The GOP should oppose the RMGO recall campaign

Acouple of elections ago, a friend, a doctor no less, was accused of being “pro-cancer.” He believed Coloradans should have the option to purchase inexpensive health insurance with lower premiums and higher out-of-pocket expenses for preventative care. Imagine seeing your face on an election flier with such a malicious assertion especially when you’d devoted your life to healing people.

Early in the 2016 election cycle, my friend enthusiastically embraced Donald Trump’s candidacy. The entertainer’s mendacious and inflammatory remarks didn’t bother my friend at all. It felt like justice given what he had endured at the hands of unethical people on the left. That’s how good people become inured to depravity. It’s why candidates and political parties

rarely denounce the lies and slander perpetrated by allied groups against their opponents. Fair’s fair, right?

This week a good person said enough is enough. He is taking a stand against a malignant force in Colorado politics and every good person should join him. Former Assistant Minority Leader Cole Wist, a Republican, denounced efforts by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO), a fringe gun rights group, to recall Democratic State Rep. Tom Sullivan over the lawmaker’s support for Extreme Risk Protection Order legislation. Sullivan defeated Wist in the last election in part due to the efforts of RMGO.

Wist found himself in RMGO’s crosshairs when he sponsored a bipartisan red flag bill in the 2018 session. “And so we went out and lit-dropped his district and mailed and we put a little bit of effort into ruining his life. And he paid the price,” said Dudley Brown, the group’s leader, of their campaign against the lawmaker. One of RMGO’s fliers depicted a woman being assaulted in a darkened street. “When seconds count, Cole Wist wants to leave you defenseless,” it read. Innotsomanywords,RMGO accused Wist of being pro-assault.

These kind of despicable, deceptive ads are RMGO’s modus operandi. In 2014, the group and its allies distributed fliers attacking Republican candidates Lang Sias and Mario Nicolais in two close primaries. One flier likened Nicolais to convicted murderer, late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Another piece depicted Sias as a monkey and accused him of being “funded by millionaire homosexual activist Tim Gill through Colorado Concern.” RMGO also called voters to warn them that Sias was getting support from a “liberal millionaire homosexual.” The allegation was a lie. Colorado Concern is an organization that advocates for Colorado business interests. Gill is but one of a dozen-plus board members. Colorado Concern supported Sias because of his free-market principles. Worse, RMGO’s deception was designed to invoke anti-homosexual animus and paranoia. After the election, a judge ordered RMGO and its affiliate to pay $8,450 for breaking financial disclosure laws on its mailings.

It is not enough to condemn behind closed doors RMGO’s depraved behavior, as many do. The GOP needs to openly rebuke these tactics and to act to ensure they fail. I am calling on my fellow Republicans and fellow gun owners to refuse to sign the recall petition against Rep. Tom Sullivan and to vote against the measure should it come to that.

There will be an opportunity in the 2020 election to hold this legislature accountable for its actions. The legislature passed several pieces of legislation that are antithetical to economic prosperity, personal freedom, and constitutional rights. Ideas have consequences and the cost of these harmful laws will be evident over time. Republicans can make a strong case that new leadership is warranted. If, however, Republicans do not oppose the morally corrupt tactics of RMGO, we will not deserve to make a comeback. While it would be ideal if conscientious Democrats would demand the same of unethical groups on their side of the aisle, the courage to do the right thing does not depend on the action or inaction of others.