Mesa County Republican Party Secretary Terry Porter stood up to Colorado Republican Party Chair Dave Williams, saying his support of Tina Peters and Donald Trump is making “too many of us ashamed of being a Republican in Colorado right now.”
Mesa County Republicans may be starting to see the harm they are doing to their party and America by continuing to support Tina Peters, Donald Trump and others like them.
On February 2, shortly before Tina Peters’ criminal trial was about to start, Colorado Republican Party Chair Dave Williams sent a mass email out to Colorado Republicans telling them to “Keep Tina Peters in your prayers while she fights the establishment and our corrupt judicial system in her upcoming trial which will begin on February 9th in Mesa County.” He called the criminal charges against Peters “retaliation, persecution, and prosecution for preserving our election records and exposing the fraud inside the machines.”
That email drew quick pushback from Republicans across the state, including former Secretaries of State and current and former Republican county clerks. It also drew a sharp rebuke from Mesa County Republican Party Secretary Terry Porter.
Porter quickly emailed Williams back and included Colorado GOP Vice Chair Hope Scheppelman and Secretary Anna Ferguson in the thread, saying:
“Dave, Hope, and Anna,
I cannot begin to tell you how much I disagree with this! First, Tina deserves a fair trial and I have only spoken to a few people on this, but no matter how you feel about Dominion tabulators, what she did and how she did it was wrong and illegal! I was working in the election office that election cycle as an election judge in the front office and at times as needed in the back processing area. I saw when she came into the election division and usually it was to appear for a press conference or as she floated through. I was not a fan before her antics and I totally don’t condone any of what she did! It put a big black eye on the Mesa County Elections Department, none of which the all the judges and employees, except for those 3, deserved. Second, it has caused immense damage to the Republican party in Mesa County, one of the last Republican strongholds in the state. People are turned off and don’t want anything to do with the party because they get branded with “crazies” and aren’t even voting! This has emboldened the “Restore the Balance” group that paints itself as the moderate, reasonable people in the county, when they are another dark money funded pretenders with about 10% Republican members because it is good for their business. Every time you all do things like supporting Tina or Opt-Out or Endorse Trump or… once again we all get labeled “crazy, extremists” and we lose more Republicans in Mesa County and I believe the rest of the state! You are making our jobs nearly impossible, making us all look bad over and over!
Dave, if you want to run on these issues, resign and run. Otherwise, stop over-reaching what the party should be doing – to bring people INTO the party and ELECTING Republicans! Right now you are making too many of us ashamed to be a Republican in Colorado right now! And I have been a Republican for 50 years in Grand Junction!
Stop!
Terry Porter,
Mesa County GOP Secretary
Poster soliciting adulation for indicted Republican former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters. “C.H.” at the P.O. Box number in Glade Park is Cristine B. Hoche, who doesn’t seem to want her full name associated with Tina
But did you catch this key line in Porter’s email?
“Every time you all do things like supporting Tina, or opt-out or endorse Trump…once again we all get labeled ‘crazy extremists’ and we lose more Republicans in Mesa County…” [Underlining emphasis added.]
A message like this, particularly from an officer of the Mesa County Republican Party, seems to indicate that the local GOP, or at least some of their top representatives, have turned a corner and are starting to grasp reality.
Local Republicans may finally be seeing that Trump and Tina violated their oaths of office, attacked the roots of our democracy, and that neither takes any personal responsibility for their actions, which is particularly bad behavior for a party that advocates taking personal responsibility. The Mesa County GOP may finally see that Trump and Tina have remained defiant and continue to thumb their noses at the law, which is particularly bad behavior for a party that used to advocated for “law and order.” The GOP may also finally see that Trump and Tina are both grifting from their most ardent supporters by through the promotion of outright lies and conspiracy theories. They might finally see that Trump and Tina have escaped accountability for their actions and continue to blame others for the charges they brought upon themselves. In Trump’s case, maybe some Mesa County GOP leaders now also understand they have been supporting an adjudicated rapist.
It could be that Mesa County Republicans now understand that their party’s unwavering support of Trump and Tina has been driving people away and toward the Democrats as the only remaining party that is in touch with reality and still able to govern.
In fact, it seems that the officers of the Mesa County Republican Party have, as Porter said, become so ashamed to be Republicans that they are no longer even including their last names on their official party website:
Mesa County GOP officers are no longer posting their last names on their party’s official website.
In contrast with the Mesa County Democrats, who are always proud to be Democrats:
Democrats are always proud to be known as Democrats.
Give me a break, this pearl-clutching is so contrived!
These geriatric mental gymnastics don’t deserve any attention nor the satisfaction of press overage. And I have about as much sympathy for her as those “selfless” collaborators that swung at Nuremberg. Imagine being more concerned about “looking bad” than admitting the immoral and lasting damage your own party is doing to Democracy. What a facade! And that whole dark money paranoia comes straight from Faux News, so let’s not lionize somebody whose just as guilty weaponizing lies and propaganda as those “crazies”. Unless of course she’s equally outraged by the vaccine disinformation that’s cost countless lives here, this ongoing bad-faith border paranoia, as well as the continuing fascist power grab of local gov and public services (education, healthcare, etc) by Mesa County GOP MAGAts. In which case, I would retract my criticisms…but wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for sanity to return to these folks before the grim reaper does.
I’m sorry but you cannot decry the crazies in your (Republican) party, then go on to attack Restore the Balance. That kind of head spinning “logic” just doesn’t wash with anyone with functioning neurons.
She complains that the GOP chair is making Republicans look like crazies, but then proceeds to call Restore the Balance “dark money funded pretenders.” The GOP is rotten and brain dead at its core; just some of them want to keep up a facade of dignity.
Finally, I get to read something about the GOP that doesn’t make my head spin. Terry Porter should be commended for standing up to the lunatics in her party. My husband, a lifelong Republican here in Mesa County, changed his party affiliation because of the MAGAs and Tina Peters, both phonies and pariahs of the worst kind!
…and don’t forget that a lot of people have changed their party affiliation so they can vote AGAINST the most extreme Republicans. Either way, the GOP is losing lots of people.
I applaud the smallest changes that I’m seeing now. The Republican party has miles to go to rejoin the mainstream of American politics. Those that are still MAGAs owe it to themselves to reflect on whether or not they want to be associated with the criminals, Trump and Peters, just to name a couple.
The GOP needs to purge the Nazis and other crazies from their ranks, if they want to be a participant in politics and not just a fringe also-ran.
How are you going to purge them from their ranks when a poll taken on Jan 10-12 indicated that 81% of Republicans agree with Trump’s neo-nazi statement that illegal immigrants poison the blood of the country?
That’s for the Republicans to solve, if they want to be a serious party in government. Should they decide to.atay their current course, I predict they will be a very small minority in Colorado’s Legislature and it’s representation in the very near future.
Brava, Terry Porter!