In a wide-ranging radio interview last week, Colorado GOP Chair Steve House had some newsworthy (and praiseworthy) advice for Colorado Republicans who seek to actually win elections:

• Don’t just hate Obamacare but focus on solutions.
• Don’t talk so much about gun rights and the 2nd Amendment.
• Talk about education more–but no so much about charder schools.

House’s advice came during a discussion with KFKA 1310 AM’s Stacy Petty show about how Colorado Republicans have “got to start thinking a little bit differently on how we talk to people, especially the 490,000 or so unaffiliated or ‘leans right’ voters that we have got to make sure vote Republican, on top of our base in this coming election.”

First, “stop talking at every one of our discussions about the 2^nd Amendment,” said House, adding that “we own that issue” and Democrats want Republicans fixating on it.

“You know, no matter what happens in the world, we’re not going to give up on our 2^nd Amendment,” said House on air. ” We have defenders in RMGO and NRA and our sheriffs and other people.”

“So, what should we be talking about?” asked House, before answering his own question.  “And I suggested we should be talking about education, because I think it’s the number one issue for us as a state, for us as a Party.”

To do this, House suggests that Republican discussions go “beyond charter schools” in addressing education issues and put more emphasis on graduation rates and third-grade reading levels, which he cites as a reliable predictor of future individual success, a bedrock GOP value.

Similarly, House told Petty he’d like to see Republicans explain how to have the “right processes, regulatory structure, and incentives in place to see us solve some [health] problems.”

House says, for Republicans, “it’s not about hating Obamacare.”

This actually leaves the door open to improving it! How great would that be.

So at a time when the trending news analysis is obsessed with the “outsiders,” you can make a case that the real “outsider” thinking, at least among the die-hard Republican base voters, is reflected in a guy like House.

Or his predecessor Ryan Call, who calls out the “arrogance” of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and argues that Republicans need “to grow the coalition, even if people don’t agree with us 100 percent of the time.”

Those are the kinds of Republican messages that need to be elevated by reporters, in this dark moment of extremism and carpet-bombing outsiderism, to give Republicans themselves a wider window of the possibilities for escape and redemption.

Listen to Steve House on KFKA’s Stacy Petty Show 1.28.16

The Colorado Republican Party is blaming CNBC for severely limiting the number of seats available at its Oct. 28 presidential debate at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

But CNBC, which you’d think would advocate for maximum transparency and public access, hasn’t accepted the blame. Instead, strangely, it’s not commenting. What gives?

“We don’t actually know how many seats there are going to be yet,” said Colorado GOP Chair Steve House, discussing the upcoming presidential debate on KFKA’s Stacy Petty show Sept. 23.“The Coors Events Center holds 11,000, but networks are going to narrow that down to a very small number because, for some reason, they think that people might act out, right?”

CU is also blaming CNBC, sort of. In a statement about the limited seating, CU Chancellor Phillip P. DiStefano said: “The debate is being produced and led by CNBC. They determine the audience size, debate format and other aspects of the event. The Republican National Committee is in charge of ticket distribution.”

DiStefano said CNBC determines the audience size, but he was mum about the actual factual audience size set by CNBC for the event. It could have 1,000. It could have been 10,000. What was the number that the RNC was working with?

We know the CU’s Coors Events Center holds 11,000 people. The RNC is reportedly distributing just 1,000 tickets, with 100 going to CU students. So did CNBC determine the 1,000 number?

A CNBC spokesman declined to comment to me this morning, as it’s done before about this matter, making CNBC look like it’s covering for the RNC. That’s not an appealing role for a journalistic entity.

CNBC’s silence allows the RNC to get away with not taking responsibility for the limited seating, especially because House, the local Republican leader, is flat-out blaming CNBC.

Here’s an example of what the RNC is saying:

“These debates are designed for a television audience and the millions of people who will tune in,” said Fred Brown, an RNC spokesman, according to the Durango Herald. “We look forward to the attention an event of this scale will bring the university.”

Any CNBC reporter, or any self-respecting journalist for that matter, would find that spin revolting. But normally, a journalist couldn’t do much about it. In this case, however, the information to expose the spin resides within the journalistic outfit itself. That would be CNBC.

I’m hoping CNBC will do journalism a favor and start explaining what’s going on here.

You can’t win if you’re Rep. Ken Buck and you go on Tea-Party radio, just after you’ve voted to retain Tea-Party anathema John Boehner as Speaker of the U.S. House.

You’ve already been called out for treason on Facebook, and you have to say that’s wrong. On the other hand, you have to show that you understand why liberty listeners hate Boehner so much.

Under tough questioning by guest-host Nancy Rumfelt on KFKA last week, here’s how Buck threaded the needle.

Buck (at 12:40): “I want to face people.  And especially the people that thought they were being cute in putting ugly things on my Facebook.  You know, if you want to say something nasty to me, say it to my face.  Don’t put something on Facebook.  What happened yesterday was just a disgrace.  You know, go to Trey Gaudy’s town hall meeting and call him traitor. Say that he committed treason. It’s just ridiculous.  And yes, we voted for John Boehner.  We thought it was the best path forward, but it is not an act of treason.  And it’s just silly to use those terms.”

But don’t even think Buck will slide toward the middle:

Buck (at 6:50 below): “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.”

Listen to Ken Buck on KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show, Jan. 7, 2015, guest hosted by Nancy Rumfelt.

Senatorial candidate Cory Gardner has been hitting the radio airwaves recently with his thoughts on immigration, and I’ve discerned a pattern, nothing too complex, but a pattern nonetheless:

Start with point number one here: 1. Sound like you’re for immigration reform. 2. Attack others for immigration-reform failures. 3. Sound like you have an actual factual immigration-reform plan, when, in fact, you have nothing specific to offer. 4. Go back to point number 1.

Here’s how it works in action, as delivered during a Hot Air interview July 26, so real reporters can be prepared, if they interview Gardner on immigration.

Gardner: We have a humanitarian crisis at our Southern border that underscores the broader need for responsible immigration reform.

[That’s point one: He’s sounding like he wants rational reform.]

Gardner: My opponent, Senator Udall, voted in favor of the Senate legislation that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would decrease illegal immigration by as little as 33%. Our current problems require long-term reform, not short-term Washington fixes.

[Point two: He’s blaming others. And, by the way, the bill would cut illegal immigration by 33-50 percent.]

Gardner: I believe we should move forward with an immigration policy that prioritizes border security, and that includes a viable guest-worker program that capitalizes on the benefits of legal immigration to this country.

[Pont three and four: He’s sounding like he has a plan. But where is it? Judging from his utterances, you’d think he supports the bipartisan Senate bill, which he’s just slammed Udall for supporting. What does Gardner support?

In another recent interview, on KFKA’s Amy Oliver show, Gardner rattled off his immigration spin cycle in a slightly different order, but the points were there.

Gardner, sounding like he’s for immigration reform: “First we have to have Senate, House, and president working together to solve these problems.”

Gardner blaming others: “We have the Senate saying, ‘Our way or the highway.” This is the bill. They refuse to work with the House, saying this is the only thing we can have. We have certain members of the House, including Republicans, who are refusing to work with Democrats, and that’s unacceptable. And we have a president who just wants to blame people.

Gardner sounding like he has a plan: “And I think we have to have people willing to work together to work with our neighbors to make sure we put policies in place that don’t end up with them sending family loved ones to have this horrible journey because the conditions in their country are so bad.”

Similarly, back in February, Gardner said:

Gardner: I think there is need for reform [point one], but the bottom line is the President has to show a willingness to make sure that the law is enforced and to be able to work with Congress. And really, it’s unfortunate that the fact, this president put no effort into building relationships with Congress over the past four years on either side of the aisle. It’s really starting to hurt his policy efforts now.

So the  pattern is pretty obvious, but the question is, will Gardner be challenged, even by talk-radio hosts, when he tries to roll it out?

In a blog post Friday, I tipped my hat to a Greeley talk-radio show for being the first media outlet to report that Cory Gardner’s new position on abortion, in the wake of his un-endorsement of the personhood amendment, aligns with dogmatic religious views against abortion, even in the case of rape and incest.

But KFKA hosts Tom Lucero and Devon Lentz let me down by not questioning Gardner when he told them he holds the same position on abortion as “many pro-lifers in Colorado, including Congressman Bob Schaffer.”

But Bob Schaffer never endorsed the personhood initiative at all, much less collected signatures for it. Personhood leaders would never have called Schaffer one of their “main supporters.”

In Congress, Schaffer never co-sponsored federal personhood legislation, which would have banned all abortion, even for rape and incest, like Gardner did less than a year ago.

You can bet Schaffer never sent a constituent a letter saying, “Throughout my life, I’ve been committed to protecting human life, beginning at conception.” Gardner wrote this just last month.

So, actually, Gardner’s abortion position is significantly to the right of Schaffer’s, which obviously carries serious political baggage for Gardner, as Lucero and Lentz should have pointed out.

On abortion policy and politics, Gardner is much more like Ken Buck. Afrwe being an enthusiastic supporter of the personhood amendment, Buck un-endorsed the measure in much the same way Gardner did,  saying he still supported it “as a concept” but he hadn’t fully understand it. Gardner, you recall, said the personhood initiative was motivated by “good intentions.”

Buck’s flip did nothing to stop him from, arguably, losing the election due to his position on women’s issues. Schaffer would neither have been as vulnerable as Buck was nor as vulnerable as Gardner remains.

These are the issues that should be raised, if Gardner continues to downplay his personhood flip flop by comparing himself to Schaffer.

When Rep. Cory Gardner dumped his longstanding support of the Personhood amendment two weeks ago, reporters failed to tell us about Gardner’s new position on abortion.

It turns out, Gardner now holds the same abortion stance as Archbishop Charles Chaput, who left Denver for a Vatican post in Philadelphia in 2011.

That’s what Gardner told KFKA (Greeley) talk-show hosts Tom Lucero and Devon Lentz March 27. They get the intrepid-talk-show-host prize for being the first to ask Gardner the logical follow up to his March 21 bombshell about ditching personhood:

LUCERO:  So, Cory, has your position on life changed, or just your position on – with regards to the Personhood initiative?

GARDNER:  Yeah.  I mean, if you look at my record, it still is a pro-life record.  And many pro-lifers in Colorado, including Congressman Bob Schaffer, the Archbishop Chaput of the Catholic Diocese, hold the same position.

LENTZ:  So, it’s really, it’s more along the lines, if I’m understanding correctly, on what contraception is available for women, not – not abortion — for being abortion– it’s just more having the choice of birth control itself.

GARDNER:  Well, that’s one of the consequences that we looked at in terms of contraception, but this issue [personhood] is, I think, a settled issue in Colorado and something that pro-lifers – you know, like I respect peoples’ difference of opinion on this, and I think there are a lot of differences of opinions on this, but I happen to agree that, with the things that I have learned, that I did something that was the right position to take.

So what does this tell us about Gardner’s newly minted abortion views?

The Vatican, along with Catholic Bishops, like Chaput, support the personhood concept, with life beginning at conception. They oppose all abortion, even for rape and incest.

But, as Gardner said, Chaput did not back the personhood amendment. I couldn’t find Chaput’s specific explanation for his opposition to the personhood initiative.

A decade ago, Chaput himself wrote, in describing church teachings, that Roe v. Wade is a “poorly reasoned mistake” and “abortion is wrong in all cases, even rape and incest.” (News Release, “CFJ: Many See the Anti-Religious Implications of Dem Questions on Pryor,” July 3, 2003″).

Vatican watchers will undoubtedly recall that Chaput directed Catholics to vote according to their faith, and he called abortion a “foundational issue” that’s not open to debate.

On his “AM Colorado” show last week, Lucero also asked Gardner for “a little more insight” into his decision to abandon personhood:

LUCERO: You got a little bit of heat this last week in an interview you had with The Denver Post. Give our listeners a little more insight into what you were trying to tell them over at The Denver Post. 

GARDNER:  Well, you know, if you look at my position as a pro-life member of Congress, if you look what we did four years ago during the 2009, 2010 run up to the election [inaudible] the number of initiatives on the ballot, I had stated then that I supported an initiative known as the Personhood initiative.  But since that time, I have done a lot of work, done a lot of studying, and learned that that is actually something that many pro-lifers agree, could ban contraception and is a step back for the pro-life effort.  And I believe the voters of Colorado have spoken –that they said ‘no’ to this on multiple occasions, and we ought to be working together on common goals that we can achieve, instead of fighting over a separate issue.

Interestingly, in August, before Gardner flipped on personhood, former CO Republican Chair Dick Wadhams cited Chaput as a model for a GOP candidate–as someone who is both “pro-life” but anti-personhood amendment. Wadhams said at the time that a pro-life candidate who embraces the personhood amendment can’t win in a statewide election.

KFKA talk-radio host Amy Oliver urged Republicans last week to read a Facebook post by former State Senator Shawn Mitchell, in which Mitchell wrote that he’s “somewhere between distressed and appalled that GOP luminaries think it’s a good idea for [Rep. Amy Stephens] to bear the party’s standard into a campaign for federal office in 2014.”

Stephens is one of six GOP candidates vying to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Udall next year.  Also running are Tea Party favorite and recycled Senate candidate Ken Buck, mustachioed state Senator Randy Baumgardner from northwestern Colorado’s District 8, state Senator from El Paso County Owen Hill, as well as Jamie McMillan and Tom Janich.

Oliver, who doubles as a staffer for the libertarian Independence Institute, was really excited about Mitchell’s Dec. 9 Facebook post, telling listeners that “the entry of Amy Stephens in the race, and some of the subsequent endorsements that she has received, have got conservatives saying privately what Shawn Mitchell put out publicly.”

Oliver dedicated two segments of Tuesday’s show to the Facebook post, pouring over Mitchell’s writing, like you might read a religious text, slowly and respectfully analyzing it in loving detail, re-reading portions of it, pausing, and building up to what she called one of Mitchell’s “most important lessons:”

Mitchell: “Pushing Amy Stephens to the nomination will guarantee bitter debate and resentment that demoralizes the base, escalates recrimination, and urging toward party fracture, and accelerates the GOP’s recent death wish to impersonate the Whigs.

And that speaks only of the primary. If the elders and donors can carry her across the line to the nomination, what exactly do you think the Media Democrat team will do to the former employee of Focus on the Family, the co-architect of the infamous end-of session civil-buster, that killed dozens of bills on the calendar, in order to block a vote on civil unions? Whatever the merits of that move, it will be blood in the water come October. And it will be just about the only thing that unpolitical, tv-watching Coloradans ever hear about Amy Stephens.”

Oliver accurately provided context, pointing out that Mitchell’s post, which has amassed 264 comments on Facebook, states that Stephens is not a “bad Republican,” but she agreed with Mitchell’s view:

Mitchell: “In sponsoring SB-200, the Obamacare exchange, Amy Stephens bet wrong in a big way on a defining, existential battle, perhaps the biggest of the decade, maybe in our lifetime. She sided with party appeasers and corporate accomodationists against a vital, surging grass roots movement for liberty and smaller government. Even at the time she made her bet, the picture was murky, and ambitious politicians could be forgiven for being uncertain. (Once upon a time, it took me days to sort out right from wrong when Referendum C’s assault on TABOR was put before the people.).”

“I highly recommend that Republicans read it,” Oliver told listeners, even after she’s already said Mitchell’s post is a “must read” and “a great read.”

Oliver should obviously have Stephens on the show to get her side of the story.

On KNUS radio last week, Rep. Cory Gardner was pressed on whether he’d try again to block an extension of the debt limit to stop Obamacare. His answer surprised me:

Gardner: “I don’t think threatening with the debt limit is a good idea. I think that has proven to not work.”

Afternoon KNUS host Steve Kelley, who was interviewing Gardner, seemed to think Gardner should go down the debt-ceiling-government-shutdown road again, and not blink this time. So I thought Kelley would remind Gardner how fierce an advocate he’d been for using the debt ceiling in the past.

Kelley may not be a regular listener of KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show, but I am, and I remember when Oliver asked him (on Jan. 8):

Oliver: I want to ask you Congressman, are you willing to vote no against a raise in the Debt Ceiling if it doesn’t include significant spending cuts? 

Gardner:  Well, “Absolutely,” is the answer to that.

Gardner made similar comments to Kelley himself in January, saying, “We are not going to imperil the future generations of the country.  It is immoral.  It is wrong.” And on conservative KFTM, Gardner said that blocking the extension of the debt ceiling was an “opportunity to reduce the size and scope of government, and how we can require opportunities to look for savings, look for cuts, and what we’re going to do to grow the economy through common sense tax reform.  I think there’s great opportunities for us to get back on track.” (Listen here.)

So If I were Kelley, I’d wonder why Gardner’s moral outrage about the debt ceiling was so easily undermined by a tactical loss.

Same question would go to U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, who said on KLZ Grassroots Radio Colorado Aug. 27:

Buck: I’m “absolutely against raising the debt limit, period, end of story”

Is Buck ready to give up the fight on the debt ceiling, like Gardner is? Kelley should consider asking him.

Conservative talk-radio hosts agreed to disagree with State Sen. Greg Brohpy  last week on his support of a new Colorado law offering undocumented students, who were brought to our country illegally, in-state tuition.

Asked to explain the evolution of his thinking on the topic (from for it to against it), Brophy said in part:

There is a real problem that some kids in the state of Colorado are locked into permanent impoverishment when there is a better path for them.  So, you know the kids down here in Kersey, for instance, a kid named Everado who was the valedictorian of his class and a great football player and baseball player, had a scholarship to go to college but couldn’t get in-state tuition.  He is now milking cows instead of going to college.

Nicely put, but why won’t this kid be able to stop milking cows and go to college, now that the ASSET law has been passed? KFKA co-hosts Devon Lentz and Tom Lucero didn’t ask. Maybe Brophy himself can help this kid, and differentiate himself further from fellow gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo?

But the AM Radio Colorado Show hosts were apparently too upset about Brophy’s support for ASSET to sympathize with Everado. Instead, they pushed on, asking Brophy where he stands on the immigration bill passed by the U.S. Senate but being held up by the Republican-controlled House.

Brophy said he’d oppose the bill, explaining:

BROPHY:  I would oppose that bill.  I would say, you know, first and foremost, secure the borders.  Make sure that we stop, as much as possible, the inflow of people coming into the country illegally.  And then second, and almost immediately, put in place a two-track visa system where people that want to come here to become Americans have a path to do that, that they can actually see, that takes away the incentive to cheat.  And another path – a visa path – that let’s people come to this country to work.  And again, it’s a relatively easy path to see, to take away the incentive of coming here illegally.  I look at this like a problem to solve, a little bit like a police chief in a small town.  If you’re having a lot of trouble with kids late at night, you enforce the curfew.  The kids that are inclined to not cause problems, will be at home.  The ones that are going to be problematic, there won’t be nearly as many of them for you to watch.  So, if you have a visa system that actually works, that allows people a pretty clear path to get here, to become an American or to get here to work, then you don’t have to watch so many people trying to sneak in to the country illegally.   That solves that problem, and I would be pushing for that as governor.  I think that’s a—you know, that’s an American way of doing things.  We want people to come here.

Lentz and Lucero should have someone on the show to defend the immigration bill, since Brohpy won’t do so.

Rep. Mike Coffman said that too big a deal was made of his line about Obama is not an American “in his heart.” But reporters were right not to think so.

Here’s another case of over-the-top extremism that deserves to be picked up by the press, because it’s fundamentally disrespectful.

On KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show Friday, Rep. Cory Gardner leveled this attack on Obama:

Gardner: This is a president who is doing everything he can to make this nation no longer abide to the rule of law.

Oliver: Wow. What does that do to the rule of law?

Gardner: It weakens it tremendously.

Listen to Gardner on KFKA 10-4-13

I guess Gardner would advise me not to let people like Obama hang out with my teenage son? Unless I want anarchists hanging around the house?

Admittedly, it’s hard to know sometimes when the extremism threshold has been passed. But reasonable reporters should agree that this is an example.