Dick Wadhams Drops Out

Colorado GOP Chair Dick Wadhams decided to not seek reelection to his post. Chairman since 2007, the party made great gains in the 2010 election taking two (holding a third) executive branch offices and acquiring a 33-32 majority in the Colorado House.

However, the Colorado governor's race was unfortunate for Wadhams. He certainly bears no blame for the assembly and primary victory of Dan Maes, nor the political opportunism of Republican Tom Tancredo making a third party bid with the American Constitution Party.

Dick Wadhams warned of some discord brewing in the party:

I entered this race a few weeks ago looking forward to discussing what we accomplished in 2010 and to the opportunities we have in 2012 to elect a new Republican president; to increase our state House majority and win a state Senate majority; and to reelect our two new members of Congress.

However, I have tired of those who are obsessed with seeing conspiracies around every corner and who have terribly misguided notions of what the role of the state party is while saying “uniting conservatives” is all that is needed to win competitive races across the state.

I have no delusions this will recede after the state central committee meeting in March. Meanwhile, the ability of Colorado Republicans to win and retain the votes of hundreds of thousands of unaffiliated swing voters in 2012 will be severely undermined.

Mr. Wadhams was always a good friend to CRBC. He spoke to the group at its monthly luncheons quite regularly as chair.

Blogger Joshua Sharf has the statement in full.

-David Carpenter