Colorado Republicans Are Wondering Who They Actually Nominated To Run For The Senate

Only 11 Republicans voted against the draconian anti-DREAMers bill that passed Friday night night, mostly Republicans in vulnerable seats with large Latino constituencies like Jeff Denham (R-CA), David Valadao (R-CA), and Joe Heck (R-NV). But one name that stood out on the list of 11 who wouldn't back the Ted Cruz/Steve King anti-Hispanic caucus bill was Colorado extreme right-winger Cory Gardner. Gardner was first elected to represent the very Republican 4th district (basically, the entire eastern third of the state, with a PVI of R+11) in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse when he defeated confused, wishy-washy and cowardly Betsy Markey, in 2010. Now he's his party's longshot candidate for Mark Udall's Senate seat.

Gardner's 3.77 lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote score marks him as a radical right ideologue and an extremist. And until Friday, his vote on immigrants was a big fat ZERO. So why "the change of heart?" That's what Colorado rightists are asking-- and they're pissed off… and not just about Gardner flip-flopping on DREAMers.

On Monday morning, Talking Points Memo's Dylan Scott looked into another aspect of Cory Gardner's attempt to make himself over as a more mainstream conservative: "personhood." In the video up top, you'll see Rachel Maddow predicting Gardner would flee from his bizarre, extremist perspective on Choice. And, as Scott points out, "One of the first things that Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) did after officially announcing his candidacy for Colorado's Senate seat in March was disavow his previous support for the 'personhood' cause, the anti-abortion movement to define life as beginning at conception." The right-wing fringe in Colorado is flipping out over what they see as a betrayal.

"Republicans are so thirsty for victory they're ready to drink saltwater," Ed Hanks, a personhood activist who lives in Douglas County, a Republican stronghold, said at the time, according to the Denver Post. "Cory Gardner has just renounced the party platform and embraced abortion."

Months later, the personhood movement is still unhappy with Gardner's change of heart.

"Cory Gardner is a big disappointment, since he was firmly on our side, and now he's throwing that away for greater political aspirations," Jennifer Mason, a spokeswoman for Personhood USA, told the Wall Street Journal late last month.

Why did Gardner do it? The answer is simple, Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, told TPM. He had to. The state's 2010 personhood initiative lost 71 percent to 29 percent, per the Post. Initiatives in subsequent years have failed by about the same margin. In purple Colorado, where Republicans haven't won a major statewide race since 2004, GOP candidates must appeal to the middle.

"If he hadn't, his whole campaign would have been a non-starter," Masket said. "That's the position that really would alienate him with all the mainstream voters. It kind of had to be done."

Some conservatives warned at the time that Gardner had taken a risk by distancing himself from reliably conservative voters. "It was politically stupid for him to do that," Keith Mason, president of Personhood USA, told the Post. "He's not going to lose all of them. People are pretty ticked by Obamacare, guns and all the other stuff. But Cory needs those votes."

Back to Gardner's opportunistic flip flop last week on immigration. Maybe he was worried about the La Opinion editorial even he knew was coming:

The bill that the House of Representatives passed to address the arrival of minors at the border is a slap in the face to the immigrant community and Latinos.

It is unfortunate that, after so many months of legislative paralysis with deliberately vague messages on immigration, the Republican majority got behind a bill that is embarrassing, both because of its sheer ignorance and its bad intentions.

How else to explain reacting to a humanitarian crisis by focusing mainly on security? Maybe Texas Gov. Rick Perry can understand it. Yesterday in CNN, he mixed up terrorists from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria with these minors, to then say that 90% of undocumented immigrants crossing the border are responsible for thousands of rapes and murders in Texas.

The House's bill is also detrimental for the Dreamers-- as if they had something to do with what is happening at the border-- and speeds up deportations. Since that did not seem like enough, lawmakers also voted on a preventive bill to prohibit the expansion of Deferred Action and the granting of work visas, in case President Obama wants to issue executive orders on these.

The original idea of House Speaker John Boehner was to have a modest response to the border crisis. Again, pressure from the most recalcitrant lawmakers destroyed any idea of moderation, and once again they got their way. The likelihood of the bill moving forward is virtually zero; therefore, above all it is a declaration of principles.

We are concerned that extremists have taken control of the Republican immigration agenda. We are saddened that moderates have not staged an internal rebellion against these extremists, like it has happened time and again against their leadership when there have been disagreements.

These bills are awful for the immigrant community, for what they do and what they are intended to do. Extremist actions and realities are drowning out reasonable words. The Republican Party has diverse opinions when it comes to immigration. Unfortunately, sanity has been thrown out the window and the ones left in charge are lawmakers like Steve King, Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachmann and Jeff Sessions.

Tacitly accepting the leadership of hatred and ignorance of these individuals on the immigration issue is a huge mistake, because it tarnishes both the righteous and the sinners, projecting a collective image of disdain for the undocumented. Actions like these make the stereotype of the anti-immigrant Republican a reality, and the GOP will pay the price for it later on at the polls.