KNUS’ Steve Kelley put some good questions to GOP Rep. Kathleen Conti Friday:

Steve Kelley: What’s the state of affairs of the Republican Party of Colorado?

Kathleen Conti: Well, the Republican Party is—you know, we have just a strong chasm. You know, there’s those on the far right. And there’s those on the not-so-far right. And it seems to me sometimes that our chasm is a little bit wider than those on the Democratic side….

Kelley: Is the Republican Party [as Peter Boyles says] an ugly baby right now in Colorado?

Conti: I certainly hope not….

Conti raises a good question, and Kelley should get into it with her on a future show. Which party in Colorado has a wider chasm?

Conti is the Republicans’ Minority Caucus Chair in the State House, so she knows what she’s talking about. Her party consists of a sharply divided “far right” and “not-so-far right.”  Those in the center and left-leaning are so scant as to be irrelevant.

Democrats, as Conti points out, are different, aren’t they? They’re mostly in the center with a straggler on the not-so-far-left.

The Dems are centrists on immigration (ASSET, driver’s licenses), abortion (pro-choice), renewable energy (efficiency and moderate mandates), gun safety (common-sense background checks), gay rights (civil unions, marriage), sex ed (yes), voter registration (convenience with secure voting), taxation (when necessary), etc., etc., etc. (Here’s a nice visual representation of some of these.)

The Colorado GOP comes down just as Conti said, on the far-right and not-so-far-right, with a wide and vocal chasm running down the middle.

A hatchet might be a better word for what separates the two right wings of the GOP but, like I said, Conti is in leadership, so she knows her caucus. So let it be “chasm.”

In any event, you can’t make much of a list of  issues where the Democrats are on the far left and not-so-far-left. and Republicans are in the middle.

As someone who wants the Dems to move left, I wish you could. But face it, you can’t. It’s a centrist/right party.

And “hatchet” doesn’t come to mind when you think of most of the Democrats’ disagreements.

Kelley (who’s now on KNUS 710 AM from 1 to 4 p.m.) should ask Conti to tell us her thinking on the “chasm” (and the hatchet) in more detail, including an explanation of where she stands on the chasm scale.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 22nd, 2013 at 9:29 am and is filed under Colorado State Legislature, KNUS, Talk Radio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.