Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I go right to the phones because he's a familiar
voice and face for many a long time legislator, and
now he wants to be the vice chair of the
Colorado GOP. Richard Holtorf, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you Mandy for having me, and thank you for
putting on a program that's full of high energy and
a lot of fun. Well, I got.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Energy galore, Richard. I've had way too much caffeine today,
so let's just jump right in. You've been how long
have you been involved in just politics overall and the
Republican politics specifically.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, I started in the nineties after I came off
of active duty, serving on the County Central Committee and
spend a lot of time in longold the Republican activities
in my whole county of Washington County. I'm currently in
the Washington County Chair and then I migrated up to
state politics. Since stay nineteen I ran for a House
District sixty four and for the last five years I've
(00:57):
served in the state House and term I was the
House of looking a whip and the leadership team and
they'ran for Congress and Lauren beat me. She beat everybody,
and now I'm a free agent and I want to
help Colorado Republicans win because winning is everything. So I'm
going to run for this position and the elections on Monday,
(01:19):
July twenty first.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And of course, the Executive Committee, the State Executive Committee
and State Committee gets to vote on this correct.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, there's a little over five hundred delegates that are
on the state Central Committee vote and those are the
county chairs, vice chars, and secretaris and also the bonus
members for the large counties, all Republicans, all registered Republicans
that are in leadership in the sixty four counties in
the state, and they're the ones to get to vote
and pick the executive team of chair, vice chair, and secretary.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Let's jump right in.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Let me ask this difficult question because your opponent in
the vice chair race is part of a wing of
the party that would like to see more political purity
out of the Colorado Republican Party. For lack of a
better way to put it, how do you propose to
bring in the folks that would rather see more purity
(02:10):
while continuing or to try and grow the party in
order to get Republicans elected.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
It feels like an impossible task.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
How do you do it, well, that is a thousand
dollars question. But the first thing we have to do
is remember Ron Reagan is the one that said, you know,
Republicans are a big ten. We need to be a
big ten party. And let's talk about for those far right,
maga Republicans that may be in this camp, Let's remember
that Donald Trump was a Democrat at one time. Ron
(02:39):
Reagan was a Democrat at one time. So if you're
a Trumpster and you want to cancel everybody out because
you're not far enough right, or you're not red enough,
your color of red isn't dark enough, you might want
to rethink the premise that you're standing on with respect
to what you're trying to accomplish. Now, what we have
to do, and this is what I'm going to bring
(03:00):
as a leader in the in the U State Executive Committee,
is remember, let's go back to the Indian Wars. Remember
all the tribes of Indians, for decades, if not centuries,
there was many tribal in fighting. There was a lot
of contested tribes. But when the Americans started moving west,
all of a sudden, they began working together. So we
(03:21):
need to remember that the true enemy of Colorado and
the Republicans of Colorado and even unaffiliateds and Democrats are
the fight far right, excuse me, far left, radical progressing,
woke socialist Democrats that are truly changing this state in
a way that we don't want Colorado changed. So we
(03:41):
need to sit down, break bread, smoke the peace pipe,
figuratively seeking, and say, okay, let's focus on who is
really destroying what was Colorado? The Colorado I grew up
in the Colorado I knew, grew up and loved and
still love the rock out in the west, the Western States.
(04:03):
That's what I'm wanting to work for and that's where
it started. And then we go from there, working collaboratively together,
we can have our inviting, but we need to keep
that within ourselves, not in the public square, and certainly
not put the dirty lottery out all the way on
the line so everyone can see it.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I agree with you on that very much.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
But it seems, as I said, to be an insurmountable problem.
But what would you do as vice chair to work
with the Chair and the other officers and the executive committee.
How would you support Republicans in the state running for office?
What would be the strategy that you'd like to see
the party employee.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Well, let's start out with the fact that we have
to have good candidates and electrical candidates, and the candidates
have to be trained. So we need to go out
there and work to find those candidates. And you got
to have your heart in this. Running as the candidate
is really hard. It takes all your energy, it takes
a lot of your financial resources. They need to know
these candidates that the state party has their back and
(05:03):
they don't want people stab them in the back or
calling them a rhino or saying they're not read enough
when they're huntling trying to win a district that may
even be a blue district I believe Democrat populated. So
that's where we have to start understanding that we have
to think strategically about those things. Now, I will also
(05:24):
tell you that the way candidates get elected is number one.
They need resources. So we need to put resources, financial
resources behind the candidates. We need to get away from
this litiation game that's being played hit for tat lawyers
getting rich, Republican candidates not getting the money because the
lawyers at three hundred to five hundred dollars an hour
(05:45):
are lining their filthy pockets with all the real money
that their state party and also other organizations are having
to pay to continue this circular litigation. So I'm going
to encourage and say we need to walk away from
the lawsuits walking in To get Vine kenned, it took
the hundreds of thousands of dollars literally over a quarter million,
(06:07):
between a quarter million and a half a million dollars
that have gone into litigation over the last war years.
And put that into candidates. The State House would look
much different right now, the State Senate would look much
dinner right now, and we would have a different calculus
with Republicans in the state of Colorado. And remember, man,
either the primary mission or the state party is to
(06:28):
get state elected officials, excuse me, state elected officials elected
that are Republicans, statewide, state House, state Senate. And in
twenty twenty six we have state wide elections. We have
the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary treasurer, and also
secretary of State. Now, which one of those do you
think is the most important position that Colorado Republicans need
(06:51):
to target on those states?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Secretary of state, as I know it's secretary of state.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
There's two hard left women who have their hat in
the ring for that seat that is being vacated by
what I hope will go down as the worst secretary
of State in the history of Colorado in Jennet Griswold.
She's been an abject failure and a disaster.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And you're right. So let me ask you this though,
what happens?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Why are you asking me that question? So? What are
we doing with the twenty plus candidates that want to
run to the governor. Everyone wants to move in the
governor's mansion. We need to strategically think and have conversations
with these individuals to say, hey, you know, the most
important position is a secretary of date. What's one of
you would relook your objective politically and run for that
(07:36):
position that's electable, that can give the Democrats a run
for their money in a blue state. That might be
the most important conversation we have because with that election integrity,
we're still rowing the vote upstream, and I think that's
so critical. I have Tena Peters about that one. Yeah
in prison.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, I don't want to talk about Tina Peters because
I I let's not talk about Tina Peters.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
One last question duplicated and it's not a good stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well let's just move on.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Let's ask me what I'm gonna ask you one more question,
and that is structurally, in Colorado, the Democrats have a
significant advantage because they've built up all of these organizations
like progress Now, like all of these other little offshoots
to do their dirty work of you know, mixing things
up on social media and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
We are way behind. Is the Colorado GOP.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Can the Colorado GOP help people who want to start
such organizations move them forward.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Absolutely, with the right leadership, we can do all of
those things. You know. We have wind Read, we have
Road to Red, and we have this crazy thing called
Rhino Watch that does nothing but attack Republicans generally, that's
all they do. And my opponent actually spends a lot
of time writing, editing, and publishing in rhino Watch, which
(08:56):
does nothing to build bridges, burns bridges, which says nothing
the men business. It just breaks fences. So that's the
kind of leadership I'm going to bring. And also, look, strategically,
we could take that rhydo watch, turn it around and
use it as a vehicle to point out all the
hypocrisy of the Democrats. Let's take a look at what's
(09:18):
happening with respect to the budget now in the special session. Well,
the Democrats spent all this money, banking on all the
federal money coming in and backfilling all the many things
they wanted to do, and they've raised the state budget
even greater now forty one, forty two, forty three billion dollars,
and now all of a sudden they have a problem
(09:39):
because the money's not going to come in. Okay, whose
fault is that? Where's the messaging across Colorado that says, hey,
you know what, if the progressive left Democrats and the
governor wouldn't have spent so much money, we wouldn't have
a cross and see. If they weren't taking money out
of cash reserves at the state level, which they did
(09:59):
and have done, we'd have greater reserves and surplus. Well, Richard,
we wouldn't have to have this crisis.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
I don't disagree with you on anything you just said.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And if you're running to show Republicans, if you're on
this show to show Republicans that you can push back
on those narratives, you've done a fine job. But I
will tell you more than one person on my text
line said he just lost me when he mentioned Tina.
I'm telling you, I know she has her supporters. I
don't think that that is a topic for the Republican
Party to bring up at any point because it is
very divisive even among Republicans.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
But I appreciate your time to understand that.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
You know, Tina made the bed, she's sleeping in, and
she's got to sleep in it. Yeah, we understand that,
and that's not a twenty twenty sixth election subject. I've
told people we got to move on beyond that. People
on the far right and the radical rights say no,
we got to make that a campanieue. I say no,
we're moving on from that. But that election integrity issue
is so important.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I agree, But Richard, I'm out of time. No, I'm
out of time. Richard Holtorf.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
My guest, if you are part of the State Committee,
you have a chance to vote on Monday for Richard
Holdtorf or Mark Hampton. And Richard, I think you did
a good job letting people know what you'd be all around.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Thank you. Please go to Holdport for Colorado my Facebook
Holdthorf fo or Colorado and take a look at the
things that I've published. I've got my top ten reasons
to vote for Richard Holdthorp for CEO GOP vice Chair.
It's on my Facebook. You need to take a look
at it, all right, Richard, so many important things.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I appreciate you, man. I'll talk to you later, all right,
back
I go right to the phones because he's a familiar
voice and face for many a long time legislator, and
now he wants to be the vice chair of the
Colorado GOP. Richard Holtorf, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you Mandy for having me, and thank you for
putting on a program that's full of high energy and
a lot of fun. Well, I got.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Energy galore, Richard. I've had way too much caffeine today,
so let's just jump right in. You've been how long
have you been involved in just politics overall and the
Republican politics specifically.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, I started in the nineties after I came off
of active duty, serving on the County Central Committee and
spend a lot of time in longold the Republican activities
in my whole county of Washington County. I'm currently in
the Washington County Chair and then I migrated up to
state politics. Since stay nineteen I ran for a House
District sixty four and for the last five years I've
(00:57):
served in the state House and term I was the
House of looking a whip and the leadership team and
they'ran for Congress and Lauren beat me. She beat everybody,
and now I'm a free agent and I want to
help Colorado Republicans win because winning is everything. So I'm
going to run for this position and the elections on Monday,
(01:19):
July twenty first.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And of course, the Executive Committee, the State Executive Committee
and State Committee gets to vote on this correct.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, there's a little over five hundred delegates that are
on the state Central Committee vote and those are the
county chairs, vice chars, and secretaris and also the bonus
members for the large counties, all Republicans, all registered Republicans
that are in leadership in the sixty four counties in
the state, and they're the ones to get to vote
and pick the executive team of chair, vice chair, and secretary.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Let's jump right in.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Let me ask this difficult question because your opponent in
the vice chair race is part of a wing of
the party that would like to see more political purity
out of the Colorado Republican Party. For lack of a
better way to put it, how do you propose to
bring in the folks that would rather see more purity
(02:10):
while continuing or to try and grow the party in
order to get Republicans elected.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
It feels like an impossible task.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
How do you do it, well, that is a thousand
dollars question. But the first thing we have to do
is remember Ron Reagan is the one that said, you know,
Republicans are a big ten. We need to be a
big ten party. And let's talk about for those far right,
maga Republicans that may be in this camp, Let's remember
that Donald Trump was a Democrat at one time. Ron
(02:39):
Reagan was a Democrat at one time. So if you're
a Trumpster and you want to cancel everybody out because
you're not far enough right, or you're not red enough,
your color of red isn't dark enough, you might want
to rethink the premise that you're standing on with respect
to what you're trying to accomplish. Now, what we have
to do, and this is what I'm going to bring
(03:00):
as a leader in the in the U State Executive Committee,
is remember, let's go back to the Indian Wars. Remember
all the tribes of Indians, for decades, if not centuries,
there was many tribal in fighting. There was a lot
of contested tribes. But when the Americans started moving west,
all of a sudden, they began working together. So we
(03:21):
need to remember that the true enemy of Colorado and
the Republicans of Colorado and even unaffiliateds and Democrats are
the fight far right, excuse me, far left, radical progressing,
woke socialist Democrats that are truly changing this state in
a way that we don't want Colorado changed. So we
(03:41):
need to sit down, break bread, smoke the peace pipe,
figuratively seeking, and say, okay, let's focus on who is
really destroying what was Colorado? The Colorado I grew up
in the Colorado I knew, grew up and loved and
still love the rock out in the west, the Western States.
(04:03):
That's what I'm wanting to work for and that's where
it started. And then we go from there, working collaboratively together,
we can have our inviting, but we need to keep
that within ourselves, not in the public square, and certainly
not put the dirty lottery out all the way on
the line so everyone can see it.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I agree with you on that very much.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
But it seems, as I said, to be an insurmountable problem.
But what would you do as vice chair to work
with the Chair and the other officers and the executive committee.
How would you support Republicans in the state running for office?
What would be the strategy that you'd like to see
the party employee.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Well, let's start out with the fact that we have
to have good candidates and electrical candidates, and the candidates
have to be trained. So we need to go out
there and work to find those candidates. And you got
to have your heart in this. Running as the candidate
is really hard. It takes all your energy, it takes
a lot of your financial resources. They need to know
these candidates that the state party has their back and
(05:03):
they don't want people stab them in the back or
calling them a rhino or saying they're not read enough
when they're huntling trying to win a district that may
even be a blue district I believe Democrat populated. So
that's where we have to start understanding that we have
to think strategically about those things. Now, I will also
(05:24):
tell you that the way candidates get elected is number one.
They need resources. So we need to put resources, financial
resources behind the candidates. We need to get away from
this litiation game that's being played hit for tat lawyers
getting rich, Republican candidates not getting the money because the
lawyers at three hundred to five hundred dollars an hour
(05:45):
are lining their filthy pockets with all the real money
that their state party and also other organizations are having
to pay to continue this circular litigation. So I'm going
to encourage and say we need to walk away from
the lawsuits walking in To get Vine kenned, it took
the hundreds of thousands of dollars literally over a quarter million,
(06:07):
between a quarter million and a half a million dollars
that have gone into litigation over the last war years.
And put that into candidates. The State House would look
much different right now, the State Senate would look much
dinner right now, and we would have a different calculus
with Republicans in the state of Colorado. And remember, man,
either the primary mission or the state party is to
(06:28):
get state elected officials, excuse me, state elected officials elected
that are Republicans, statewide, state House, state Senate. And in
twenty twenty six we have state wide elections. We have
the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary treasurer, and also
secretary of State. Now, which one of those do you
think is the most important position that Colorado Republicans need
(06:51):
to target on those states?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Secretary of state, as I know it's secretary of state.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
There's two hard left women who have their hat in
the ring for that seat that is being vacated by
what I hope will go down as the worst secretary
of State in the history of Colorado in Jennet Griswold.
She's been an abject failure and a disaster.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And you're right. So let me ask you this though,
what happens?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Why are you asking me that question? So? What are
we doing with the twenty plus candidates that want to
run to the governor. Everyone wants to move in the
governor's mansion. We need to strategically think and have conversations
with these individuals to say, hey, you know, the most
important position is a secretary of date. What's one of
you would relook your objective politically and run for that
(07:36):
position that's electable, that can give the Democrats a run
for their money in a blue state. That might be
the most important conversation we have because with that election integrity,
we're still rowing the vote upstream, and I think that's
so critical. I have Tena Peters about that one. Yeah
in prison.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, I don't want to talk about Tina Peters because
I I let's not talk about Tina Peters.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
One last question duplicated and it's not a good stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well let's just move on.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Let's ask me what I'm gonna ask you one more question,
and that is structurally, in Colorado, the Democrats have a
significant advantage because they've built up all of these organizations
like progress Now, like all of these other little offshoots
to do their dirty work of you know, mixing things
up on social media and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
We are way behind. Is the Colorado GOP.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Can the Colorado GOP help people who want to start
such organizations move them forward.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Absolutely, with the right leadership, we can do all of
those things. You know. We have wind Read, we have
Road to Red, and we have this crazy thing called
Rhino Watch that does nothing but attack Republicans generally, that's
all they do. And my opponent actually spends a lot
of time writing, editing, and publishing in rhino Watch, which
(08:56):
does nothing to build bridges, burns bridges, which says nothing
the men business. It just breaks fences. So that's the
kind of leadership I'm going to bring. And also, look, strategically,
we could take that rhydo watch, turn it around and
use it as a vehicle to point out all the
hypocrisy of the Democrats. Let's take a look at what's
(09:18):
happening with respect to the budget now in the special session. Well,
the Democrats spent all this money, banking on all the
federal money coming in and backfilling all the many things
they wanted to do, and they've raised the state budget
even greater now forty one, forty two, forty three billion dollars,
and now all of a sudden they have a problem
(09:39):
because the money's not going to come in. Okay, whose
fault is that? Where's the messaging across Colorado that says, hey,
you know what, if the progressive left Democrats and the
governor wouldn't have spent so much money, we wouldn't have
a cross and see. If they weren't taking money out
of cash reserves at the state level, which they did
(09:59):
and have done, we'd have greater reserves and surplus. Well, Richard,
we wouldn't have to have this crisis.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
I don't disagree with you on anything you just said.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And if you're running to show Republicans, if you're on
this show to show Republicans that you can push back
on those narratives, you've done a fine job. But I
will tell you more than one person on my text
line said he just lost me when he mentioned Tina.
I'm telling you, I know she has her supporters. I
don't think that that is a topic for the Republican
Party to bring up at any point because it is
very divisive even among Republicans.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
But I appreciate your time to understand that.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
You know, Tina made the bed, she's sleeping in, and
she's got to sleep in it. Yeah, we understand that,
and that's not a twenty twenty sixth election subject. I've
told people we got to move on beyond that. People
on the far right and the radical rights say no,
we got to make that a campanieue. I say no,
we're moving on from that. But that election integrity issue
is so important.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I agree, But Richard, I'm out of time. No, I'm
out of time. Richard Holtorf.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
My guest, if you are part of the State Committee,
you have a chance to vote on Monday for Richard
Holdtorf or Mark Hampton. And Richard, I think you did
a good job letting people know what you'd be all around.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Thank you. Please go to Holdport for Colorado my Facebook
Holdthorf fo or Colorado and take a look at the
things that I've published. I've got my top ten reasons
to vote for Richard Holdthorp for CEO GOP vice Chair.
It's on my Facebook. You need to take a look
at it, all right, Richard, so many important things.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I appreciate you, man. I'll talk to you later, all right,
back
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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