Station:    KNUS, 710 am

Show:       Chuck & Julie Show

Guests:    House

Link:        https://chuckandjulie.podbean.com/e/chuck-julie-may-23-2019-hr-3/

Date:       May 23, 2019

Topics:     GOP Central Committee Chairman Vote, Proxies, Colorado Education Association (CEA), Lx Fangonilo, Ballot Harvesting, Voter Fraud, Nursing Homes, Alzheimer’s Patients, Jeff Hays, Election Integrity, Walk Apps, Targeted Digital Ads, Ryan Call, IEC, Independent Expenditure Committee, Cory Gardner, Donald Trump, Party of Stupid, Voter Outreach, Churches, Hispanic Community, African American Community

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HOST CHUCK BONNIWELL [00:00:01] But we have Steve [House] on the line right now. Steve, thanks for joining us.

CEO OF THE COLORADO REPUBLICAN PARTY, STEVE HOUSE [00:00:04] Hey, Chuck! How are you?

BONNIWELL [00:00:05] I’m doing just great. I’m doing just great. [I] want to check in with you to see how the party is doing. And as far as I’m concerned — I know there are others who do not share my views — but I think the two of you are doing a great job. I mean, I was up for the Adams County Republican dinner where you were former head of the Adams County Republican Party. But Mr. Buck was there, [he] did a great job. I know I just got an invitation for a downtown event that [he] is going to be [at], and I know you’ve been busy. So, how’s it from your side? How is everything going?

HOUSE [00:00:39] It’s good. We’ve probably gone through — I want to say — ten, maybe, county visits in the last week or so. We had a great meeting today with the Colorado Education Association. You know, they’re — the teachers, [the] teachers associations are open to some significant discussions. I think they they know we need to do something about education and that’s one of the critical issues, I think, in the 2020 election. So, you know, we’re moving forward. And, uh –.

BONNIWELL [00:01:07] So, you met with the CEA union goons?

HOUSE [00:01:13] Yes, I did. I did.

BONNIWELL [00:01:13] So, that must have been a fun time.

HOUSE [00:01:17] Yeah! Sure, it worked all right. I [unintelligible] their meeting–.

BONNIWELL [00:01:20]  Did they have the hammer and sickle up on the bulletin board? Or did they take it down for you?

HOUSE [00:01:24] Nope, they did not.  They were very welcoming. It was really good, so–.

BONNIWELL [00:01:28] Oh, okay. Well, [facetiously] good luck with that one.  [laughs].

HOUSE [00:01:33] Yeah, we’re uncovering the voter base that, you know, we need to attract, obviously.  We’ve said right from the beginning we need 200,000 more voters. And, you know, between data and other factors, we’re starting to really identify where they are. So things are going well.

BONNIWELL [00:01:47] Yeah, yeah, well, you’ve indicated you need 200,000 votes which is which is a lot, but I think they’re out there. You know, there is a woman you need to talk to that I’m not trying to get you in touch with, who’s Alice, who calls here. And she works at a nursing home.

HOUSE [00:02:04] Okay.

BONNIWELL [00:02:05] And she was talking about her experience the last election where the Democratic operatives came in carrying ballots — in some cases, applications for ballots.  [They] swept through the facility. They demanded her signature on things. She’d say, “I’m not signing it.” And they’d get somebody else to do [it]. Then they headed for the Alzheimer/dementia wards, and gathered all the Alzheimer’s and dementia patients who had not the slightest idea — she said — of who they were, what they were, what they were doing.  [The operatives] swept up all their ballots or had them apply for ballots. I mean, she said it was a disgrace. It was just — it should be criminal.  She said, “I don’t know if it is criminal.”  But I think everyone agrees  — or virtually everyone, maybe Jeff Hays doesn’t–.

HOUSE [00:02:47] I think it is. I think it is criminal. I think there’s plenty ways to do that. I mean, we were talking about this at a number of locations recently, and we’re going to have people at those nursing homes on the day ballots drop, besides assisted living [facilities]. Election integrity in this election — especially — is going to be critical and I think we’re going to be aggressive, if not almost militant, about it.

BONNIWELL [00:03:07] Right.  Well, you should be!  You should be.

HOUSE [00:03:07] I mean, any vote that gets in the system that’s bad, we’re not going to let it happen.

BONNIWELL [00:03:11] I think it’s going to be critical for the Republicans. They were asleep at the switch,  quite frankly,  in the last election — maybe lack of money was the reason — and maybe other ones. Well, Julie did talk to Lx.  How do you pronounce his last name?

HOUSE [00:03:29] Fangonilo. [pronounced ‘fang-o-knee-o’]

BONNIWELL [00:03:29] [repeating the pronunciation] Fangonilo.

HOUSE [00:03:30] Yep.

BONNIWELL [00:03:30] And she was very impressed. He says, “I’m not a media guy.! I’m not a media guy! I’m happy to talk off the record, but I’m not a media guy!”  But she was quite impressed with him. So,  has he come to town yet, or is he in the process of switching over?

HOUSE [00:03:47] No, he’s here, actually. We’ve met a couple of times.  We’re going through, you know, walk apps, digital solutions. I mean the technology, Chuck — I mean,, think about this, right? You could literally, now, have somebody watching a commercial on TV — a political commercial on TV — know it, and simultaneously send them a reactionary stimulus digital ad on their cell phone.

BONNIWELL [00:04:15] Wow!

HOUSE [00:04:15] And to get — you know, just to take the temperature of the voter, you know. A lot of this is about, you know, getting their sensitivity. Lx is really smart. I mean, he has exposed himself to a lot of stuff, but what I get out of this guy is he’s probably a very high IQ kid with enough experience to really be helpful. And of course, he’s got Hispanic background. And he’s well known throughout the RNC. So, he’s going to be a big advantage.

BONNIWELL [00:04:41] And he looks nerdy, which to me, always [depicts] ‘genius.’

HOUSE [00:04:48] He does!  Nobody has ever accused me of that, but he does fit that criteria.

BONNIWELL [00:04:51] Well, actually the thing I like about you is you are very smart.

HOUSE [00:04:53] Thank you.

BONNIWELL [00:04:53] And the Republican Party is known as ‘The Party of Stupid’ for a reason, because a lot of the people in it are stupid — salt of the earth! but not the brightest people. Of course, the other side is evil — they’re just evil!  I tell the story: I lobbied down at the Capitol for a couple years, and as you know, downstairs is the cafeteria. And you [could] just sit there and you’d see this incredibly evil-looking thing go by, and you’d go, “Democrat!”  And you’d always be — or 90% of the time, you’d be right.  You’d see somebody who looked like, you know, not too bright: “Republican!” And you’d go, “Yep, yep, yep, yep.”  Now, that’s not true for 10% on both of them, but it’s amazing how often that kind of comes through.  Um, how’s the fundraising going?  I mean, that’s the hardest thing. I mean, I’ve heard from others that, you know, the one thing about businesses is that they go to winners. And so, when you have no power there are more — there is a large section of the business community that has no use for you. You have to have something to show that you can […] do something for them.  So, it can’t be easy out there, trying to raise money.

HOUSE [00:06:03] Yeah, so — so, the first sort of hurdle we had to get over was getting Ken qualified through the Congressional Legal Office to do it, right.? So even though we knew that it was legal, he had to go through that. Well, that happened just recently. We’ve got a fairly significant fundraiser with our finance team next week. I suspect that’ll be one of the biggest private fundraising days the party has had.

BONNIWELL [00:06:33] Oh! Really?

HOUSE [00:06:33] Yeah, I mean, when you take into account events — right? — if you were doing a big event and you had the Vice President [of the United States], you might raise more on something like that than you would on a Finance Committee-type fundraiser. But the names that are attending the fundraiser are all in the right category. Then the other thing is we have appointments with, you know, the biggest donors in the state over the next two to four weeks. There isn’t anybody, really, I’m missing on the list of people that I would want to see, and they’re all open to it. I think you’re right.  I mean, the donors — donors are looking for a different strategy.

BONNIWELL [00:07:06] Right.

HOUSE [00:07:06] I also think, though, that many of them realize that something’s got to happen, because we can’t continue to have the kind of erosion of the oil and gas industry and a crazy left turn.  And then of course nationally, I mean, it’s insanity right now. So, I think they’re going to come to play.  And that’ll be good.

BONNIWELL [00:07:23] Well, one of the things that I’ve been very impressed about you is about recalls  — and Ken Buck. I mean, his most famous line from his speech is, “Democrats are going to learn how to spell R-E-C-A-L-L,” and to tumultuous cheer[ing].  And you’ve been saying, “Hey, we’re going to support people who want to go out there [and] try to recall their representative. We’re going to be behind them where it makes sense.”   And — which is exactly the opposite of what was the case back in  — I guess it was 2013. But  — bu-u-u-t, Ryan Call — always trying to be helpful — comes out there, mocks the recall efforts, says the Democrats are doing what they were elected to do, — and just some of the worst quotes I’ve ever seen, if you just wanted to destroy your own party. And the problem everybody has, quite frankly, is he founded — is in charge of the independent expenditure committee for the state Republican Party. It makes it very hard. Maybe maybe the rich people like him because they don’t like Trump. But the very — but how does anybody else want to give to some of the Ryan is the head of,  when he just mocks and belittles the efforts of ground — grassroots Republicans?

HOUSE [00:08:39] Well, first of all, he’s not actually the head of it. I mean, Kerry is the chairman.  He’s a board member and, you know, he’s the legal counsel for the IEC. I know that he and Ken have had conversations since the articles about the recalls have come out. I mean, Ryan’s a really smart guy. You know, he understands the legal bylaws process of the party better than just about anybody.

BONNIWELL [00:09:00] Yes.

HOUSE [00:09:02] You know, it’s one of those things where he and Ken [Buck] have to find a place where they can, you know, either work together or not. And I think that’s going to happen. The IEC is not a high priority at the moment. Obviously it will become that way. His position on recalls is the same position you would take if you were a right-down-the-line, you know, follow-the-rules kind of process. Ours is not the same. I mean, we look at the recall situation as. the voters have it in the constitution; they have the right to do it if they get angry and someone goes beyond where they should go, then that’s your avenue of speaking up and making change if you want to make change. And I think from Ken’s and my perspective, we run a membership organization. If our members are upset, we’re going to listen to them. And I get that it’s our obligation. I think our elected officials need to listen to them as well. So, we’re definitely going to support them and we’re going to do what we can to help.

BONNIWELL [00:09:56] Yeah, I mean, you’ve got all these energized people, and if you dissipate that energy and lose it, it’s very hard to ever get back. And so, Galindo — she’s out, because of recalls. I mean, if there hadn’t been recalls–. And of course, we have the one in Centennial, which may not win.  It will be tough to win when Cole Wist  comes out against it, as another of your establishment Republicans who lost the district. But if you don’t capture that, if you don’t let the people work hard and go out and try their best to express their energy, you’ll lose all that.  And you gain more by having — you know, if they can get the signatures and bring in — you know, win or lose, you gain because you gain people who, come 2020, are ready to go. Ready to go! You know, I’ve run recall elections. I’ve lost recall elections, and I won in the next race, because the opponents were so dis-energized by the recall we’d  kill them in the other one. So, I just — you know, the  idea that the Cole Wists, and the Ryan Calls, and the — oh, God! I can’t think of the other consultants [who] are all saying, “No, no, no!  That’s a terrible idea!”  You just kind of [say], “You have nothing — you know nothing about grassroots, you know nothing about energizing people.” People have to take their energy somewhere, and if it’s in a recall that’s fine, because it’ll keep that enthusiasm up. The one thing you’ve got to start is a grassroots effort. And how do you do that? Well, you go — like they’re doing in Centennial — they’re going door to door to get the signatures. And they’ll find out which people will support the Republican Party and which ones won’t, which ones in fact are unaffiliated but they’re really Republican voters to get out for the call. I don’t know how else you do that, other than that hard work. And I think you and your team recognize that.

HOUSE [00:11:42] Yeah, and you know what’s interesting about that, is that I got a call from a person who signed a recall petition who called me about Centennial and said, “I want you to understand something.”  And I said, “What’s that?” And then they said, “This is not about the Second Amendment for me.  It’s about the Fourth Amendment.

BONNIWELL [00:12:00] Hmm!  Yes! Yes.

HOUSE [00:12:01] And I said, “Explain.”  And he said, “You know, when you start to allow people to come in without a warrant, you know, no-knock raids,” you know, he said, “Look,  I wouldn’t be so upset, except you can’t let the police come into your house. just because someone said you didn’t sound right on the phone, or whatever it might be.” And I think that’s probably going to be as big an issue as any. I mean, when you push the Constitution to the side on the fourth amendment, that gets to be pretty serious.

BONNIWELL [00:12:31] Yeah! That’s absolutely right!  And when people begin to understand what the red flag bill actually does. I mean, if you just say, “Well, it takes guns away from crazy people,” they go, “Oh, I like that!”   You kind of go, “This has nothing to do with crazy people, nothing about mental health. It is just a gun grab and a violation of all your basic rights.”  As you said, [it violates] the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the 14th Amendment — I mean, it just kind of goes up and down the one. And so I think at the — And I have heard from some people — because they call — who’ve gone out and getting recall signatures against Tom Sullivan, and they say people, you know, [in terms of supporting] the red flag [bill]– some do, some don’t.  But when you explain all the other bills he voted for, they’re shocked — right? They go, “I didn’t elect him to do that!  What?!  What?! Sex ed—?”  Yeah. So, it really is a matter of educating people, because notwithstanding the fact that we on talk radio and certainly you as leading the Republican Party here think that everybody follows it night and day. They don’t!  You know!  They don’t get The Denver Post anymore, and they really don’t follow any of it.  So, it’s a real education process for the people out there.

HOUSE [00:13:40] Yeah, and I think the other thing you’ve got to be careful of, too, is that, you know there’s been a few people who have weighed in and said, “You know, Tom Sullivan went through a great personal tragedy! Leave him alone!”  And I said I’d never ever want to go through what he went through, and I have great compassion for anybody who’s done that and I really don’t know what it’s like because I’ve been fortunate enough not to have to. But you can’t let that be the reason why you don’t push back, if you think your rights are being violated.  Otherwise, you know, you’d have to put anybody — anybody who had a personal tragedy would be off limits.

BONNIWELL [00:14:13] And how many of us haven’t had personal tragedies? You take Randy Corporon; his brother died in a horrific car crash. I’ve had my parents pass away under horrific circumstances. I mean, if you live through life you’re going to have a lot of tragedies. And just to say that your tragic circumstances exempts you from any other analysis — you know, I mean, that’s what Democrats do. They say, “Okay, it’s a victim. No criticizing a victim ever again — ever again!”  You kind of go, “No! That’s not –.  Let’s salute him for the tough time he went through, but no, he doesn’t get to just ramrod and destroy our rights simply because he was a victim.” And I think –.

HOUSE [00:14:57] Yeah, frankly, if we want to adopt that, if we absolutely want adopt that, I’ll agree to that because that means that they can no longer criticize Donald Trump, who was the victim of a witch hunt in a ridiculous investigation, which now we’re going to find out based on everything there that the FISA warrants weren’t valid and the FBI knew all along and they should have shut down the ‘collusion’ — if you will — case, you know, a year earlier.  All the other stuff they wrote about him and his obstruction stuff would never have happened!

BONNIWELL [00:15:26] Well, I’m one of those guys — and I don’t know if you are, I know Julie is. We’ve kind of [identified] two kinds of people:  people who just kind of understand it generally, and those who go down the rabbit hole.  Because it’s fascinating!  It tells you how your government works.  It tells the FBI how it really works, how the Justice Department actually works.   It tells you so much about your own government, some of which you’d rather not know. But it’s fascinating to work through all the permutations of the “Downer” and then the “New Turk”  and all that stuff. Are you one who gets down the rabbit hole, or do you just kind of look at it generally?

HOUSE [00:16:01] You know, I tend to go down the rabbit hole because, you know, I have a lot of people that ask questions about stuff and I want to understand the foundational basis for why something happened.

BONNIWELL [00:16:09] Right, right.

HOUSE [00:16:10] And so I do go down the [rabbit] hole, yes.

BONNIWELL [00:16:12] Okay, we have got to take a short break. Can you hang on? I’ve got a few more questions for you.

HOUSE [00:16:16] Sure!  Yep.

BONNIWELL [00:16:16] Okay, great. We’ve got Steve House with us, and we’ll be back in a second.

[00:16:21] [commercial break].

BONNIWELL [00:16:21] We’ve got Steve House the Republican Party of Colorado.  We decided that you’re CEO, or COO? Or is all that still undetermined?

HOUSE [00:16:29] Yeah, we probably need to wait for the first executive committee meeting, which is May 31, I think. It’s in about a week — a little over a week, I guess. But once they do that, they can decide at that point.

BONNIWELL [00:16:41] Right. Right. It doesn’t really matter what the title is. It’s always tough when you don’t have a title. You go, “I’m something!  I know I’m something! I’m sure of it!”.

HOUSE [00:16:48] Exactly!

BONNIWELL [00:16:48] You know, we had Suzanne Staiert — who was the Deputy Secretary of State — on earlier, and she’s the one who made a CORA request hoping to find the talking points for Jena Griswold about the trip — forbidding employees to go to Alabama. And instead — she didn’t get that, although she has requested it again– but in fact got — even better — the fact that the Secretary of State was running all her statements by — to be edited, approved, and changed by Planned Parenthood, which is –.   I guess you can’t be shocked these days.  But the level of mendacity of some of these people just amazes me.

HOUSE [00:17:33] Yeah, me too.  First of all, Suzanne is outstanding at what she did when she worked in the secretary of state’s office. We know each other from that experience, and I have great respect for her, so I believe in what she’s doing and thinking about. It wasn’t even just that she went to Planned Parenthood, in the case of Jena Griswold. It’s the dialogue that they had about politically positioning it, and the words. And look, this is a government official getting advice on how to position a private organization message in a government press release. It just stinks! I mean, to me, it’s unethical, it’s improper, and it’s an indication of why Wayne Williams should still be the secretary of state, in my mind.

BONNIWELL [00:18:17] Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. And you know, one of the jobs as Secretary of State is to regulate and oversee lobbyists in the state. And of course Planned Parenthood is a lobbyist in the state. And so what kind of oversight is that, if they committed violations of whatever regulations there are? I mean, it’s just amazing. One of the things that I think –.

HOUSE [00:18:47] Yeah! They beat up Scott Gessler for some strange things in his time, and I think something has got to be done about this.  This cannot just be a press release and a 9News story and let it go. There has to be something done about it.

BONNIWELL [00:19:00] Yeah, I agree.  I don’t know who does it because the A.G. is about as political as you get, and the governor is off doing his other thing. So I’m not sure who the heck reins Jena Griswold in, but it would appear that somebody should do it.

HOUSE [00:19:15] There’s something happening in that regard — in terms of how we’re going to approach these issues — that I will share with you, here, in a few weeks when it gets resolved.

BONNIWELL [00:19:23] Okay, good, good.  [I’m] glad to hear it.  One of the things that I think Ken Buck has shown that he has a sure foot — good footing — is the election — his election– which you guys ran as kind of a tandem team. Susan Beckman was one of the primary opponents. After the election, she wrote a review of it all and the things that she found to be troublesome. She didn’t make any accusations against anybody, didn’t go after anybody, but she said these things were troublesome.  In response, is Jeff Hays writing a vindictive, intemperate, defamatory response which I found — if you didn’t think there were problems with with the election process before you read Jeff Hays’ response, you certainly had major concerns after his response. And Ken just didn’t — you know — push it under the rug, [but instead, he] would say, “Hey, look! I’ll appoint Mark Baisley, who’s a representative, who has a lot of support and trust by — I think — grassroots people to look into it. And I thought that was just the right thing to do, just the right thing to do because whether — I don’t think anybody particularly wants the election results undone. But reforms have to be made where people don’t feel they can trust the election process. So I really applaud him for doing that. I think that really helps solve — or save, salves — a lot of kind of roughness around that election.

HOUSE [00:21:04] Yeah, you know, the basic premise that Ken and I talked about was, you know, when you walk in the room on that Saturday morning as a candidate — I’ve done it, he did it, Susan did it, and others — first of all, do you know who’s voting?

BONNIWELL [00:21:19] Right.

HOUSE [00:21:21] [Do you know] who’s carrying proxy? How were the proxies qualified? Is it simple enough that when you see a number on the screen, you know what the outcomes were, without question?  Do you know the process? Is it foolproof? You know, the answer was there’s a lot of things in there that made it confusing. And frankly, if you’re Susan or Ken or Sherrie [Gibson] that day, and you knew that somebody was holding on to five proxies, or six proxies, or whatever, if you knew that you would probably approach them and try to win them over.

BONNIWELL [00:21:50] Yeah! Right.

HOUSE [00:21:51] If you don’t know any of that stuff, you don’t really — it’s not really sort of a — it’s not the right way. It should be fixed. And there’s a lot of real good bylaws changes coming. But the other thing is, when the rules — the standing rules of a meeting — are different than the bylaws, that creates confusion. And there’s a number of areas where the Standing Rules overrule the bylaws.  And that just shouldn’t be the case. So we’re going to fix all that stuff.

BONNIWELL [00:22:15] And use of proxies, I mean, you know, if anybody has ever been involved in a proxy fight, you know the insiders control the proxies. And it’s a question of whether you should have proxies, whether you should have, you know, a meeting which is simultaneous on the west slope and down in Denver with television hookup, or something else. But I think there are a lot of things that can be done to make people feel like everything’s on the up and up and everybody has a chance and it isn’t just a cartel business of a few over the many. What kind of events do you have coming up that people can go to if they’re interested? I got an invitation from Ken to go [to] one downtown that I’ve been to before.  You guys — do you got events coming up that people can come to if they want to get involved?

HOUSE [00:23:07] Well, yeah, of course there’s a lot of Memorial Day stuff going on. And then, we’re going to have what I call “Issues Saturdays” that are starting up pretty soon, and we’re going to invite people in, say, four or five counties at a time to go to a local location on a Saturday, spend half a day listening to experts on the five or six major issues that we think are coming down in the 2020 campaign, develop messaging. You know everybody walks away with at least some idea of, you know, talking points, what we believe in, how to share that with other voters.  You know, those events are going to come up. We’ll be doing some stuff — some social type stuff, as well — in some of the outreach communities, in Hispanic communities, and the African-American communities around the state. We’re going to be doing some stuff in churches.

BONNIWELL [00:23:57] Yeah!  Good idea!

HOUSE [00:23:57] I mean, I think our objective is — and I think our candidates’ [objective] needs to be, you know, if you’re running in a particular territory, you should visit every church in that territory because we we are [a] faith based sort of party and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t exercise that.

BONNIWELL [00:24:11] No, I think that’s absolutely right. If you want to get a grassroots, you’ve got to get groups that agree with you, and one of those is — in many cases — local churches. Let me pick your brain on something, if I could.

HOUSE [00:24:26] Okay.

BONNIWELL [00:24:26] I’ve been at events where you’ve been at and talking about the upcoming 2020 election. And I think I’m correct — you can tell me if I’m wrong, but I think I’m correct — you view the election as, that, Cory Gardner has the best chance of the two main ones — Trump being the other one in a state-wide election — of winning, and that you certainly haven’t given up and hope that Trump can win. But you view him as having a greater challenge than Cory Gardner has. Am I correct in that assumption, from what you believe?

HOUSE [00:24:59] Just from a sheer numbers point of view, you know, the 200,000 voters we need to identify in the state to come our way may not put Trump over the line. He may need more like 300,000, based on — you know, he lost that 273,000 last time. You know, the voter base is a little bit bigger, it’s a little bit more unaffiliated. So I do think Cory has a better chance because his approval ratings in Colorado are higher than Donald Trump. But I also don’t think — I think there’s going to be a movement in the electorate that goes to, you know, what’s happened for groups of people, right? So, it’s not necessarily about a list of Donald Trump’s accomplishments — althought there are many. It’s really about what happens to these people who have got off Medicaid and gotten on to an employer-supplied health insurance because they got jobs?  What happens to them if we go in a different direction, especially a socialist direction.

BONNIWELL [00:25:54] Yeah. Right, right.

HOUSE [00:25:59] I think you’re going to hear lots of conversations about the people themselves that have been affected by the policies the president’s put into place. And I think because of that — you know, is there a scenario where Donald Trump could win Colorado and Cory Gardner wouldn’t?  I don’t think so, because I think Trump would lift Gardner in that scenario.

BONNIWELL [00:26:15] Let me give you a little pushback on that.  As a practical matter, Cory Gardner’s approval rating among Republicans was 49% according to the last [polling] — the  lowest of any Republican running in 2020. Donald Trump’s approval rating among Republicans is in the 90s.

HOUSE [00:26:37] Yep!

BONNIWELL [00:26:37] And Cory Gardner has attempted — and I understand why he attempted to do it — but attempted to kind of please moderates, please unaffiliateds, and has been disastrous about it. As a practical matter, when The Denver Post revokes a five year-old endorsement, that’s not good. Trying to please unaffiliateds or Democrats isn’t working for him. And I know lots of people who like Trump and hate Cory Gardner. I don’t know almost no one who likes Cory Gardner but hates Trump, other than a few really diehard Never Trumpers.  I mean, I have a feeling that Cory Gardner’s chances of winning in Colorado are significantly less than Donald Trump’s and his only hope — his only hope — is if Trump and the election–the election becomes very much of a wave election, maybe similar to ’72 where Donald Trump does great in the state and he carries Cory Gardner long. But if this station is any example of support for Cory Gardner, he doesn’t have much. I mean, Julie was down at 2016 when Cory Gardner walked out after everybody was booing him. I mean, I don’t see Cory Gardner winning, absent a huge victory for Donald Trump. But maybe that’s just me.

HOUSE [00:28:02] Well, I mean, you could make that argument. I think the one thing I am counting on is that Donald Trump is going to be pushing for Cory in the state in a huge way. I mean, he’s clearly — he likes Cory. He knows how hard, you know, things would have been in this cycle if Cory and the NRSC had done their job effectively. So, I think the President’s going to be pushing for him. I do think Cory will do better with unaffiliateds than the president would. So maybe that offset — in terms of approval — I totally get the 90 percent. I think it’s higher than that, actually, for the President. I get that. But I think he’s going to push for Cory. I think Cory will do better with unaffiliateds. The combination of the two tells me that, you know, they’re linked to — they’re hooked together. That’s why I think the state’s going to be very, very competitive. And I think every vote is going to count. And that’s why we’re going to go see every single county that we can, pick up every 10 votes out there that we can, because I do think it’s going to be very close for both of them.

BONNIWELL [00:29:01] Yeah, I think that’s right. Or at least, I hope that’s right.  All right, Steve, great to talk to you again. Thanks so much for coming on, and best of luck!

HOUSE [00:29:10] Thank you, Chuck! [I] always appreciate the time.

BONNIWELL [00:29:12] Okay!  Take care!  We’ll be back in a second with Hugh Hewitt.