We've spent a lot of time talking about something I normally don't even butt my nose into, and that is the race to see who is going to be the next Colorado chairman of the GOP. I believe the party is an absolute shambles right now, and without a significant change in leadership, we're going to be dead in the water in Colorado. And I don't just mean Republicans, I mean the state. There's going to be nothing left. So joining me now is another candidate. Richard Holdtorff joins me.
He is running to be chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. Daniel Neuschwanger also with us today. She is running as part of a slate of candidates with Richard at the top, Daniel and the vice chair. And the name of your other person just went right out of my head. I apologize, but I'm going to go to you first, Richard. Why a slate? It's my understanding that the Central Committee kind of said we don't want a slate, we want to vote on each one individually.
So that is exactly what happens.
Mandy talk to Dave Williams and he said, we're going to start with the chair elections, on the twenty ninth, then we'll go to vice chair, then we'll go to secretary.
You know, in politics, a lot of times you make allegiances, alliances, and.
You try to build people that can work to help rebuild our party. Well, one of my thoughts, Mandy, is if you want all these unaffiliated people that have left the Republican Party to come back, why not have a person that has taken that journey.
Danielle has left the party. She was very frustrated.
Now she's come back to the party and she has to take And Danielle can speak for herself, and I certainly will welcome that she's got to take a journey of redemption, reconciliation and gaining trust. But she's very passionate about our Republican principles and she sees that this ship is sinking.
I see that this ship is sinking.
If we don't figure get this ship upright and pointed in the right direction, it will be just like the Titanic. The relevance of Colorado Republicans will end and we will be wallpaper in the political landscape here in Colorado.
Absolutely right, Mandy.
Well, and I want to go to Danielle and just ask a few direct questions because Danielle, you and I first met when you were running for governor, and I was very impressed with you, and I think you're very, very intelligent.
And when you chose to.
Leave the Republican Party and go be the governor's candidate for the Constitution Party, I expressed to you that I thought that was a terrible mistake because I was afraid it was going to impact your political future, which I thought could be very, very bright. So I want you to tell us why you left and why you're coming back now.
See, it's exactly what Richard said.
You know, there was a lot of frustrations, and I'm at a point now where I really don't feel like it's appropriate to continue to air out the dirty laundry of the Republican Party. We've had so much of that in the last year that we just don't need any more ammunition to fight each other. So I'm just going to put it all on me that I made a
bad decision I left the party. I wish it would have handled some things differently with some frustration that I was experiencing firsthand as a candidate, But it comes out to the end of the day, that we made bad judgment book calls. We make mistakes, and you have to
learn from them and move on. And so fortunately for me, there have been a handful of amazing patriots across this state that have really never given up on me, that have taken the time over the past couple years to kind of entor me up and wise me up a little bit.
And so I'm grateful for them.
And I think that there's a lot of people in our party who have left the party for the same frustrations. They've seen what's gone on in the last two years and can speak to those frustrations as candidates. But you know, they're ready to come back, They're ready to fight. They just need someone to invite them and welcome them back, and I think Richard did a great.
Job of that well.
Last night, Natalie Tennant, who has created a group called Surrender Never Surrendered Excuse Me, she posted a pretty decent Facebook video explaining that you and she had had conversations back in January and February, and because she has friends with Bretta Horne, who is also running for the chairmanship, that you had express that you were going to support Brita, and Natalie just said look, I just want you to know what happened behind the scenes, and then you can
make your own decisions about whether or not Danielle is trustsworthy on this issue. Can you explain your side of that situation?
Man? Can I jump in here one second? Yeah, and then I want Danielle to answer the question.
Sure.
But I watched all the mechanics, the gyrations, the political soccer matches that were going on in the spectrum of state party chair candidates. And the reason I got in the race is because I do not see the leadership that Colorado Republicans need. And I've served in leadership as a State House Republican whip.
So I jumped in less than two weeks ago. I jumped in this race.
And when you have strong leaders in the Republican Party that come in and say I'm putting the pads on and getting on the field, the whole game changes.
Everything changes. And that's what's happened.
And you know, Britta, she's a little disappointed that Holdwarf's in this in this.
Election cycle for state party chair.
There's other people because you know, they need the Colorada Republicans need the leadership. Now, daniel I'm going to turn it over to you. But you know, everything changed last Saturday when I went to Welt County and announced my candidacy.
Go ahead, Yeah, and that's just it. So I had not had any intentions.
Of running for the state party chairmanship until you know, my phone started ringing in January, and in fact, I had had people reach out last summer when everything went down to Dave Williams, and I just didn't feel like it was the right time. I felt like we needed to focus on candidates, and so I had expressed it I would kind of, you know, wait to sit back
and see what happened. And at the time, Darcy and Brita were the only two candidates announced, and I felt before the county rework meetings that Britta actually was.
The stronger candidate.
And I have nothing bad to say about Britta, but like Holdwarf, I decided to kind of wait to see what happened with the counties to see who emerge. And I was actually planning on running for chair And then I had a team in place and one of our team members got an amazing job locker room.
We're so proud of him.
And it turned out that Holdworf was going to jump in, and as soon as I heard his name, I was like, this is the guy, this is.
The leader that we need.
His military experience, his passion, his experience, and it was like a complete a sense of peace had come over me because I had been so stressed about what was going to happen with the party, you know, feeling that kind of lack of hope for our future. And then as soon as he committed, I was it's just instant resolved, Like I really feel like if Colorado has his leadership, that there is not only hope, but there is going to be victory in our future.
Well, let me ask you both this question, and I'll let both of you feel it, because it speaks to your judgment, Richard, that you have decided to endorse by putting Danielle on your slate. Danielle, you're just now coming back in the party after spectacularly leaving the party and burning a whole bunch of bridges. I'm gonna be perfectly honest. I got a lot of email from people who do not trust you because of what you did in the
governor's race. So let me ask this question, why are you coming back into the party and immediately trying to be vice chair, why not get active in your local party and kind of work within the system to try and change it at the local level before you come in and say and I'm now ready to be vice chair. I mean you could see where that would be a little off putting.
Mandy. I'm going to lead on this, and it's a very good question.
When you are wanting to win, and I want Colorado to make Colorado Republicans win again. And we know in Colorado and Republicans play a close attention because this really matters. We know that Colorado is a blue state. It's not turning red anytime soon. That's a political reality.
And you know that, Mandy.
Oh yeah, we know that over fifty to fifty five percent of the electorate are now unaffiliated. They're either soft Democrats, the Republicans that have left the party, or they're somewhere in the middle because they're so disenfranchised and disgusted with all the party politics and all the infighting, either on the dem side, which is hyper accelerated now after November, or on the Republican side, which has been going on for about three, four, five, six years, maybe longer. So
if you want to win in Colorado. There's a little calculus involved, and the way you win in Colorado is number one, have the right message. You can't pivot farther to the right and say, well, if you're not worthy, you know, if you're not as red as I am, you're not worthy of being in my party. That.
Yeah, No, we're in total agreement on that.
Let's talk about winning those unaffiliates that have left our party. Let's talk about asking people to come back.
There's over half a million, five hundred to six hundred thousand.
Who better to ask that question of them than perhaps somebody that's left the.
Party and has come back. Now.
Danielle is a very thoughtful person. She's very intelligent. And I work on a cattle ranch. I'm a general manager of a cattle ranch running thousands added cattle out here. I've been breaking horses since I was fifteen, and I'll tell you what. Some of the best horses I've ever had are those mustangs that were wild. They were ranked, they would buck hard, and you know what, you had to bring them around, and finally when they came around and they wanted to be part of the team and they wanted.
To say, yep, I will work for you, and I'll give you everything I got. There's some of the best horses I've ever had on this ranch, at Buffalo Springs Ranch, which started, oh by the way, in eighteen ninety two. So I see Danielle as one of those papers that have.
All this energy, and she can come back and win those unaffiliateds back, and then perhaps when we get that contribution, we can make Colorado Republicans win again.
You know, why not take a more measured approach in your return to the party.
So again, you know, this goes back to I had no intention of running for this position until members of the SEC had actually reached out to me on numerous occasions. And it took a lot of convincing on their part because for the last two years I have been happily working with like local nonprofits, you know, developing rural sports programs for youth.
In our community.
And I like to do things behind the scene. I don't like to be, you know, out in front. I don't like to have my picture taken. I don't like to do the big attention raw raw, And so it took a lot of convincing from these SEC members to get me to even throw my name in the hat. But what it came down to you and how they got me convinced is I'm a workhorse.
I love the work. I'm dedicated to working.
And when they said, look, Danielle, there's a lot of work that needs to be done and we need someone who doesn't mind having a heavy workload that can give somebody else the reins to lead, and it just kind of worked out where the work is what inspired me, and so I'm just really excited to get in and work with Richard Holtorf and his vision for Colorado and be the person behind the scenes that supports the counties and supports the candidates, because that is the entire mission
of the Colorado GOP. It is not to be a policy platform, it is not to be a platform for self promotion. It is to support the counties and the candidates. And I'm very excited to be able to do that.
Let me get to some of the actual issues, Okay, because there's bigger issues than all of this stuff. One of them is do you favor eliminating the Republican primary?
So I'm presuming, and I see the screens kind of went away, so I'm presuming I'm still on here.
Yes, and you're asking me that question, Mandy, Yes, go ahead, Okay.
So I am not in favor of canceling the Republican primary.
We need to have Republican primaries. Some people people.
Say, oh, it has to be all through the Assembly, and the people that win in the Assembly then they go on the general ballot. Well, if you haven't been lately, and I'm the Washington County chair for the Washington County Central Committee, that's a job that I have right now.
And if you ever go to any of these meetings and you're an outside or just a guest or visitor, or you're a new Republican coming in, you sit there and you watch and you say, boy.
This feels very scripted. Boy, this feels like an inside game. Boy, how do I join this team? Because it just doesn't seem like if I'm not in the inner circle, I'm not going to get a fair shake. And that is across the state in many different counties. Not all these counties are like this. I've watched many meetings and I've seen it from the outside looking in, and I've been on the inside looking out, going how does these things look through that lens? So we've got to let people participate.
We need to have a primary, and we need.
To let the Republicans decide who they want to run in the general.
And that's every Republican.
Not necessarily the insider baseball or the back door secret handshakes that are made are some of these other things that party bosses try.
To flex their muscles and wield their power.
If I'm elected as a state party chairman, you those days end. This becomes a pluralistic, opportunistic organization that's going to allow.
Any candidate come forward.
Look when we did pre primary endorsements, when Dave pedaled O, by the way, most of his endorsements didn't win, which was sad. So you're betting on the wrong horse, COGP and it's embarrassing.
But if you don't bet on the.
Horse and let the people decide who they want, let the people decide, don't put your thumb on the scale.
So I'm absolutely not in favor of these pre primary endorsements.
I want the voters to decide, and I want people to go through assembly and then there's a petition process. Is if anybody knows about me, Mandy, and you do. I ran for CD and I didn't get the endorsement from Dave my opponent did. And I'm a pretty tough guy if you haven't noticed, But you know how bad that would make somebody feel when you're like, geez, this is such an inside game that now they're going to
try to kick me toside and box me out. And I'm just a Republican trying to do a good thing and be a good Republican and try to make a difference in this state. You can't do that to people a candidate, and running a candidate campaign at the state, leveral, federal level is so hard. You can't do that to people because it's going to make.
Them say, I'm not doing it. I don't need the headwinds.
I don't need the party to step up and say you're not worthy, you know.
And kick me to the curb. I will not do that. And I think it's unfair Mandy.
Well Richard, let me ask you a follow up question of that, because the Republican Party has two pretty significant factions right now, and that is the those who sit in judgment on one side of everyone they deem to be the wrong kind of Republican, even though they can't define what a good Republican is I know because I ask them. And then you have people that are just looking to have some kind of normal party politics. In my mind anyway, obviously I'm more aligned with one than
the other. How do you bring those factions back together? And how do you bring Republicans like me who have left the party back to the party.
So, Manny, that's an awesome question.
And if you look at my platform which I sent you, Richard Holthorp announces Platform to Empower Colorado Republicans.
I hope you got that in your email. I actually put that on my page press release.
I put it on my blog today so people can click through and read it for themselves.
So perfect we know that Republicans go from the far side of the say, the rhino type flavor of Republican, all the way to the far far hard right, libertarian, uncompromising Republican. So we have this spectrum, but there are so many different flavors of Republican in between.
I served as the.
House whip in the seventy fourth General Assembly, and I had in the caucus the mighty nineteen. I had this spectrum and we had to stay together.
As a team. I had to manage those team.
In those differences, I had some Republicans that were social liberals.
And fiscal conservatives. I had other Republicans that were.
Far right, hard right, evangelical, uncompromising, unway of rank conservatives and wouldn't give an inch on anything, and they'd vote no on everything.
And you know what, if you want to get one hundred percent on your liberties core cart, just vote no on everything.
You'll max out on the test A plus. You know you'll be in the honor role honor society. But will you get anything done in state government if you don't compromise and work with people, if you don't find solutions.
So I've had this experience in a microcosmic level. Now we have to extrapolate that to the whole state. We have to bring everybody together. I have a message of unity. I have a message of building bridges, not burning bridges. And this is not the Republican Inquisition of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. I'm from Spain, Mandy, I was born in Madrid. You av Rospaoruia. I've seen the history.
And I know what the failings were in Spain, in the country I came from during the Spanish Inquisition that is not a platform, and that is not a position the state party should promote because it shouldn't be.
We're gonna burn everybody at the stake if you're not as far red right Republican as i am. I mean, it's just common sense. But we've lost our way, and I'm going to.
Work to build those bridges, unify us, bring us back together so we can focus on the real enemy.
Who's the real enemy.
It's the far left, woke socialist Marxist Democrat that have ruined this state and are ruined the nation. And they were rejected in November Mandy. We threw them out live at the national level. And we have to have a message that resonates in Colorado, say we don't need to go this woke, We don't.
Know need to go this far left. Let's get candidates can resonate in.
Their districts as promote our Republican platform and their principles so they can win in their districts.
Let me ask you, we're almost out of time. I literally have thirty seconds. I've got Richard holtre If, I've got Daniel Nuschwanger. They're running to be chair and vice chair of the color Udder of Republican Party, Richard. One last question and I need like a short, tiny answer, and that is would you continue to pursue the lawsuit that Dave Williams is pursuing to block unaffiliateds from boke voting in a Republican primary?
Mandy, I feel bad that I'm taking a lot of Danielle's time, but here's the answer.
It's the will of the people. If the State Central Committee wants to pursue that.
I work for them. It's a bottom up process. But this is going to cost so much money. And as a matter of fact, when they did the lawsuit, they took money away from candidates that needed the money to campaign.
Why would I do that. I would put the money where the investment is to get more.
Republicans elected, then to go after a lawsuit and have this continued in fighting against these different factions within our party.
We have to reconcile, Richard.
We have to have a period of reconstruction and we have to reunite our party. And you don't do that by enriching lawyers in court and legal actions.
That is Richard Holt or if he will be one of the candidates to be voted on a week from Saturday. Is that when the Central Committee meets? Is it a week from Saturday?
Yes, ma'am.
It'll be March twenty ninth, Radiant Church, and I believe it'll start at nine am.
In contactence, we'll find out if you are the next chairman. Daniel Neuschwanger becomes the next vice chair after that. Thank you both for your time today. I very much appreciate it.
Guys,