UPDATE: Fox 31 Denver’s Eli Stokols offers an excellent closing analysis of the race here: “GOP Chairman Ryan Call facing revolt led by AG Cynthia Coffman.”

——

One thing is clear in the home stretch of the battle between Ryan Call and Steve House to be the next leader of Colorado’s Republican Party.

The race could have used a few more reporters like the Colorado Statesman‘s Ernest Luning covering it. As it is, “coverage” of the race has mostly been left to a bizarre and sometimes toxic shooting gallery of talk radio, Facebook, more Facebook, progressive bloggers (including outcasts like me), and whisperers and more whisperers. Honestly, this situation, set against a backdrop of intense GOP anger and madness, doesn’t serve Republicans or the rest of us.

The candidates have spoken directly to lots of the Republican activists who will be voting Saturday, which is good, but the race for Republican chair is an excellent example of what won’t be covered at all by real journalists as the profession fades. And we all lose from that.

Luning has provided the most even-handed and in-depth coverage of the Republican leadership race, and he’s out with a new story yesterday that included new allegations against Steve House, who’s challenging Ryan Call. Luning reports:

A group of former Adams County Republican officers circulated a letter on Wednesday slamming House for his tenure leading the county party and calling his character into question.

The letter, signed by former county chairs Patty McCoy and Clark Bolser, former vice chair Patty Sue Femrite and county finance chair Maria del Carman Guzman-Weese, alleged that House quit the post half way through his term in order to run for governor after promising he wouldn’t do just that. What’s more, the Adams County group charged, he left the county GOP in a shambles and it was Call who came to the rescue to rebuild it.

“Steve definitely has charisma and personal ambition, and he certainly knows how to give a good speech,” the group wrote. “He’s personally likeable. But his record of unfulfilled commitments, multiple broken promises, and overall poor performance as County Chairman left many of us in Adams County disappointed, extremely frustrated, and with unwelcome extra work during a critical time.”

Steve House spokesman Mike McAlpine denied the accusation, telling Luning it was dirty politics and, in fact, Adams County Republicans actually helped flip the Colorado Senate in 2014.

In any case, in addition to his reporting this flap, Luning nicely summarizes the House-Call contest as we head into Saturday morning, when the final vote will occur at Douglas County High School in Castle Rock.

A former talk-radio yapper, Derrick Wilburn, is running for Vice Chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

Wilburn once co-hosted a CO Springs radio show called, “Black, White, and Right,” which aired on KZNT 1460-AM. Wilburn, who’s African-American, represented the “black” part, while former congressional candidate Robert Blaha wore the “white” mantel. And both were right–as in tea party, as opposed to “correct.”

To give you an idea of  the depth of Wilburn’s tea-party-ness, during one radio show a couple years ago, Wilburn gave “Almost Human” honors to Republicans generally, and he added that GOP chairman Ryan Call is emblematic of Republicans. So he sounds about as mad at his fellow Republicans as other party leaders leading up to Saturday’s election, and the division has even crept into the marriage of Rep. Mike Coffman and Cynthia Coffman, who might be mad at each other over it.

Maybe Wilburn’s almost-human critique of his fellow Republicans is connected to another gripe: Wilburn says his fellow Republicans aren’t cool.

In an interview last month on KLZ 56-AM’s nooner show, Freedom 560, host Ken Clark asked Wilburn said (Listen below.):

Wilburn: “The problem with the Republican Party in that regard is it’s a brand issue.  You know, there are people who don’t even want to say it in public.  You know, ‘I’m a Republican.’  You kind of say it under your breath, looking around, hoping that nobody hears you.  Now, that’s because it’s not cool and it’s not hip, but it is cool and it is hip to be a Democrat.  To be a Democrat is rushing our state and country into financial insolvency.  But for some reason, it is cool to say that.”

On the other hand, in Wilburn’s own vice-chair race, he faces a former Olympian, Eli Bremer. How cool is that? And another vice-chair candidate, Mark Baisley did a cool thing and joined up with Chairman Ryan Call to create a tea-party-establishment-Republican ticket. And the other vice chair candidate, Debra Irvine, lives in the cool mountains. So there’s some coolness in the GOP.

Baisley’s alignment with Ryan Call displeases Wilburn, as it has talk-radio hosts across the dial.

“I don’t know how anybody can look at the position that Mark Baisley’s taken and say, ‘He’s still the liberty guy,'” said Wilburn on air last month. “It seems relatively apparent to me that he has said to the liberty crowd, ‘No, I’m not. I’m attached to this side of the aisle now.'”

On the radio in 2013, Wilburn was upset at fellow Republicans for failing to adequately support his efforts, as founder and president of American Conservatives of Color and Rocky Mountain Black Conservatives, to diversify the Republican Party. He complained at the time that Republican State Chairman Ryan Call had failed to attend one of his monthly meetings, despite such meetings being held monthly for two-an-a-half years.

But Wilburn’s diversity campaigns seem to be a draw among some Republicans, who will be voting in Saturday’s election to choose state party leaders.

“Derrick’s work nationally with people of color (or what ever term you prefer) is the type of work we need here in Colorado to expand the GOP’s presence and membership,” wrote John R. Mitchell, Chairman of the Ouray County Republican Party on Wilburn’s campaign website page. “If we can gain only 5 to 10% of the minority vote, we just about cannot lose any elections. I gladly endorse Derrick for Colorado GOP Vice Chair.”

Wilburn is hell bent on fixing the problem, but, if you believe him and KLZ radio host Ken Clark, few Republicans, except Wilburn, are on board.

Clark: Well, and let’s face it, you were single-handedly responsible for getting Republicans to go to the Martin Luther King [Jr.] parade.  I mean, nobody was even talking about it.  That wasn’t on anybody’s radar until you stepped up and started demanding that they do.  And I was with you when we were at that event that was in Five Points.    What — I can’t even remember what it was called.

Wilburn: Uh, Juneteenth.

Clark: Yeah, Juneteenth.  I was with you when you were down there doing that, and that was interesting.  But it doesn’t seem like anybody else is reaching out.  Derrick?

Wilburn: Well, and it’s a hub and spoke approach. So, the hub is major events. The Juneteenth, the Martin Luther King.  Last week, was Chinese New Year, we should be setting something up for that.  That’s the entry point to the community.  And then, you back that up throughout the rest of the year, by building coalitions, by getting to know the business owners, by becoming members of the Chambers of Commerce, and developing some familiarity.  So, you know, the Republicans — and God bless ‘em! — but they sit around and scratch their heads and say, “How do we do this?”  So, that’s when Dave and me and Casper and the rest of my little crew came around and said, “This is how you do it! And rather than just tell you how, we’ll actually walk it like we talk it, and do it ourselves.”  And we’ve had some effect the last five years.  Now, it’s just time to go to the next level.

https://soundcloud.com/bigmedia-org/on-radio-wilburn-discusses-co-republican-vice-chair-race

Infanticide is rare in America and has few advocates, yet anti-choice activists are leveling an accusation that more and more “pro-choicers” favor this form of murder.

American Right to Life, a national anti-choice organization, is stepping up a campaign accusing pro-choice activists of favoring the killing of “newborns and toddlers.”

“An increasing number of well-known leaders and organizations who are pro-choice are also coming out publicly in favor of killing children, not only before they are born, but also after they are born,” Bob Enyart, board member and spokesman for American Right to Life, told me via email.

American Right to Life is promoting an online document, titled “Pro-Choicers who Want to Legalize Infanticide.” It’s a list of about 10 articles and videos, some of which date back a decade or longer, that contain statements favoring infanticide.

The people cited on American Right to Life’s website are not leaders of pro-choice organizations, and they aren’t obviously linked with the pro-choice movement at all.

One article on the list is authored by a Michael Tooley, a University of Colorado philosophy professor.

Enyart, who is a also Denver talk radio host, has been trying to focus media attention on Tooley for years, but he says his organization has never confronted the professor directly, though Enyart has staged protests at the Boulder campus.

Tooley’s 1972 paper, titled “Abortion and Infanticide”, argues that “an organism possesses a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences and other mental states.”

“This is obviously a matter for detailed psychological investigation, but everyday observation makes it perfectly clear, I think that newborn baby does not possess the concept of a continuing self, any more than a newborn kitten possesses such a concept,” wrote Tooley. “If so, infanticide during the time interval shortly after birth must be morally acceptable.”

Tooley, Princeton-educated atheist, did not respond to multiple email and phone messages over the past several months seeking comment. He doesn’t seem to hide from public questioning, though, as he debated the existence of god, for example, at a Veritas Forum at CU Boulder in 2013. I could find no statement in recent years from Tooley about infanticide.

But Tooley’s silence on the matter hasn’t stopped Enyart, who’s also spokesman for Colorado Right to Life. As part of his campaign to pass a personhood amendment in Colorado, Enyart narrated a radio spot citing Tooley’s article and accusing pro-choice activists of favoring infanticide.

In the ad, Enyart says, without evidence, that support for killing newborns “is widespread and even taints the White House.” On its website, American Right to Life urges the public to notify it of the “godless effort to expand abortion services to newborns and toddlers.”

Asked to comment on Enyart’s accusation, NARAL Pro-Choice America Director Karen Middleton said via email:  “Anti-choice extremists are repeatedly losing at the ballot box because Colorado voters believe women have a right to make their own personal, private medical decisions. I can only think such increasingly bizarre, out-there statements from Mr. Enyart stems from his frustration at the fact Coloradans believe the argument is over and No Means No. Voters don’t agree with him. Respect them, get over it, and stop yelling.”

Personhood measures, which would effectively ban abortion by granting legal rights to zygotes (fertilized eggs), has been rejected so many times in Colorado, among other states, that personhood advocates have suggested a more localized approach to pushing through the extreme anti-choice policy.

The murder rate for infants is low in America. Key risk factors include mental illness afflicting the parents, lack of prenatal care, teenage pregnancy, and paternal care giving.

In some campaigns to limit abortion, anti-choice activists associate the term “infanticide” with abortion procedures, including “dilation and extraction,” which is used for abortion after 14 weeks.

The anti-choice group’s focus on infanticide comes in the wake of a national report showing that a wave of anti-choice laws has “emboldened” abortion clinic protesters, and that threats of violence against clinics have doubled since 2010.

In standing with House Speaker John Boehner on Friday to avert the shutdown, albeit temporary, of the Department of Homeland Security, Colorado’s new Republican Congressman Ken Buck has apparently had second thoughts about his pledge to shut down DHS if necessary to stop Obama from allowing some immigrants to avoid deportation.

Asked by KLZ’s Randy Corporon in January whether he would resist “public pressure and media assaults” and refuse to fund DHS along with Obama’s immigration program, Buck said:

Buck: “I can tell you this: Ken Buck will. I will make the case, and I will make sure that we are not funding those portions of his executive action that are so repugnant.”

In another interview, delivered to KFKA guest host Nancy Rumfelt in January, Buck pledged stand firm against any moderating winds that might emanate from House Speaker John Boehner:

Buck: “Speaker and the leadership team know that they cannot count on me when they move to the middle, that I will be voting against leadership’s efforts in certain areas, especially is true when it comes to the fiscal issues, the appropriations bills and the regulatory issues. And I include Obamacare in that. But absolutely. The people in the 4th Congressional District can count on Ken Buck to be with the conservative votes when it comes to the bills that are coming up in the future.” 

Colorado Springs’ Doug Lamborn did what Buck said he’d do, when Lamborn voted against temporary funds for DHS.

Lamborn: “I cannot support funding, even for a short period of time, the President’s unlawful executive action that violates the Constitution,” Lamborn said in a statement, reported by The Denver Post.

Former KLZ 560-AM radio host Jim Pfaff has been elected Chair of the Douglas County Republican Party.

Pfaff says he helped “spawn the ‘Liberty Lineup’ of local shows which now dominate the station.” KLZ now has local shows interspersed throughout the day, whereas Pfaff’s show used to be the only local talk program. Pfaff left the KLZ airwaves after three years in 2011 to become chief of staff for Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas.

I asked Pfaff, who’s never held elected office before if his “Jim Pfaff Show” experience gave him any insights that proved useful in politics.

“It helped me really expand my communications knowledge and skills,” he told me via email. “It’s a great way to learn what messaging is important to people and caused me to look more deeply and accurately at issues. It was a natural extension of my political activities.”

Pfaff has been involved in numerous political campaigns and he founded the Colorado chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

But he’s probably best known for spearheading Focus on the Family’s 2006 efforts to pass Amendment 43, which banned gay marriage in Colorado. At the time, he directed Colorado Family Action, the political arm of Focus on the family.

When voters approved the amendment–and simultaneously defeated a measure allowing civil unions–Pfaff told The Denver Post, “Coloradans are fair, but they have no intention of installing gay marriage or any counterfeit to marriage. This vote makes that clear.”

Pfaff isn’t the only conservative activist in Colorado who’s jumped to talk radio and worked in politics. Jimmy Lakey, who hosts a morning shoe on KCOL 600-AM in Ft. Collins, ran for Congress in Colorado Springs. After he left office, Rep. Tom Tancredo hosted a show on KVOR in Colorado Springs. KVOR’s Jeff Crank was almost elected to Congress. KLZ’s Ken Clark was just elected Second Vice Chair of the Denver Republican Party.

Pueblo County’s Republican Chair, Becky Mizel, isn’t known for pulling her punches, but she hit particularly hard at her fellow Republicans in a recent interview on KNUS’ Peter Boyles Show.

The fight roiling the state GOP is reaching a frenzy leading up to the March 14 vote on whether to retain Republican State Chair Ryan Call, and Mizel, who says “people are leaving the Party,” thinks a leadership change “at the top” is required to align the money wing of the party with the “majority of the GOP that thinks like we do.”

Mizel told Boyles (hear it below) that she’s been “calling around to counties all over the state,” and she’s found out that progressives are out-organizing Republicans, with  groups like Colorado WINS and ProgressNow “well-established,” even in “counties like Ouray,” not known to be a lefty outpost.

The GOP’s zeitgeist, embodied in Mizel, is largely flowing under the media radar, even though the stakes are high. A shift in leadership at the state party could have a huge impact not only on the amount of money raised by Republicans in Colorado but also where GOP money flows. It’s a story that deserves more attention.

Mizel: That’s what I really hate about the GOP. There’s that segment of the GOP that controls all of the money, the messaging, and the data. But then there’s the majority of the GOP that thinks like we do. And so, it’s really kind of a sad thing. And people are leaving the party. If we don’t do something to change the leadership at the top, I don’t think there’s not a 3rd party strong enough to win. And so, we’re destined. And the other thing, I’ve been calling around to the counties all over the state, Peter, and, boy, I can tell you, the Democrats have all of their people in place through groups like Colorado WINS and ProgressNow. They are well established in counties like Ouray and Silverton. We don’t even have a clue! Our Republican leadership comes in. They could care less. They only caring about the top of the ticket. They want to control messaging. They want to control dollars. They think your candidates aren’t good enough It’s all about getting the RNC candidates in. It’s not about the county-up. And so we just have to start taking control from the Grassroots up…And people are leaving the Party.

Boyles: Well, they should.

Mizel: I’m not saying the Party is great. But it’s their vehicle to get other people elected.

Boyles: …I’ve said this many, many, many times:  if the Republican Party puts Jeb Bush as the Presidential hopeful, I WILL vote for Hillary Clinton.  I swear to God, I will!  I mean, if that’s the best that they can do, and I think it is what they’re going to do.  But as an aside, he is– did you see that great line, that “The Bush family really believes in No Child Left Behind.  They’re going to run Jeb.”  I thought it was a great line.  What can people do to help you dump Ryan Call?

ColoradoPols did us a favor yesterday by trotting out some of the ridiculous misinformation delivered in 2013 by opponents of gun safety laws. And Pols pleaded with local reporters to correct such falsehoods if they pop up this year.

As a example of what should be done, I direct your attention to a 2013 Post editorial that corrected GOP Sen. Kent Lambert’s statement, cited in the Pols post yesterday, that that lawmakers had “effectively banned gun ownership.”

Labert’s statement, The Post wrote, was “not supported by the facts.”

Dahh, you say, but as Pols pointed out, that’s what we need when our elected leaders stray from the obvious facts.

And it’s also what we need when elected officials stray into wild hyperbole, that may not be demonstrably incorrect, per se, but should be called out as… wild hyperbole.

Last time around, for example, we heard this from respectable people under the gold dome:

Lambert: And now, you know, with everybody having their guns confiscated or taken away here over the next couple years, almost completely overturning the Second Amendment, what’s going to happen to our crime rate? [BigMedia editorial comment: two years have passed! Every legal gun owner still has her gun.]

And this in 2013:

State Rep. Kevin Priola compared banning some ammunition magazines to putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps during WWII.

And this in 2013:

Rep. Kevin Lundberg said on the radio that Colorado is getting “so close” to the point where he’ll be having his gun pried away from his “cold, dead hands.”

It’s bad when a guy like State Sen. Randy Baumgardner claims falsely, as he did in 2013, that “hammers and bats” killed more people in America in 2012 than guns did.

His facts should be corrected.

But the scare tactics about gun confiscation should be confronted as well,  with the simple fact that it’s been two years now and not a single legal gun holder has lost her weapon.

During an obscure appearance Jan. 16 on KLZ 560-AM’s nooner show, Freedom 560, State Rep. Justin Everett and host Ken Clark lit into the progressive blog, ColoradoPols, for its recent blog post listing fictitious names for Republican-sponsored bills in the state legislature.

Everett and Clark spent a good chunk of the show bashing the most-excellent Pols post, which, for example, offered names like “The ‘Right to Discriminate’ Act,” SB 15-069 (Sen. Laura Woods) and “The ‘Felons in Child Care’ Act,” SB 15-070 (Sen. Kevin Lundberg).

They read the make-believe names of the bills. They laughed. They got mad at “the left.” They patted themselves on the back.

Everett addressed Pols directly on air: “[Pols is] very good at spinning things to make them into something they are completely not. All these things, especially the guns bills here on ColoradoPols, it should be ‘Restoring Freedom Act.’ That would be a better definition. ‘Restoring Personal Liberties.’ But apparently you guys are pretty far off the reservation, but we’ve known that, and that’s why you’re not relevant. 

So, they choose to dedicate a segment of the show to Pols, and they say the blog isn’t relevant? How does that work?

Maybe they lump themselves in the non-relevant category, too, allowing them, as non-relevant entities, to focus on another non-relevant entity without worrying about their own relevancy?

I doubt it. Those two are awfully head strong to see themselves as lacking relevancy. So maybe they secretly think Pols is relevant? I called and emailed Everett to find out, but he didn’t get back to me, leaving me feeling no more or less relevant than usual.

Last year, conservative talk-radio hosts wrapped their loving arms around a baker for discriminating against a gay couple by refusing to bake them a wedding cake.

The baker said his cake-selling preferences flowed from his religious views, but, as a judge nicely articulated, it was actually factually illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Radio hosts did live broadcasts from the cake shop, hot bigotry was served to anyone listening, and the baker was fined by the great State of Colorado.

Now Colorado Republicans are proposing a law, like they did last year, allowing student clubs to violate campus anti-discrimination policies and still receive university benefits (funds, facilities, etc.). Sponsors include Tim Neville and Laura Woods on the State Senate side, and son Patrick Neville and Stephen Humphrey on the House side.

Similar legislation, allowing raw discrimination against women, gays, or potentially any of us, is under consideration across the country. One, for example, could allow restaurants to refuse service to LGBT people. Or pharmacists to stop filling prescriptions for birth-control pills. Another would permit adoption agencies to reject potential same-sex parents.

Collectively, these bills are referred to as religious-freedom-restoration bills, but a more accurate name is discrimination-restoration legislation. Political observers expect CO Republicans to introduce broader discrimination restoration bills this session, beyond the narrow university-focused proposal currently on the table.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers was on the radio last month, urging listeners, who were upset about the bigoted baker, to push their legislators to enact bills that allow discrimination under the guise of religious freedom.

Suthers: I think what’s different, Jimmy, and 1964 and the time of the Civil Rights cases is, if a black person when into a restaurant in the South in 1963 and was refused service, he couldn’t walk into a restaurant next door and get service, for the most part.  Everybody was refused service. That’s not the atmosphere we have today. We have this guy, who as a matter of his religious beliefs, would prefer not to do that. We have plenty of guys down the street who are perfectly willing to do it. I just don’t think it’s the same atmosphere. I think the legislature ought to be sensitive to that fact. But the Colorado legislature, with the majority at certain points in time, has not been.

I asked Denise Maes, Public Policy Director of the American Civil Liberties of Colorado, which brought the initial complaint against the baker who refused service to the gay people, to respond to Suthers’ comment:

Maes: The Attorney General is arguing that one should be able to break the law and discriminate because others “down the street” aren’t or won’t.  He misses the entire point and ignores the damage done both to the people who are discriminated against and the business community at large.  No one wants to live or do business in a state where discrimination is the law of the land.

Totally agree.

Suthers himself agrees that, as of now, the law of land forbids the cake-baker-type of discrimination. That’s why, as AG, he pursued a case against the baker, Suthers said on the radio. Below, Suthers explains how he sees Colorado law now. It’s a nice articulation of the way things stand. The problem is, Suthers wants to toss this out the window.

Suthers: We have a law in Colorado, our Public accommodations law. And a couple years ago when Democrats were in charge of both houses, they inserted sexual orientation along with race and gender as protective classes. And so in Colorado, essentially, sexual orientation has essentially the same protection as race in terms of anti-public discrimination laws.

So, if you have a business, whether it be a motel business, restaurant business, cake shop, and hold yourself out to the public, you must abide by this public accommodations law. And in this case, it was alleged, that a gay couple who’d been married in another state, wanted to have a celebration in Colorado, went into this cake shop, were very frank with the owner about what they wanted to do, and he refused to bake them a cake, despite the fact that they could have walked a blocked and got the cake at another bake store….it does appear this individual violated the public accommodations law, so the case was brought…”

Sengenberger: “We’re talking about First Amendment freedom of religion, and if gay activities are in violation of that, and they want to run their business in accordance with their religious views, do they not have legal protection?”

Suthers: “Only if the practice is part of the practice of religion. Therein lies the problem, Jimmy. The reason why I think the state is going to win this case throughout is that baking cakes is not the exercise of religion. If you told the Catholic Church they had to marry gay couples, then you’re violating the First Amendment. It’s complicated, and there is a long line of cases about it, but sadly enough, I think the State is going to win this case.”

Suthers nails it, doesn’t he? The only problem is, he actually wants to make baking cakes a religious activity! And not just baking but everything. Taking photos of a wedding, issuing marriage licences, counseling gay students. Suthers wants religion to be everywhere and in everything, allowing discrimination against anyone anywhere. That may sound extreme, but the potential is seriously there.

It’s what discrimination restoration bills, like the one proposed here in Colorado, would do.

LISTEN TO SUTHERS ON KNUS’ JIMMY SENGENBERGER SHOW, AIRED DEC. 20, 2014. (@ 1:36:00)

CORRECTION: An early version of this post named Patrick Neville as Tim Neville’s brother, instead of as his son.

On KLZ 560-AM’s “Wake Up with Randy Corporon” Friday, former Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve House officially announced his bid to dislodge Ryan Call from his job as Chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

“My phone rings all the way until 10 o’clock at night with people calling me the last three or four days, saying ‘I’m glad you’re going to do it. It is time for a change,’” announced House, whose intention to run against Ryan Call was reported by the Colorado Statesman last week.

Call has weathered a barrage of criticism over his two terms as state chair, mostly from the “liberty” or “Tea-Party” wing of the state GOP for not doing enough to support “grassroots” Republicans.

In November 2013, for example, now State Senator Laura Woods, who was using the name “Laura Waters,” blasted Ryan Call for obstructing the recall effort against Democratic State Sen. Evie Hudak.

On KNUS Peter Boyles’ radio show at the time, Woods, who was organizing the Hudak recall effort, indicated she hadn’t voted for Call as GOP chair, and she said that, thanks to Ryan Call, “at certain doors and in certain phone calls, we’re even fighting against our own party.”

This year, Woods, with heavy support from Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and despite opposition from committees like Protect and Defend Colorado, squeaked by Republican Lang Sias in the GOP primary. She went on to narrowly Democrat incumbent Rachel Zenzinger to take the Westminster State Senate seat, which Woods has to defend again next year, making it a key battleground for control of the Colorado Senate.

The GOP central committee is scheduled to vote on the Call-House contest March 7, but this may change to accommodate the schedules of Republican congressional representatives, House said on air. Call is running with Vice Chair Mark Baisley.

On KLZ, House emphasized the need to help Republican County Chairs respond to the on-the-ground needs of candidates immediately, without obstruction–and with adequate resources.

“Every single county in this state, and there are some that do a great job, needs to better funded, more stable, more capable of training and recruiting candidates so we can win races,” said House on air, adding that Ryan Call has improved things a bit but not enough. “We’re not going to win races from the top down.” He added he will not take a salary.

And, music to the ears of talk-radio hosts like “Righty” Corporon, House offered to set up a regular time to be on KLZ radio and elsewhere to take phone calls and discuss issues.

“Office hours with the chairman will be a big thing for me,” said House, promising to make himself available in multiple venues and platforms to interact with Republicans.

Radio-host Corporon told listeners that Ryan Call has refused to go on his radio show, despite promises to do so.

“I’m blessed in part because I live in a country that has a constitution that is a framework for a just society in my opinion,” House told Corporon. “We don’t adhere to it the way I really want to adhere to it. But it gave me opportunity. So if you start to see that under threat, if you see that this state may not live under conservative principles, constitutional principles, capitalism, you have to get involved to defend the lifestyle you’ve been given.”

Pueblo GOP County Chair called in and endorsed House, because, she said, he believes in “bottom-up, not top-down, management.” House also appears to have the support of  State Attorney General Cynthia Coffman.