Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams in bed with Norton campaign?
January 12th, 2010
Dick Wadhams recently announced his engagement to a high level staffer of the Jane Norton campaign. Does that explain the presumptive nomination of Norton? (Colorado GOP)
Oh, the tangled web we weave. Back in August, the Republican National Senatorial Committee (RNSC) registered domain names for then-potential U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton. Colorado conservatives immediately raised a red flag and accused the national committee of interfering in Colorado’s choice to pick its own nominee to take on Senator Michael Bennet.
State GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams at the time seemed incensed about the moves telling the Denver Post, “I fully intend to let them know that Colorado Republicans expect to select their nominee themselves without the endorsement of outside groups.”
Now, with a bit of news that came out in recent days, one has to wonder if Wadhams was simply faking that indignation and perhaps may have reason to favor Jane Norton himself.
As reported in the Denver Post last Wednesday, Wadhams announced his engagement to Wendy Evans. The Colorado GOP Chair proposed to her on Christmas Eve after having dated for several years. Evans is very involved in Republican politics having run both of former U.S. Senator Wayne Allard’s campaigns and worked in the Department of Education under President George W. Bush.
This should be a happy moment but many conservatives in the state are starting to see a major problem – Evans is a senior staff member of candidate Jane Norton. This almost certainly has influenced Wadhams judgment and could explain a number of irregularities in addition to the domain name incident.
Wadhams has also said that no candidate that goes outside the caucus process will be allowed to speak at the state nominating assemblies. Some candidates have indicated that may be the route they would take to a nomination because they may have no choice if Norton is the annointed one. Wadhams actions effectively lock them out.
There are many among Colorado conservatives that have become very disenchanted with Wadhams’ leadership of the state party. Under his watch, the state has seen a shift to the left and his actions have done nothing to stem that.
He has said he met with all of the 9.12 organizations and Tea Party group leaders and that simply is not the case. Wadhams has continually done nothing but annoy and in some cases infuriate these groups ensuring a significant portion of Colorado conservatives remain alienated from the state GOP.
Whispers of Wadhams personally orchestrating the field of candidates are nothing new but these revelations put some bite to them. Has the GOP chair had a hand in Norton’s entry into the race and the NSRC’s backing of her?
What about the presumptive Republican nominee for Colorado Governor, Scott McInnis? He too has been virtually ordained the winner of his race before a ballot is cast. Is Wadhams involved there as well?
Colorado conservatives are sick and tired of the good old boy, backroom dealings and this will certainly do nothing to bring them back into the GOP’s fold. It could in fact lead to a colossal failure come November when those conservatives decide they would rather not vote at all than vote for a candidate they had no say in choosing.
The entire affair represents a severe conflict of interest and Dick Wadhams should step aside before he completely ruins the Republican’s chances this year.
Let me get this right. The claim is that Dick Wadhams in conjunction with the “good old boys” and his fiancee Wendy Evans… along with 64 Republican County Chairs, 3000+ republican precinct captains and 70,000 caucus goers have predetermined who the Republican nominee is going to be?
My God… this conspiracy reaches further than we could have imagined.
There is an easy response to that in two words – Pete Coors. Think about the history behind his nomination. He was chosen by the power that be and look how that turned out.
I appreciate the concern about making sure that the Republican Party in CO not engage in quasi-croneyism in picking a candidate, but I’m not sure this is the case. Wadhams may have some ulterior motives, but why should his machinations automatically make Norton a mutual parter, even if they are true; as of right now, all you have to go on is the purported conflict of interest.
I think sometimes our zeal for anti-elitism leads us to incorrectly prejudging candidates by who their supporters are; in this case, Wadhams purportedly backing Norton automatically makes her “establishment” and a RINO.
I admit, I’ve done this as well. I had my doubts about Jane, but after separating the rhetoric from fact and really listening to her talk about her convictions, I found her to definitely be a strong conservative, someone who can move the independent CO electorate to the right again without sacrificing principle, the same tool Reagan used in both ’80 and ’84.
Just to clarify… I did not question Jane Norton’s bona fides as a conservative nor did I try to draw a line to make her complicit in anything. Please be clear on this. I wrote nothing about the candidate herself.
The question I raise is whether or not the state GOP can be trusted to be neutral in our selection when the chair has the close relationship that he does.
The appearance alone is damaging to Wadhams and inflicts damage on the party by hurting its credibility. He can hardly be seen as an unbiased master of the state party. When you already have an electorate skeptical of those in power, this certainly does nothing to assuage their fears. If you think that the fact his fiancee works for one of the candidates doesn’t influence him, you are naive at best.
Trust. That is the one word that this boils down to. Republican or Democrat, voters have none as those in power have not earned it. Wadhams should at a minimum recuse himself from any and all decisions that have anything to do with the senatorial race.
I interviewed Dick Wadhams for a response to your article. His response is available here:
http://rossputin.com/blog/index.php/dick-wadhams-responds
Note the end of my article in which Wadhams gives me his cell phone number to give you if you actually want to talk to him before writing unfounded charges.
Ross,
Let’s see if you publish the commnts I submitted under your article in response to your interview with Dick. I challenge your position and dare you to post my comments, unedited.
At least Tony does not screen his readership’s comments.
Just in case you do not publish my original comment to your article in response to Tony’s, the readership should note the following I posted under your article:
Dick,
I am personal friends with everybody on the laundry list of activist names you dropped.
You only met with my friend because you were called to the carpet in a private email thread that was made puplic forum by you and your RINO frinds. You only met with us after blowing us off.
You are not their friends and for you to insinuate otherwise, without their permission, is irresponsible AGAIN.
Just because you established dialog with my friends, does not give you the priviledge to drop their names as such.
WHO CARES WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE, ANYWAY.
You have crossed the moral and ethical boundaries when you decided to sleep with your soon-to-be wife.
To save CO GOP face, you should immediately step down from office.
Wow! It certainly would appear I stepped in it big time, eh? Who woulda thunk my little ol’ rant would garner so much attention?
First and foremost, I did attempt to contact Dick Wadhams via email last Thursday. There was no response. I have the ‘sent item’ and even better yet, the actual server mail logs to back it up showing it was successfully received by their server mail.cologop.org at [IP Address]. If their email server has problems or the message was ignored, that isn’t my fault. Of course they use 1and1 which provides bargain basement quality services so it very well be that it never reached him.
On to the issue at hand…
Rather than letting a somewhat unknown blog posting disappear into the Internet ether, a full-on assault is launched and the fact is that when something like this garners that forceful of a response, there is probably at least a hint of truth to it. The old adage “where there is smoke, there’s fire” might apply here and at a minimum the story must have hit on a bit of a sensitive spot or it would have been ignored.
Let me be clear – I have always been a Republican and likely always be. It kills me to see what has been wrought of the GOP. However, the current state of affairs is why many are leaving the fold and are drawn to the Tea Party and 9/12 groups and I can certainly see why. I used to be among the party “faithful” and stood in lock step but that simply doesn’t cut it anymore.
Look where that has gotten us! Look at the response when someone has the nerve to question them! That alone speaks volumes.
Folks can put their blinders on and refuse to look beyond the surface or fail to do just a hint of critical thinking. If a member of a party – any party – believes theirs is above reproach, they are at best ignorant and at worst just plain stupid. I don’t care if we are talking about Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians or anyone else – it is our duty to raise our voices when we see something wrong.
Thomas Jefferson wrote (and Glenn Beck often repeats), “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.” Many of my fellow Republicans would do well to learn from that. We do not have to accept what party leaders tell us – indeed we should not.
In the story I rail against the “good old boy” network and much to my amusement, Wadhams completely goes on to verify that the network is very much intact. His response brags about it in fact and goes on and on with phrases like “very close friends”, “tremendously close ties”, “old friends”,” 32 years”, “thirty years”, etc.
Hmmmm.
As someone else alluded to in a comment, at a bare minimum the appearance of the relationship and its potential impact is not a good one and politics is 95% appearances. In order for the Republican Party to restore itself to its former glory it needs to be doing it cleaner, straighter and more transparent than ever.
Bringing the GOP back from the abyss it fell into in recent years is critical to the success of the nation. We certainly cannot leave things in the hands of our more liberal friends. Business as usual however is not what is needed.
A restoration of truly conservative action and above reproach honesty is needed and candidates and party leaders need to do much more than just pay lip service to it. If the powers that be refuse to adhere to that then it is time for them to go.
One direct response to Ross’ closing sentence which implies that a bad Republican candidate is better than a good Democratic candidate. I am not saying anything about either side’s slate of candidates so don’t read into it that I am. However, that is part of the problem we have today and that type of thinking is what ensures that those in power stay firmly entrenched where they are. They know there are enough sheep that will follow them over a cliff so they could care less about doing what is right.
Whew! Okay, I have said my piece, heard the response and it has all been duly noted. The whole episode has turned entirely too dramatic and taken on a life of its own, certainly much more so than I would have expected. So be it – it is what it is. The original story was an opinion, nothing more, and I won’t consume a ton more energy with back and forth responses.
CC RossPutin.com
Intersting- he nearly admits in the rossputin article that he’s in the bag for the ‘old timey’ types- and he doesn’t think that being engaged to a Norton staffer doesn’t make him more tied to that campaign?
Right.
And what, McInnis isnt’ an old bud? Hmm…wonder what THEY think of the Wad. I have that response from their campaign in first person. Not printable.
Wad’s in damage control. That’s all. He hates being told what to do. And it shows. The current staff there has NO FREAKIN CLUE what is going on around them re: Dems and their ability to reach out- Wad and staff still postulate that 2008 was a ‘success’. How they can measure that is beyond me- if it was a ‘success’ I’d HATE to see a ‘failure’.
Wolf
You hit the nail right on the head Wolf. I mean really, if you think about this….What do you think Wadhams is doing, sitting back in his chair behind his desk, watching us little ole grassroots rabble rousers coordinate, organize, and set up all these events that candidates are flocking to…isn’t that his job? At least that frees him up to do damage control. Now, I can’t prove who initiated the Chicago-style, strong arm tactics that were implemented against me in effort to smear my name and shut me up, but the timing is quite impecible.
Regardless, IT DID NOT WORK!
-Jen
Allegations of stuff like this going on at the state level are not new. What is interesting is the trail of incidents. Connect the dots!
Come Join Ken as he takes on the power that be..
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=253257701542&ref=ts
Ken can no more ‘take on’ that ‘powers that be’ than he can take on Skeletor.
He’s married to a former ‘power that be’ who is STILL pushing all the buttons.
You cannot claim to be ‘out of the pack’ if you are married to its leader!
Wolf
Ross,
Tony’s site is not a news site, he is not a reporter, and he does not have to interview anyone prior to posting his personal views on any issue. It is his blog, his opinion, and as far as I know, this is still covered under the first amendment. He has no obligation to you, Dick or anyone else to clear his opinion before posting it on a personal blog.
The great part about this country is we have freedom of speech, and we can express our opinions freely, at least for now. You can be “displeased” all you like, but Tony has a right to call for Dick to step down, whether it pleases you, Dick or anyone else.
I happened across this the other day. Wadhams appearing on John Caldera’s show and he never says a word about anyone other than McInnis. At the end he even says McInnis will be the next governor. I don’t know if he is playing favorites or not but something like this doesn’t help the perception. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsX37e9hI2Y