Sabotage
Do you remember the 2018 gubernatorial primary? Because I sure do…
Let me set the table for you.
I was 23 years old, fresh out of college, and a prominent GOP consultant hired me to work as the Advance Director for Doug Robinson [Mitt Romney’s nephew], who had just declared to run for governor.
To say I was excited would be a vast understatement.
When I first came on the campaign, things were extremely promising: we were raising the money we needed to be competitive, and many “big name” politicians and activists were on our side. It even seemed like many “Colorado GOP Insiders” supported us.
However, as time passed by, so did all of the money and support. Doug’s campaign was struggling to stay alive.
Because resources dried up, staffers resigned, and polling was way down, Doug’s campaign leadership seemingly pointed our efforts to do one thing: DESTROY the front-runner, Walker Stapleton.
The plan was simple; Walker was petitioning onto the ballot, and he had some very sketchy people working for him. We thought we could keep him off the ballot if we caught them acting illegally and turned them into the media… so, that’s what we did.
As our plan developed, it was my job to find those sketchy petition workers, record them and get them to admit they weren’t qualified to gather petitions lawfully in Colorado – all without them catching on to me.
It was made clear to us this was a kamikaze mission, and it was likely that Walker nor us would come out of the primary alive. (However, I still don’t know if the candidate, Doug Robinson, was made aware of this vile plan.)
This was my first real-life encounter with negative politics… and I hated it.
I had become what I had always loathed – a dirty campaigner entangled with a negative campaign.
However, because of my naiveness and ambition for a political career, I thought this was a part of real-world politics, and I did what I was told.
I personally found and confronted Stapleton’s petition gatherers in a park outside of Arvada, where I collected as much intel as they would give me.
I had caught them red-handed.
I brought back all of the gathered information, did a little extra research, and turned all the damning evidence over to the media.
We had effectively, temporarily, derailed their campaign, and we didn’t even get caught… you probably didn’t even know about this “inside baseball” until now.
Ultimately, Walker Stapleton survived the State Assembly, won the nomination, and won his lawsuit against the petition-gathering company.
Still, this affair tainted his campaign for the duration of the election year, adding to Polis’s list of brutal attacks in the 2018 General Election.
Not to mention, this wasted many days of campaigning and countless money that could have been used to defeat our now socialist governor.
Later that election cycle, as we are all too familiar with, Jared Polis defeated Walker Stapleton, I was paid handsomely, and most of us forgot this ever happened.
You see, negative politicking has consequences, not only to our adversaries with a (D) behind their names but within our own party when it counts the most.
It’s a lesson I learned the hard way, and I hope never to revert back to using such tactics.
However, it, unfortunately, seems that many party leaders, high-roller political consultants, and even many politicians haven’t learned this lesson yet. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why we keep losing.
So, where am I going with this?
You see, our party has a very important choice to make in the coming days…
• We can continue to allow the deliberate and destructive “circular firing squad” among our political class and continue to lose as a party.
• Or, we opt-out of the unsuccessful open primary system and bring things back to where they need to be -- the precinct caucuses where we can win!
To me, the choice is simple, we must stop attacking our own, we must stop allowing high-roller political consultants (that don’t have the party’s best interest in mind) to make every big decision in our campaigns, and WE MUST OPT-OUT OF THE BROKEN OPEN PRIMARY SYSTEM.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen emails and notes opposing the opt-out from many of the bad actors that got us in this position in the first place. Let me tell you…
They are trying to deceive you. Many even have personal, financial interests involved.
Heck, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve even seen emails in opposition from “Republicans” who own dark money petition-gathering companies.
They would obviously suffer immensely if this were to pass.
They don’t care about winning; they only care about lining their pocketbooks with the cold hard cash of Republican campaign donors.
So, what side of history are you going to be on?
The side that enables us to win general elections by opting out of the failed open primary system.
OR
The side that allows Democrats to run the table in our state by allowing us to fight so much amongst ourselves we don’t have any fight left in us when we get to the general elections.
The choice is yours to make.
Thank you for taking the time to read my letter and considering this important decision to be made in Pueblo on September 18th.
You were mailed a few things that I ask you to return to us as soon as possible.
The first is a brief survey that merely asks where you stand on this issue; the next is a proxy form that will allow you to vote, even if you cannot be there in person.
I believe that if we are UNITED, we can lead our party to take back Colorado from the freedom-hating Democrats currently in office.
Respectfully,
Carl Tomasetti
Republican Voter and Activist
Littleton, Colorado
P.S. – This vote requires 75% of the entire CRC State Central Committee; thus, every voice and every vote is critically important.
If you haven’t done so already, please send in your proxy or notify us you will be attending the meeting in person.
Again, as a voter, thank you so much for your dedication and willingness to support such an important project.
Let’s stop negative campaigning! Let’s opt out of the broken primary system! And most importantly, let’s ELECT REPUBLICANS in 2022!!!