In this episode of Rush to Reason, host John Rush delves into the intricacies of Colorado’s open primary system. With guest insights from Eli Bremmer, listeners will explore the legal and practical implications of opting out of this system, how it affects candidate selection, and the broader consequences for Colorado’s political landscape. John and his guests provide a comprehensive breakdown on why understanding these dynamics is crucial for both local candidates and voters. Listeners will also enjoy lighter moments, such as celebrating John’s birthday and discussing historical innovations like Volvo’s generous release of their three-point seatbelt patent aimed at
SPEAKER 06 :
This is Rush to Reason.
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You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes.
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With your host, John Rush.
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My advice to you is to do what your parents did.
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Get a job first. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same and there’s a big difference.
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Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
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Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
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It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Welcome Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Myself, Andy Pate, Charlie Grimes, of course, our engineer. And a question of the day here in a moment, but how’s Andy today? Andy is doing well, sir. How are you? It’s a great day outside.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it’s a great day for you. Aren’t you going to say why?
SPEAKER 15 :
No, just another day.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, never mind. Okay.
SPEAKER 15 :
It’s my birthday today. It’s just another day, Andy.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s John’s birthday.
SPEAKER 15 :
When you get this old, it’s just another day, Andy.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, it’s amazing, folks. You wouldn’t believe how old he looks right now. You can just tell. Once this day hit.
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s right. It’s over.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 15 :
Happy birthday, John. Thank you, Andy. I appreciate that. And several of you have texted me as well, and thank you as well. I appreciate that greatly. But really, I am serious. To me, it’s just another day. Kids all came over on Sunday. We had a good time celebrating and all of that, so that was great. Did your wife get you a walker? It’s coming.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER 15 :
It’s on order.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right.
SPEAKER 15 :
I hope I don’t need one of those anytime soon. Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right. Yesterday’s question of the day. What patent did Volvo give away in 1962 to save lives? One person texted and had the right answer. The three-point seat belt. Charlie, yesterday said seat belt, but it’s the three-point seat belt, the shoulder harness that keeps you from flying forward, keeps your body upright. They gave that away to the rest of the automotive world to save lives.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s pretty great, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 15 :
Pretty kind of them to do that, actually.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 15 :
Their statement was, few people have saved as many lives as Nils Bohlen. And they are right. Nils Bohlen is the little-known Volvo engineer who invented the V-type three-point seat belt in 1959, saw his innovation through to universal adoption across the motor industry. His new cross-strap design made seat belts much easier to use, much safer as well. It is hard to imagine now cars without them. And yes, it is. Well, we owe a lot to them. Good job, Nils. All right. Today’s impossible question of the day. Which composer’s final symphony is known as the choral symphony? Charlie, know that answer? No? Do you know that answer? It’s known as the choral symphony. The choral symphony.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, golly. I don’t know. Mozart?
SPEAKER 15 :
Nope. Okay. Anyways, good answer, though. All right, we’ve got a lot to talk about today because Andy’s going to give us an update on what he did over the weekend, which there’s a lot of things going on in regards to the Colorado GOP, the meeting that was this past Saturday. It all involved, not all, but a good portion of the meeting involved the open primary system that we have in Colorado. There are certain individuals inside of the party. Andy and I have talked about this in depth, but maybe you haven’t heard us talk about it before. But there’s a certain amount of individuals inside of the Colorado GOP that would like to see the open primary go away. And really quick, for those of you that maybe don’t know our system, maybe you’re new to Colorado, maybe you’re just listening to us for the first time, thank you, by the way, for that. We appreciate it. In Colorado, it was voted upon. It was a ballot initiative voted on by all of the voters in Colorado, not just a single party or by both parties, but by everyone involved. in this in the you know anybody that could vote voted on this particular issue right and it wasn’t so it wasn’t like written in and imposed by the legislature it was the voters this was a ballot initiative and i’m not going to get into the details of where that came from because it doesn’t matter it was a ballot initiative it made it onto the ballot it was voted overwhelmingly By the majority of Coloradans that they wanted an open primary system, meaning that if you’re a unaffiliated voter, as we call them in Colorado, if you’re unaffiliated voter, you can vote in either one, the Democrat or the Republican primary. You get to choose you like Charlie. Charlie’s unaffiliated. He gets both ballots. So when it comes to the primary, you get both ballots, Democrat or Republican. You can’t vote in both.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right, you can pick one or the other.
SPEAKER 15 :
There’s a misconception that these people get to vote in both. No, you pick one or the other. And the argument against open primary is that those people that are unaffiliated, maybe they’re really truly Democrats, they can actually vote in the primary. On the GOP side, on the Republican side, they can actually vote in that primary and skew those elections on the primary side. And Andy and I have argued this one. We’ll do a little bit more of this today. The reality is that’s a really, really weak policy. because at the end of the day, typically if those people do – because the argument is, well, we can’t get the people we want elected. The caucus system we have and these particular individuals that we want to get elected, we can’t get them elected because all of these people vote against us In the primaries. Actually, it’s the opposite is true, Andy. Yes. Most of the time, those particular Democrats that are actually coming over to the Republican side to vote in the primary will likely vote for those of you that actually pick the ones through caucus, because frankly, they’re in most cases, not all, but in most cases, especially in the big elections, they’re the worst candidate. Well, yeah. And by the way, even let’s say even if they weren’t the worst candidate, they are. But they are.
SPEAKER 05 :
But even if they weren’t, the Democrats think they are. That’s all that matters. There is no question, and we always use Ron Hanks as the example because it’s just such an obvious one.
SPEAKER 15 :
It’s an easy one.
SPEAKER 05 :
The Democrats look at these, shall we say, liberty, quote-unquote, grassroots, badly used.
SPEAKER 15 :
Liberty candidates is a good way to say it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Badly used term, but grassroots. But that’s what they look at. Okay. And I say Davidian just because it wraps up that whole group together, supporters of Dave Williams. Okay. The Democrats look at those candidates as far easier to beat. If the Democrats are going to intrude on our primary, they are going to vote for those candidates because those are the ones they’re going to want to face. And as proof of that, they even donate money and spend a ton of money on ads helping those candidates.
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s right. Great point.
SPEAKER 05 :
And yet the supporters of those candidates are complaining that Democrats in our primaries are killing their candidates. It’s exactly the opposite.
SPEAKER 15 :
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Right. Nothing. And it’s it’s by the way, I’ll just say this. I don’t care. I’ll say this on air. You’re delusional if you think otherwise. I’m using those words on purpose. Literally, you are delusional if you think that’s not the way this works. In other words, you’ve got your head in the sand. You’ve got cognizant dissidence so bad that you can’t see reality because you think that this is the way it is when, in fact, it’s the opposite of what you think.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. And they can’t even defend themselves. I’ve had a number of people who will say, what makes you think that Ron Hanks would not have won? And I calmly say, no problem. Let me give you a list. I list several reasons. In each case, they run away.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 05 :
They never debated.
SPEAKER 15 :
Absolutely. All right. We’re going to get into more of that, so that was just our kickoff to this. Don’t worry, we’ll be back in a moment. Dr. Scott is up next. He is my doctor, by the way. He would love to be your doctor as well, and he does things way different than the average doctor does. Call him today, 303-663-6990.
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SPEAKER 03 :
Country. Reason. Now back to John Rush.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Giving a recap of what happened this past Saturday. Andy gave a pretty good rundown. We’ll get into more of the details of it. Eli Bremmer joining us now because Eli’s, well, Eli, first of all, thank you for joining us. Second of all, you’re a, you know, I would say an expert when it comes to the legalities of a lot of things that happen, even though there’s a lot of folks out there that would accuse you of not knowing what you’re doing. I would argue that and say, yeah, there’s not often you’re wrong when it comes to the legal aspects of things.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, thanks, John. It’s great to be on your show again. And I really appreciate the service you do to talk about these things, because I think it’s important for Colorado voters to be educated about what’s actually going on because this really affects all of us.
SPEAKER 15 :
Correct. Absolutely, it sure does. Okay, so Andy, you gave the recap.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, yeah, I gave the recap online. And first of all, before we go any further, I want to credit Eli Bremmer and Todd Watkins for guiding me in a lot of that, guiding me to the sources, where to get the information to make sure I had this right.
SPEAKER 15 :
Make sure you said it correctly.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I’ve got a Facebook post out that people can read. But Eli, before we get into that, I just want to read to you From your favorite news source and mine, Rhino Watch.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, jeez, those clowns.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. And I kid, of course.
SPEAKER 12 :
It could be worse. It could be MSNBC.
SPEAKER 05 :
Is that worse?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, I’m not sure.
SPEAKER 15 :
I’m pretty equal, I think.
SPEAKER 05 :
Pretty equal. I think it’s a tie. It’s a dead heat. Okay, listen to this. Here it goes. Free at last, free at last, the Colorado GOP finally opts out of the disastrous semi-open primary. At Saturday’s State Central Committee, the Colorado GOP voted overwhelmingly to opt out of the semi-open primary imposed on us a decade ago by the Democrats. While some on the left, they’re talking about us, are trying to confuse or deny the victory long sought by the majority of our party, the facts are simple and undeniable. In April of last year, at the Colorado Republican Convention, over 90% of the delegates voted to get rid of the semi-open primary and instructed the SCC, which just met this past Saturday, to notify the Secretary of State as required by law. Okay. Eli, would you like to comment on that? So what they’re basically saying is, and I was at the meeting, they said that because of this vote that was held at the SCC in April of 2024, that vote forced the SCC, which we just which we I’m sorry. I mixed them up after a while, okay? The convention. The convention vote. The convention vote, April 24th, forced us last Saturday to approve the opt-out. Is that true?
SPEAKER 12 :
No. Okay. Well, thanks for joining us, Eli.
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s good. Really quick, I know you guys are the experts on this, and Andy was actually at the meeting. But, Eli, I know how things work when it comes to boards and committees and different things along those lines. You cannot say today, I’m going to impose in perpetuity my decision today moving forward, no matter who else gets elected and who else comes along. That can’t happen, Eli. It doesn’t work that way. Am I correct in what I’m saying?
SPEAKER 12 :
No, 100 percent. But I also want to back up to the first falsehood that you read there, Andy, was that a majority of Republicans want this. That’s simply not true.
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s not true.
SPEAKER 12 :
The vast, vast, vast majority of Republicans want to be able to vote on their candidates. And so that’s pretty important. Now, I’m going to give a trigger warning. If you’ve got snowflakes out there that don’t like how the law actually works, probably want to tune this out. But the supreme law of the land is the Constitution. Under that, you get federal law, you have state law, you’ve got local laws, and then you have inside a corporation bylaws. And you cannot violate the laws that are above you. The state law can’t violate federal law. and bylaws cannot supersede state law. So what you have here is a group of really progressive Republicans, and we’ve talked about this on your show for several years, who believe that they have the right to interpret the rules in whatever fashion that they want based on really their emotional whims, and they can’t win at the ballot box. Their ideas are clearly failed. They want to cancel the primary, and obviously the people that vote in the primary, which is a whole lot of Republicans, don’t want to cancel the primary. So the whole thesis behind this was that they would use a state convention, which has a couple thousand people in it, to usurp the will of a million Republicans who are protected under state law. So this is basically saying a private corporation can manipulate its own rules, because they violated their own rules in trying to do this, and then disqualify a state law. Thank God we live in a republic because, folks, that just doesn’t fly here. If you’re a corporation, you cannot violate the law. If you’re the state law, you can’t violate federal law.
SPEAKER 05 :
And Eli, really quick here. I read in detail today the state law. I’ve read it before, but I read it again. The state law on the Colorado’s open primary. Nowhere does it say that the convention or assembly can override the state central committee. It says in no uncertain terms, if you want to opt out of the open primary, you must get 75%. of the total membership of your state central committee to vote for it. There’s nothing else put in there. There’s no, oh, but if you want to override this and change this rule, you can do that at your state convention. There’s nothing in there like that. They totally invented this.
SPEAKER 12 :
Andy, this is the progressive wing of the Republican Party that believes that the end justifies the means and that they get to do whatever they want based on their emotional whims. And really, this comes down to a fundamental problem that we’ve got in this state, which is that there’s a small group of people that ironically call themselves the grassroots, who are really the deep entrenched establishment. They don’t help our candidates win. They don’t raise money for our candidates.
SPEAKER 15 :
I want to back up for one moment, too, in what you’re saying, because, by the way, you’re a thousand percent correct. And I couldn’t agree with you any more than what you’re saying. I’ll go one step further, though. They also suck at picking candidates because they pick candidates just like them. They can’t reach the market.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, that’s exactly true. And, you know, they have a horrible history of picking candidates that, frankly, you know, have never been vetted. They you know, their finances are often a disaster. You know, they have personal problems, things that Colorado voters – Colorado voters are smart people. We’re probably the third most educated state in the country. And so, you know, when – a couple years ago when I was running the Senate, you know, we had a candidate that was supported by this, you know, insider establishment cabal who would just go around and say, you know, lunatic things that just simply weren’t true and, you know, had – issues and background and stuff like that, but they’re okay with that and they don’t want to do vetting. And if you think vetting is not important, look at the New Jersey gubernatorial race where Mikey Sherrill, who’s had a number of flip-ups, is looking to potentially lose what should be a given Democrat seat. Okay, so this is not a left-wing, right-wing, Republican-Democrat issue. Voters don’t like it when candidates lie to them. They don’t like it when candidates have financial issues in their background that could affect their their time in office um there’s a reason why we vet candidates to make sure that you know you went to the schools you said you went to and you you know you held the jobs that you say you held i mean it’s just basic stuff and remember when we had remember when we had dan mays we did that right he was a He was the establishment, you know, the real establishment, these sort of party insiders. Right. They picked him. You know, they didn’t bother checking to see if he’d gone to the college where he said he went to. Kind of basic stuff, but, you know, that matters. But, you know, folks, that’s the problem with our system. And what we’re seeing is a symptom of really the worst governance model in the country, which is the Colorado caucus system. You have most of our listeners… I’m sure are going to be good conservatives. They care deeply about their families, their communities, their jobs. And the meeting this weekend was described to me by someone who has been to more political meetings than I have as the worst dumpster fire he had ever seen. It was. And look, good people don’t have time for that. Good people are tending to their families. And so this is simply a result of bad governance. And I like to point out the problem with socialism isn’t that we don’t have the right people running it. The problem with socialism is you can’t have good people running it. And as long as we have this this asinine caucus system in our state, which is the only state left with this kind of caucus system, you’re going to have a group of they’re not really radicals. They’re just insider corrupt. You know, they are the establishment. who care way more about getting their friend to be the candidate, largely because they feel like they can bleed money off into their own pockets if they do that, than they do about caring about, you know, are we winning? Guys, we won four out of eight congressional seats today. And zero were picked by this.
SPEAKER 15 :
I know Andy wants to say something, but I just want to interject really quick. I want to add one more word, Eli, to what you just said about these particular individuals as a description. They’re also ignorant in a lot of ways, especially in what the state of Colorado and the voters here want.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, completely. But, John, to be honest, I don’t think they care.
SPEAKER 15 :
No, they don’t. They don’t care.
SPEAKER 12 :
No, you’re right. It is about their power.
SPEAKER 15 :
It’s really, Eli and Andy, it’s blind ignorance. I mean, they’ve got this mantra that they’re heading down this path, come hell or high water. It doesn’t make any difference what else comes along. It doesn’t make any difference what other facts are out there. I don’t care what the market wants. I don’t care even what the voters of Colorado want, which is the market, by the way. But at the end of the day, we’re voting this way because we’re right, you’re wrong.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and also because, as Eli says, they want the money. That’s right. You get a lot of money. Well, Eli, really quick.
SPEAKER 12 :
Let’s point out, these were the never Trumpers. It’s quite literally the same people.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, they were the Ted Cruz people. Good point.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, okay. So let’s be real honest here. Donald Trump has revolutionized the Republican Party. He’s the most significant political figure, I believe, since World War II, okay? And if you don’t think he’s the best politician in America in terms of his political skill, you need to really ask yourself the question, are you using fair analysis? And these people literally stood up at the convention in 2016 and said, we’re going to try to keep Trump from getting elected president. They don’t have a good track record.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and once again, let’s get back to the power thing, because you were saying that they are all into wanting the caucus. And on Saturday when I was there, they came out and openly stated they want the primary gone and they want our candidates chosen through caucus and assembly. Less than 1% of Colorado Republicans attend caucus and assembly. So that means they want our candidates chosen by 1% of one party. And that’s how they believe that it’s going to reach the market. Let me ask you something. How can you want a system that is not wanted by 99% of your party and still claim to be representing the grassroots. How can the 1% be the grassroots, Eli? I thought the 99% were the grassroots.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, it’s because all animals on the farm are created equal, but some are more equal than others. Oh, my bad. And I will tell you, if these folks had their way, I can tell you three candidates who would have lost, Congressman Jeff Crank, Congressman Jeff Hurd, Congressman Gabe Evans, and I can tell you one who would have won, which would be House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. So we don’t really have to guess. they are not interested in helping Donald Trump govern with a majority in the House. Let me be really clear. We have a majority in the House because of Colorado, and had these caucus establishment insiders had their way, Hakeem Jeffries would have been the Speaker of the House. Guaranteed. Guaranteed.
SPEAKER 15 :
Eli, I mean, and Andy, you can answer this too, but are they… I mean, I have a hard time believing it at times, guys, because, I mean, yes, I know they’re fairly ignorant in certain areas. And I mean, that’s in the most sincere of ways. They’re ignorant in finances as far as how they handle some of their own and picking candidates and on down the line we go. But I guess ultimately I have a hard time. believing that they really feel like their way at the end of the day moves the football forward in Colorado because Eli and Andy both, you guys, there isn’t a single data point out there that would tell you that they are on track in the area that I just mentioned. In other words, if you go their direction… You lose everything. I mean, we don’t have a snowball’s chance if you go their direction. They can’t be that dumb to believe that’s the case, Eli, or am I wrong?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, let me really quick here. Eli, let’s split it into two groups. It’s their leaders and candidates, and then their peoples, the hordes, their backers.
SPEAKER 15 :
I’ll give you that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Their backers do believe they can win. But they can’t. I know they can’t, but I believe they’re, by backers, I mean they’re supporters of the people you debate on Facebook.
SPEAKER 15 :
They’re cheerleaders.
SPEAKER 05 :
But they’re leaders and candidates. I think they know they can’t. Go ahead, Eli.
SPEAKER 12 :
Look, I’m just going to be brutally harsh and honest here. I wrote an op-ed. a couple years ago where I said the problem with the caucus system is its incentives. The people with the least opportunity costs are the ones who have the highest propensity to spend the most time here. Right. Meaning I run a company. I’m actually at a trade show today with my housing company that I launched last year. I’ve got a lot of other things I have to do. Yeah, I know the feeling. These folks are, you know, writ large, you know, they’re lesser employed, have lesser family situations. Yep. And it’s an economic definition. I mean, I was an econ major in college, and we studied this. We studied economic interest. And so what you wind up with is the people running this are the people who, frankly, if I were picking for my corporate governance at one of my companies, the worst people I could imagine. You’re self-selecting for the people who have the lowest opportunity cost. And for the five or ten people out there that are avid caucus goers whose brains are exploding right now and furious with me, This is a mathematically provable statement. The caucus system rewards those with the least opportunity cost, which is the opposite. So, John, that’s why they actually will pass a lie detector test because we have free screen for a system… that quite literally brings the least productive, least accomplished people to the forefront.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, and I want to add one thing to what you just said, because Andy and I have talked about this many times. This is also where you attract all the political grifters from around the country, because we’ve got a horde of them here, Eli, where they are not even Colorado, not even close to being a native. They’ve been here five, six, seven years, and all of a sudden they’re ingrained in our political system in Colorado. And I’ll just be straight up honest, they have no clue what’s gone on in Colorado over the last several decades. So in my opinion, am I wrong in saying it attracts political grifters as well?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, it does, and there’s an entire ecosystem around it. You’ve got companies that make millions and millions of dollars a year on petition gathering. This is why they don’t want a liberalized, and I use that in the classical sense, a liberalized ballot access system where you could go out with a group of volunteers and collect the signatures on a weekend to run for state house or even U.S. Congress. you’re dealing with probably a $10 million per year petitioning infrastructure here. And there are people, these political consultants, have no interest in us winning elections. They have an interest in protecting their
SPEAKER 15 :
uh their finances and and they’ve sold us out they have they have you’re right it’s a pretty insidious system no and i’m going to push the break off just because this is too good to just stop midstream so we’ll just keep going i’ll combine some breaks here for for you eli i know you’re at a trade show you’re working i’ll honor your time as well in doing so but as you know this is a big deal to me personally because this particular group of people that are, and I think you guys are correct, and it’s really even less than the 1%, because Andy’s right. It’s a small, small group of people, even inside the 1% that go to caucus and assembly, that somehow brainwash and convince the remaining 1% that this is the direction we all need to head. It really, I don’t know the exact numbers, Eli, but I’m I’m guessing and being around some of these people and even interviewing some of these folks over the years and being close to them for really the past decade plus here on air, Eli, I will tell you that we’re probably talking about 100 or less people that are really in control of what you’re talking about. Am I wrong in my thought process?
SPEAKER 12 :
I think that’s probably accurate when you look at sort of the statewide setup.
SPEAKER 15 :
Meaning, really quick, if we go down the path that they’re wanting to go down, you talk about the elite, quote-unquote, I’m using that not in the elite term of money and so on, but it’s the elite of the party, 100 or so, that are going to dictate to the entire state of Colorado, Republican, conservative, end of things, how things work.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and what they typically do is they’ll go off and recruit the most naive people they can find with no opportunity cost for their time. And so you’ve got a small group of these leaders. They find some sheep to follow them, and the sheep are naive, and they don’t know that they’re being led to the slaughter by these folks. And what you’ll notice is that it’s that tiny little group, and it may be well under 100, who are sort of the core group. And then they’ll have their sheep, and about two years in, three years in, the sheep get very disillusioned, realize they’ve been lied to, and they leave because it’s a really horrible system. And it sort of feeds off itself. But how scary is that, that it’s a state of its prominence? I mean, guys, right now, looking at the national polls, Colorado should be in striking zone of a Republican governor and flipping a Republican Senate seat. And I will tell you, at the national level, people are looking at it and saying, until you guys fix your governance problems, until your Republican Party gets their act put together, We have trouble seeing that we can win in Colorado versus New Jersey. New Jersey.
SPEAKER 15 :
Wow. That’s amazing. Sorry, you took the words out of my mouth, Andy. That is amazing. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 05 :
It is amazing. Here’s the bottom line. Look, that group, okay, and I call them Davidians. You can call them what you want. I don’t know. They know that they can overrun the 1% with their activists. Correct. Okay, that’s why they want the 1%. To decide at caucus, to decide who our candidates are, not the 99% in the primary because they can’t overrun the 99%. What I saw Saturday was the result of caucus and assembly. I saw the state party, 60% of it is run by Democrats. crazies and i mean i’m serious i’m sorry but they these people were not rational they were screaming they were shouting they were yelling it was an absolute rage fest it was unlike anything i’ve ever seen in my life and this is what they put up there i have i have had homeless people scream out at me on street corners who are more rational than what i heard much of the time out there it was incredible go ahead let me tell you who republicans are nationally
SPEAKER 12 :
They’re the people that I sat with in my church, and I put a Facebook post about this, after Charlie Kirk was viciously assassinated, who, praise God, worshipped him, and who didn’t go out and yell at people. Right. The liberals went out and rioted and burned cities down.
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 12 :
The behavior this last weekend of the self-declared leaders of the Republican Party aligns with the far-left Antifa activists who go out there and yell and burn things. That’s what I was thinking.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah. If you if you go look at the video, the media and post it online and you tell me, is that actually the Republican Party? The Republican Party is made up of good men and women who fear God, who believe in traditional conservative values, who are self-controlled, who are respected by their neighbors. And these people are the antithesis of that. And I want to come back to it’s not about them. It’s about the system. And like I said before, it’s socialism will never work because the incentives are wrong. And until Colorado changes its governance system, we get rid of guys. We are the last state in the country that utilizes this type of a caucus system. Forty nine other states got rid of it or got to better systems than we did. And at some point, we’re going to have to get together, we’re going to have to raise the money, and we’re going to have to get rid of this governance system.
SPEAKER 15 :
That was going to be my next question, Eli. So walk us through, how would that work? If you were able to wave a magic wand, how would that work?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I would let people who want to run for office run for office, because what this is about is these folks can’t win elections. And so what they do is they try to use weird archaic outdated rules to keep people from running for office who can win.
SPEAKER 15 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 12 :
So instead of, again, it’s like socialism. Instead of making yourself good, you drag everybody else down. So I would, I know this is a crazy idea, if you want to run for office, I’d have a very small ballot hurdle. If you want to run for Congress and you can collect 1,000 signatures, actually right now that is the threshold you should. Statewide it costs about a million dollars to hire one of these petition firms to get on the ballot, and that’s with hard money. I take that down and say it should be 5,000 signatures. I can go collect 5,000 signatures with 50 volunteers in a weekend. If you’re serious and you want to run for office, you should be able to run for office. And then don’t let the self-appointed leaders, air quote, leaders of the party. who have failed us at every turn, stop good candidates from getting on the ballot. Because the reason we have trouble attracting really good, bright, fresh new leaders to run for office, if they take one look at the system and say, they’ll look at the video from this last weekend and say, wait a second, those people determine on whether or not I make the ballot? I don’t want to be in the same room with them.
SPEAKER 15 :
I’ve thought of doing numerous things, politically speaking, and the challenge is exactly what you just said. Given what I’ve done, given how outspoken I’ve been against those particular individuals, there’s not a snowball’s chance of me ever getting past that end of things, period.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, there’s no way you could go to all the Republicans in the state, which is close to a million people, right, and tell them, hey, if you want to vote on who your candidate is in a primary… You can’t do it anymore. You have to go through the whole caucus process. I don’t think you’d get 10% of them who like that.
SPEAKER 12 :
No, and I would get rid of the whole caucus process and say, if you want to run for office, take your message to the people directly. We’ve got social media. It doesn’t take tons of money to do this. I mean, look at Donald Trump. I mean, his first campaign was very underfunded. They used social media to get out there. His campaign Third campaign, they used TikTok like nobody had. So we’re at a time now where you don’t need these political insiders to prescreen candidates. I would say take your case to the primary voters. And let’s get these, you know, feckless, corrupt insiders out of the process, because when you do that, you’re going to incentivize good people to run. And, you know, I use this. My face got rubbed in this, you know, three years ago when the political insiders, partly because I’ve spoken out against them, said, we don’t want you on the ballot. I got a call the next week saying the National Republicans had polling yesterday. that showed that I was very, very close to the incumbent candidate who wound up winning by quite a lot, and that the person who won that assembly was pulling 17 points down. And I’ll tell you something, those assembly voters couldn’t have cared less about winning. No. They’re activists. Yeah, they’re trying to make a statement. They’re not trying to make a policy change. And, you know, I’ve been trying to help us recruit good Senate candidates here right now where, you know, we don’t have anybody who’s credible running for the Senate. We don’t have anybody who’s running for attorney general in a year where these are races that we should be able to win. And good people are looking at it and saying, I’m not going to put myself up for judgment by people who act like Antifa, not like people who act like the Republicans who went to church and praised God and cried after Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
SPEAKER 15 :
OK, so all of what you just said, by the way, makes total sense, Eli. But still, how does that eliminate caucus?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, what it does is caucus is no longer about ballot access. It’s about ballot denial. And that’s why they’re so dead set to end the primary.
SPEAKER 15 :
So then, OK, I mean, I get that. Then how does, though, again, at the end of the day, how does caucus go away?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, it becomes irrelevant in the State House House to eventually, you know, would it need to be? Yeah.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah. Would it need to be a ballot amendment? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I’m not being very clear here, I guess. Legally speaking, how does that change get made at that point?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, there are parts of it that are baked into the Constitution. Parts of it are in state law. And so the problem we face right now is the state House and state Senate lack the political will to go modernize our election system. The Democrats don’t flat out don’t want to. And half of our, not quite half of our Republicans in the House and Senate. can’t get jobs elsewhere, and they use the caucus as job preservation. So realistically, if you take away the incentive to do caucus as ballot denial, then the people in the State House and State Senate right now who are too scared of running the legislation to modernize our ballot access would probably be emboldened to go out and say, okay, let’s finally go fix this. Because everybody knows it’s a terrible system.
SPEAKER 15 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 12 :
um you know everybody you know behind closed doors like oh yeah this this thing’s a dumpster fire but they’re scared of the angry mob attacking them eli you know if you take eli really quick here i think the democrats are against getting rid of the caucus system because they love how it’s destroying the republican party yeah that way that it ensures them a win in a lot of cases eli uh i’ll tell you uh just wait until jared paul’s jared paul is let’s not forget, is somewhere around a billionaire. He’s probably one of the most sophisticated political people I’ve ever come across.
SPEAKER 15 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 12 :
And he was who set the system up so that he could become governor. He has so much money that he has been able to swamp the system and control it. He is exiting stage left. He’s done. And if you want to see the chickens come home to roost, watch the fringe lunatics. You know, we’re going to start seeing Colorado’s version of Mondami pop up here through the caucus system. True. And they’re going to start primarying. It’s coming home to roost with the left, and just mark my words, this cycle or next cycle, you’re going to start seeing the few moderate Democrats out there be overthrown by fringe lunatics like AOC and Mondami.
SPEAKER 15 :
So the same thing is going to happen to them as it’s happened to us, in other words.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and let me tell you, that’s crazy left-wing and crazy right-wing don’t balance each other out.
SPEAKER 15 :
No, they do not.
SPEAKER 12 :
Principled conservatives who can have conversations like Charlie Kirk did, talking to pragmatic people on the left, can do a whole lot better. And guess what? That’s probably where our state’s going to have to wind up. We’re not going to be Texas. We’re not going to be Florida. OK, but if we can get back to, you know, winning the governor’s race every other cycle.
SPEAKER 15 :
No, but, you know, can we be like can we be Arizona, for example? That’s that’s the question I would have, because I don’t look at them being like Texas or Florida. They are Arizona. And I’d be fine even being like them.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, we’re Nevada. I mean, that’s another great one.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
So, you know, but but we’re like we’re not like California. We’re like San Francisco. And that’s the problem. the ruling party is that far out of touch with the citizens, there should be a rebound effect. But because of the caucus system and because of the sort of the fringe that controls that, we put terrible candidates forward who the average mom and dad in Colorado look at and say, well, that, you know, I don’t like the policies of the Democrat, but my gosh, the Republican is just a bad person. And that’s not where you want to be. We should be putting up good people. We should be putting up people who are principled, ethical, above reproach, articulate, and this is not who we’re producing with this current system.
SPEAKER 15 :
No, we’re not. You’re exactly right. One of the complaints I’ve had on this program for years is I have interviewed so many of them, and I’ll just say it straight up, and I’m not trying to be rude to anybody, Eli, but I’ve had so many candidates that have rolled through here that I have interviewed on our side of the aisle. that when I’m done with the interview, I’m literally shaking my head, and sometimes I’ll even tell Charlie in his microphone, this is, of course, all off air, they don’t have a snowball’s chance of winning. And it’s all because of everything you just said. I can just sense from lack of articulation, lack of knowing what the actual things are. I mean, they get their two or three talking points, that’s all they’re able to run on. They can’t answer any questions outside of that. At the end of the day, it’s a dumpster fire.
SPEAKER 12 :
lack of empathy yeah these are not if you watch that video from saturday these are mean people yeah you’re right or angry people you’re right eight colorado voters you’re right and And, you know, if you want to win an election, you can’t do that. You’re going to have to show you care about your constituents.
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s right, Eli.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’s just that simple.
SPEAKER 15 :
Thousand percent correct. Well, I went long. I appreciate your time. I know you’re busy, Eli. Thanks for taking time out of your day. At some point, you and I, maybe Andy, we just need to get together and talk even off air and kind of see, okay, how do we move this ball forward? Because right now it’s not being moved at all.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I appreciate all you guys do because you really shine a light on this and you’ve got a big listenership. You’re doing a great job of keeping our listeners educated on these topics.
SPEAKER 15 :
Thanks, Eli. Appreciate your time. Thank you, man. Appreciate you. Thanks for the kind words as well. All right, let’s do this. We’ll take a longer break because we went really long with Eli. Veteran Windows and Doors goes straight to the source when it comes to your windows and doors today. Find them at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 15 :
All right, we are back, and hopefully that was a really good explanation to some of you listening as to where we are in Colorado with politics. And I don’t want to discourage anybody. I don’t want people to think for one minute, listen, there’s no hope for Colorado. I think Eli just laid it out very well. There is hope for Colorado. If we do some of the things that he has stated, and I will tell you this, it is a tough battle because you’ve got a very, very, very small percentage of quote-unquote leaders in the Colorado GOP. And I’m guessing I said 20, 25, maybe 100 overall if you take some of the ancillary folk that are there. But really, you’ve got about 20 to 25 people that are really right now controlling the party in Colorado. Yes. And by the way, they’ll be the first to tell you that, no, they’re not. It’s the establishment that’s controlling things. They have become— The establishment. I hate that word, by the way, but literally they’ve become the establishment. And I’m not going to rattle off names. If you guys want to know who some of these people are, you know, send me a text message and I’ll rattle off a few names. But the reality is these are people and Eli’s correct. And I’ve said this numerous times. These are people that literally can’t make it in the real world, quote unquote. can’t hold down really good solid jobs struggle in that particular area now that’s not all of them i get there’s some that have done okay for themselves financially speaking and so on but by and large these are people that that i hate to say it this way i grew up in the church world and i think charlie will agree with this andy probably might agree but didn’t grow up the way i did right and i got a couple of minutes to explain this and this is not again not a knock this is just how it is there’s a lot of churches whereby somebody loses their job. And the church immediately feels like, oh, that guy’s got, or that gal’s got really great talent in such and such an area. We should hire them. And by the way, this is typically people that have been unemployed for several months. Typically, if you’re really good at what you do, you’re employed rather quickly. And that’s not a judgment call, but relatively speaking, if you’re really good at what you do, typically speaking, there’s not much gap between job to job. But churches, for some odd reason, feel like because this person is really good at what they do and we really like them and they’re really this and they’re really that and they just lost their job and they’ve been out of work for three to six months, let’s hire them. So the church does. And that cycle continues. You’re seeing the exact same thing happen here in Colorado when it comes to the GOP. These are people that, for whatever reason, can’t really go out into the real world and do well. So they figure, you know what, maybe it’s a life of politics that works well for me. And Eli just mentioned that. There’s some folks down there serving right now at the Statehouse that, frankly, if they had to go and get a real job and have real income, probably couldn’t. Right. And that’s not all of them. There’s some really good folk that are down there, and I’m not talking about them, but there are some of those, and I’ve talked about it here before. They’re the political grifters. They figure out a way to get in and start really making money benefiting from the system we have here in Colorado to their benefit.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, but it doesn’t benefit the party.
SPEAKER 15 :
It doesn’t benefit the party. It doesn’t benefit you as a voter. Right, not at all. But it benefits them. And that’s really, at the end of the day, all that. Now, that’s all they care about. Now, they will tell you that, oh, no, no, we’re looking out for the greater good, and we’re principled, and we’re this, and we’re that, and we really care about all these other things. And really, at the end of the day, do they? No. Their actions don’t say that they do.
SPEAKER 05 :
No. Look, I saw some of those grifters who were in charge of the mob. Because at this meeting on Saturday, and I’ll talk about it more next hour, Britta Horne was not in charge of that meeting. The rage mob was in charge of that meeting.
SPEAKER 15 :
Which, again, really quick, and this is not a jab at Britta by any means, but I can tell you this much. If I was running that meeting, I’d have been in charge.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well… And there are some things I will say in the next hour that I would have done differently. Let me just say one right now. I think she would have benefited from a prepared script in advance on how to go point by point through this. You can’t go into that setting winging it when you know 60% of the people there are there for two words, rage and power.
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s right. No, Andy, in that case, you have got to be overprepared. Yes. Not underprepared, overprepared.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. And it wasn’t just her. I mean, the people at the podium, the group that was at the podium, wonderful people. Wonderful. I support them. They were not prepared at all for what was coming their way. And to me, I was just wondering why. You saw my post before the meeting started. I was joking about how I’m going the death march or whatever. I kissed my wife goodbye. I’ll never see her again. This is going to be horrifying. Then it was even worse.
SPEAKER 15 :
No, and Andy is exactly right. And again, had I been running that meeting, not bragging by any means, but folks, I’ve run many meetings. And I’ve run some meetings in the past at different times where things weren’t very – let’s just say it was controversial to have the meeting in the first place, sometimes even inside of churches and things like that, where you’re talking about a particular topic or you’re bringing something up that not everybody cares for. So you – and to Andy’s point – You over-prepare so that you’ve got every single answer to every question that might even be posed your way. It’s what you do as a quote-unquote leader. And if I would have been coaching Britt on that, I would have had her all dialed in because I would have had her ready to go on that front from day one because you knew what you were up against. Yeah. I knew what was going on, and I’m not even involved.
SPEAKER 05 :
The leadership was not prepared for the tidal wave of hate and rage that was coming their way.
SPEAKER 15 :
And these are wackadoodles. I mean, you’ve got to be prepared for the wackadoodles that are coming along. Sorry, but I’m going to call it what it is. These people are absolute wackadoodles. They are living on rage and rage alone, and my fear is they do that in every area of their life, and I feel sorry for the people that are around them. Right. If we—yeah. Yeah. Am I right?
SPEAKER 05 :
You are right. And I hate to say this, but because of the nature of the caucus system we have in Colorado, that group can overrun it and seize power.
SPEAKER 15 :
And then you have Looney Tunes running the party, which is where we’re at right now, unfortunately. Right. These lunatics, and that’s really what they are, are running the party. All right. More to come. Leslie Corbley is going to join us next hour at the top of the hour talking about the Democrats voting against Charlie Kirk, by the way. And then Andy will continue on with what happened at the meeting on Saturday as well. Hour 2 is next. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
The Rich Guy.
