Former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado Republican, called it a mistake to rely on the “liberal” label as a weapon in the Senate race.

      “I don’t think it works anymore. It might never work again,” Campbell said. “People are trying to look beyond the labels. They want action. They want change. They want something to happen.”

      The only thing that got rejected here is Wadhams tactics and outdated rhetoric.

      There has to be a sea change for the Colorado Republican Party and it has to involve more than ridding themselves of Wadhams but firing him is a great start to reclaiming the party.  

      1. The following from the same  Denver Post report:

        There is a major fault line between the state party’s core of social values conservatives – who for more than a decade have exercised powerful influence over the choice of GOP candidates in Colorado – and pragmatic leaders who want to emphasize kitchen table issues they believe can win over independent voters.

        “There is a group of people who want to have every candidate take a saliva test and be proven the purest of the pure. These are people who thought Bill Owens was insufficiently conservative to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2004,” said Sean Duffy, a former senior aide to Owens.

        “When you’re at the point when you’re kicking Gov. Owens out the door because he’s too liberal, then you’ve arrived at the ‘let’s have the next Republican Party convention in the phone booth’ school of politics,” Duffy said.

        1. 40 years ago the GOP owned Hawaii. The Dems came out of nowhere under Burns and got a strong majority. The GOP went the purity route and as my mom says, they now caucus in the broom closet – 5 out of 51 members on the house.

          On the good news side, everyone gets a leadership position 🙂

  3. In a year that saw a Democrat win Colorado by the biggest margin since LBJ and an ethically challenged extremist wing nut as their Senate candidate the GOP did not do too badly. They picked up two seats in the State House, broke even or lost one in the Senate and did well in local races.  The Obama organization was the best anyone has ever seen.   I personally thought the Obama GOTV operation would add three more Democrats in the State House and two or three in the Senate. In a landslide year to gain seats shows that someone was doing something right.  

    1. Bernie was left on his own – granted everyone including Bernie assumed that was in the bag. Joe Whitcomb was close – but had zero help from the party. The list goes on.

      I think most voters took the view that the Dems have had the last 2 years to show they would solve our problems, and while we didn’t make things worse, no big improvements either.

      So this election was sort of leave it as is and give us Dems another 2 years. We haven’t proved we should be left in charge, but neither have we shown reason to be booted out.

      All in all, I think a very reasonable response.

      And keep in mind on all federal races, it was a Dem blow-out in this state. So Obama carried to Udall & Markey.

      1. Whitcomb and the 527s on the left almost outspent Mitchell (counting all his 527 help) 2-1. He also lost by over 7%, not by your 3 votes or by a razor thin margin most predicted here.

        2. Whitcomb ran over ten points behind Diane Primavera in the areas that overlapped in their districts.  I do not know what happened as he was the top target for the Democrats.  

          Linda Newell is likely to hang on to win the Steve Ward Senate seat. There are around 2000 provisional ballots to be counted in that district.  

          1. …Diane Primavera was an incumbent this year and Joe Whitcomb was running against one.  Assuming you are taking Primavera’s ’08 numbers and comparing them to Whitcomb, her ’06 numbers would probably be a better comparison.  

          2. That Senate district overlaps about 5 or so precincts in John Soper’s Adams County HD34.

            John Soper rec’d 60% of the vote in Adams

            Udall rec’d 57.5%

            Obama rec’d 58%

            Joe Whitcomb rec’d only 49.9% of the vote in Adams. If your a dem running for that senate seat your only chance is to win Adams big, run even in Broomfield and lose Weld. Joe couldn’t even win Adams and Mitchell ran up the score in the Weld precincts.

            When I drove around some of the precincts in that Senate district, which overlaps Rep. Soper’s district, I saw Soper, Udall and Obama and Shawn Mitchell signs BUT absolutely NO Whitcomb signs. That tells me he had absolutely no ground game at all. We dems should have been protecting HD30 more vigorously. HD30 is Rep. Hodge old seat (she won a senate seat this election) The R’s picked up that HD30 seat that has more d’s in it (Brighton area)  

            1. …the Dem that ran had a crappy campaign.  He thought it was his seat and he would just take it.  So, it sounds like a level of complacency on his part.  

              1. Obviously Joe did not have a very good campaign. When I saw him at events he seemed very confident. However, he should have known or should have been told (I’m sure he was)that not only does that senate district have majority R, but, it is very difficult to beat an incumbent especially when they have the registration #’s in their favor.

                If Joe decides to run for something in the future he should learn from this.

                He had lots of distractions also. New baby and bar exam this year. He was not single minded enough. You have to run full-time every day to win.

    2. The Repubs moved farther to the right as Penry and Gardner grabbed control of the Party leadership this week by threatening other members.

      I don’t see that a bright note for Republicans. If they want to continue down the road of paybacks to Big Oil and empowernig social conservative ideologies like Amy Stephens and Greg Bropy, be my guest.

    3. The Rs picked up only one House seat compared to the results of the 2006 election, namely Buescher’s in Grand Junction, which is 2-1 R registration lead.  The other “gain” was getting back Debbie Stafford’s, a reliably Republican seat that they captured in 2006 election, when they got the short end of a 39-26 split.  Stafford was term limited and couldn’t run again, so the seat they captured in 2008 is the same they captured in 2006, leaving only Buescher’s as a net gain.  That’s more than offset by the loss of the Senate Seat in formerly invincible R territory.  It may not be final yet, but Newell has a 115 vote lead with all precincts in and just provisionals to go.  In general, provisionals go about 3-2 Democrat.  Net Republican legislative gains are thus zero, though loss of one of the 35 Senate seats is obviously worse than gaining one of the 65 House seats.  

      2. by a huge Focus on the Family run campaign.

        Between that and the overwhelming R voter registration edge in Mesa County/Grand Junction, it was a tough seat to hold.

        I don’t think Bernie or anyone else in House leadership appreciated the power of that campaign – though they should have.

        Your point is well taken in that it was basically the status quo in both chambers.

        I don’t think anyone (other than the wishful thinkers) believed that the Ds would pick up net additional seats in either chamber.

        I consistently predicted that both chambers would stay the same in terms of numbers.

        1. There were attack ads about how Bradford doesn’t care about breast cancer patients.  She’s a breast cancer survivor.  The ads were put out by a 527 supposedly against her.  Nobody is that stupid.

  4. Continuing to do the same thing, and expecting different results, is a form of insanity. -unknown

    The answer is not move further to the right. Bob Schaffer ran from the right, he was true to his basic beliefs. He got trounced. Marilyn Musgrave is a known right wing idealogue – she got creamed. The egg-mendment lost in Colorado Springs.

    This country is conservative in the sense that if things are running well it doesn’t want them changed. It is not conservative in terms of wanting a shift to the right with a taliban-esque social set of laws and a mad-max level of libertarian funding of the infrastructure of the state.

    The state GOP faces a serious danger. Remianing a state-wide presence requires hard work, compromising principles, embracing people you don’t like, etc. And when done – use the levers of state power to actively improve the quality of life for us citizens. In other words, in success many Republicans will not be happy with what they have to do.

    But the alternative is worse. Take a look at the Hawaii GOP – everyone retreated into ideological purity and is reduced to fighting over the few seats in Republican areas. And those fights are over who is more ideologically pure. They then sit around bitching about how the voters should vote for the GOP – but no effort is put in to actually work for that goal. And the few RINOs like my mom who hold seats in Democratic areas – are vilified for their political stance.

    The problem is, the easy road is to go down the path of becoming a permanent minority party. And the party leaders are generally the ones in office – they get to keep their existing seat even if the GOP spirals down into oblivion.

    If the GOP wants to compete effectively state wide they need to do a couple of things.

    1) Elect a state chair who is an unabashed moderate, and can get out there and rally the troops. And in all seriousness, after meeting Laughing Boy last night – he could be superb in that role.

    2) Announce that you are going to find a well qualified RINO to run against every Democrat in the legislature. Every single one. (And please, also against the Boulder County Commissioners too.)

    3) Encourage all qualified candidates to enter a primary for the state-wide races. A primary can be a very helpful tool (it was for Obama & Clinton). At this time it is absolutely necessary as it will let the party vote on the RINO vs right-wing candidates.

    A lot of us Dems want you guys to stay competitive (and in Boulder become competitive). To do so will require some very hard decisions and massive effort on your part.

  5. I was actually asked the other day what I would if I were a Republican and had the influence to move the party back to a winning strategy.

    My off-the-cuff answer then was to kick out the religionists.

    I have had a few days now to think of a more reasoned response which only starts with kicking out the religionists.

    That party needs to go back to its roots: Less governmental meddling in private affairs. This means promote their economic philosophy of helping employers and that will in turn help employees. This also means stop focusing on the personal lives of people, government has no business there. Drop issues like gay marriage, abortion, and immigration from their rhetoric and stop courting the extremists groups attached to these issues. This will cost them funding from the right end of the spectrum but will gain much more in votes from the middle.

    As long as the GOP can be so easily painted as extremists, they will fail.

    Of course, pointing out what needs to be done, and actually doing it are about 3 different animals. I am not sure there are enough people calling themselves Republicans to be able to outvote the religionists in inner party elections.

    With that in mind, the fiscally conservative, mind-your-own-personal-business crowd may be better served abandoning the GOP to the religionists (they could rename it “God’s Own Party”) by forming their own party, or perhaps take over and build up an existing 3rd party like the Libertarians. If they did this, there would be a fair number of like-minded Dems who would probably join them. Hell, even I would be tempted.

    1. First, if the GOP splits in two neither group will ever have enough votes to be competitive. Second, this puts them back on the road to ideological purity – which is the death knell for any party that wants to be a major player (it’s why the libertarian party will always be so small).

      What they need to do is say that while they individually are socially conservative, that they are not going to push that on everyone.

      1. The two seats gained by the House Republicans should not be underestimated.  They not only won a seat in Grand Junction they picked up a seat in the heavily Democratic Adams County district vacated by Mary Hodge. With McCain and Schaffer losing badly someone in the GOP was doing something right.

          1. 1 seat changing is statistical noise. It was a draw. I think the voters went Dem in the federal votes and went hold in the state and local votes. Voters aren’t stupid nor do they follow one thought for all votes. So they can differ what they do in different races.

          2. and more than offsets priola’s victory in Adams County.  That leaves the Rs with just a net one seat gain (buescher’s) in the House on an election to election basis, which is far more than offset by the loss of the Arapahoe County Senate seat.

              More to the point, that’s three straight elections where the GOP has lost both chambers of the legislature.  Know when that last happened?  try 1956-58-60!

              Don’t look to the lege for a Republican winning formula, though it is worth noting that the responsible bipartisanship of Mike May, David Balmer fared better than the relentless negatism that McElhany pushed in hte Senate.      

  6. …Richard M. Nixon:

    “The trouble with Republicans is that when they get into trouble, they start acting like cannibals.”

    Personally, I’m enjoying this GOP version of “House of a 1000 Corpses.” As all of the Grumpy Old People in your Party engage in this self-serving hooting and screeching about moving even further to the Right, you’re almost guaranteeing One-Party Rule for the next 8 years.

    John Andrews disgraced extremist views aren’t going to help appeal to the base of independent voters in this State. A “Contract with America 2010” isn’t going to help you if all it contains is a the same crap from 1994 with a nicer font and better paper.

    Get this – Rev. Gov. Mike Huckabee figured out that people DO want the gov’t to do stuff for them. Maybe not everything, but they’re finally realizing that their tax dollars do actually DO STUFF. So it’s time to drop the idea that “Tax Cuts and Smaller Gov’t” is the answer to every question.

    You also need to drop this anti-Federal government anarchism you keep engaging in when you think the mainstream media isn’t around. After the Mortgage & Credit meltdowns, folks now realize that they don’t want their Federal govt’ to consist of two guys and a security guard.

    And besides, Ancient Repubs need to realize that there’s sophisticated technology that records moving pictures and sounds, and can deliver them to anyone who wants them. When you say stupid shit in front of your nuttiest supporters, it IS going to go out the rest of the world as well.

    So, keep devouring yourself in an orgy of blame and destruction, We Dems will fix everything AGAIN, and at some point we’ll screw up and hand to back over to you to trash.

  7. Appeal to the voters.  Make the individual important, with a real opportunity to better themselves.  Stop the welfare to the rich, capitol gains is the government rewarding risk at our expense, except we don’t get the rewards.  Stop depending on the religious right to refuse salvation to those who don’t vote the way they demand.  Repect the constitution – no official religion.  Run the government with a business sence.  STOP LYING, don’t accept spin.  Repubs are now the big gov and big deficit guys, anyone who doubts this, remind them of the Reagen and Juniors administration.  This will take years of deeds, not rhetoric to change.  Education is a must in a world economy, stop the war on education.  Start paying attention to those that cast votes

  8. Colorado State of Mind, 11/7/08:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/…

    Guests include Steve Ward (outgoing Republican Senator, Littleton), Terry Hart (Pueblo County Democratic Party), Pat Waak and Dick Wadhams.

    Show starts off with an amusing quote from Mike Feeley (former Democratic state senator) regarding Colorado: “I don’t think we’re a blue state. I think we’re a red state where the red is at war with itself.”

    Basically, Wadhams blamed an unpopular president and a charsimatic Democratic contender for the losses by Republicans throughout the country, including Colorado.

    Host Greg Dobbs pointed out that this was one of the first times that Wadhams has ever said the name “Mark Udall” without prefacing it with “Boulder liberal.”

    Must say that Steve Ward was one of the more thoughtful Republicans I’ve heard in quite a while.  

    1. If they’re interested in winning.

      I don’t think we’re red per-se, I think we’re conservative & libertarian and that we Dems appeal to that a bit better than the Repubs do. So the voters will call themselves conservative and vote Dem.

      I can live with that 🙂

      1. previously nice safe R Senate seat is because Ward decided to give it up for a pipe dream drive at the Republican CD 6 nomination. He would have won it in a walk at very little expense. Dems and 527s wouldn’t have spent much on a hopeless fight. Between that and other issues Ward has had with his party I would be surprised to see him as GOP chair.

        All in all, it appears the Colorado GOP is still clinging to the idea that they just need better tacticians, not listening to those calling for a different direction.  How it shakes out and how long the shaking out will take will be interesting to watch.  

  9. Thanks for the historical perspective.

    Both parties went after the other’s leader in the State House.

    Bernie Buescher lost.  David Balmer won by six points.

    With the massive Obama organization I thought that the Democrats would gain a minimum of three in the House and two in the Senate.  Depending on how the Newell/Clapp recount turns out and there are lots of ballots to be counted the Democrats at best broke even.  

    1. I’m looking for Newell to win in the end, another safe red seat gone in a district that largely overlaps Rep. Joe Rice’s, the Dem who just got re-elected handily to the formerly (before 2006) safe R HD38 seat.  

      1. For one thing the campaigns have to be separate – Federal vs state/local.  But in addition I’ll say from my own experience in working with the Obama campaign for many weeks, virtually every volunteer who went out the door to canvass with Obama material also took materials for state and local candidates, at least where I was working.  The Obama campaign couldn’t make that a part of its operation, but volunteers advocated for all Dem candidates.  I firmly believe that some local and state candidates in my area won because of the superb Obama GOTV effort.  Perhaps that varied from county to county.

        1. Lots of volunteers carried multiple lit wearing their party, rather than specific campaign, hats.  

          The Obama voter registration and GOTV canvassing, phone banking and poll checking helped all Dem candidates.  Not to mention the fact that enthusiasm for Obama brought the party, as well as the Obama campaign, a lot of new volunteers.  Some were only in it for Obama but others started attending Dem events and meetings and turned out to help other candidates as well. Many spent at least a little time on each of several campaigns.

          Also, just as in 2004, a whole new group of people in the ‘burbs have discovered that they aren’t the only Dems in their neighborhood.  They’ve  enjoyed meeting and hanging with like-minded people and some will stick around for 2010 and beyond.

          Obama style community organizing has been great for Dems who have been willing and able to take advantage.

  10. excitement, motivation, new direction, new policies, media accessibility, people not afraid to express themselves, appeal to the youth, a big tent for religions and deep pockets.

    That leaves R’s with only one option.

    Ali Hasan for the Colorado Republican Party Chairmanship!

  11. The war was fought and the Musgrave wing of the party won it a long time ago.  McInnis couldn’t get through a Republican primary for dog catcher in this state.  Sorry, Scott.  You should have listened to us years ago when we told you this was happening.  But you wanted to play with the leadership in Washington, so you couldn’t rock the boat.  You are about to find out that the inmates are already running the asylum and there are no guards to keep any peace.  The ultimate outcome of all this press-created party soul searching is that there is no soul searching to be done.  The party knows what was wrong, it just wasn’t conservative enough and it needs to get back to basics like guns, gays and abortion. (Snark!)  This discussion is entirely of the press to make for interesting reading.  This isn’t really going on at anything other than a surface level.  McInnis still doesn’t get it and the press has jumped on the remarks of a single Republican to indicate that there is some kind of a fight for the soul of the Republican Party.  Well, the soul was sold years ago to the devil, and he’s still in charge.  The only think we can do is drive a stake through the heart of the existing Republican Party as it exists today and start a new party.

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