Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold seems to be alienating everyone key to her reelection bid from the progressive left to the independent middle.
We’re not counting Republicans who never liked her at all, except for Wayne Williams who appears to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, but we digress.
This week we learned Griswold’s campaign staffers literally kicked a political columnist out of an event for fear that he wasn’t going to be 100% loyal to her reelection effort and declined to make a financial contribution to her campaign.
Eric Sondermann, the token independent columnist for the Gazette newspapers and Colorado Politics, revealed all the drama in an eight-part twitter thread Tuesday night.
1/8
Well, there is a first for everything. In my multiple decades of commenting on politics and in my three years as an independent, non-aligned columnist, this was the first time I was thrown out of a political gathering.Thank you, @JenaGriswold.
— Eric Sondermann (@ericsondermann) August 31, 2022
Kyle Clark helped spread the shameful conduct by candidate and campaign staff alike by composing the tweets in a more readable format.
Thank you, @KyleClark. https://t.co/mRgrjO1hXE
— Eric Sondermann (@ericsondermann) August 31, 2022
As Sondermann tells it, he received an invitation to the Grand County event for Griswold but was greeted rather coldly by the Secretary of State herself.
Her staff quickly convened a huddle, threw glares in Sondermann’s general direction, and when they finally approached him it was to remind him he wrote something critical about Griswold about four months ago.
There was some demands made by staff that everything said at the event was off-the-record, and then they hit him up for a campaign contribution. When the newspaper columnist rightly and ethically declined, he was kicked out of the event.
From what we can tell, the offending, yet accurate remark Sondermann tossed Griswold’s way appeared in a May column about the competitiveness of Republicans in this year’s elections.
Here’s what he said:
If Republicans enjoy a modest breeze at their back, they could well pick up the new 8th Congressional District.
If that breeze becomes a brisk tailwind, a strong GOP nominee could win the 7th Congressional seat, from which Ed Perlmutter is retiring.
Make that wind a heavy gust and the down-ballot contests for secretary of State, state treasurer and attorney general become winnable. Secretary of State is likely the first to flip, given incumbent Jena Griswold’s lightning rod persona, though all three races tend to move in some close synchronicity.
If anything, Griswold’s actions at this week’s event just proved Sondermann correct.