Musgrave, a former 4th District Republican U.S. Congresswoman who lost to Democrat Betsy Markey last year and now works for the pro-life activist organization Susan B. Anthony List, told the New York Times that party leaders in Washington should take the message of the campaign and the election seriously, that the Party base should not be taken for granted. “Don’t just assume we’re yours,” she said.

“This is probably the most amazing coalition-building I’ve seen in a long time — probably decades,” said Marilyn Musgrave, a former Republican congresswoman from Colorado who now works with the Susan B. Anthony List and came to New York to campaign for Mr. Hoffman.

On Tuesday morning, Ms. Musgrave stood in frigid weather for several hours outside a state office building in downtown Watertown with a group of home-schooled students passing out blue fliers that read, “Doug Hoffman shares our values!”

The battle in New York likely reverberates through Republican Party leadership across the country, including here in Colorado.

Marilyn Musgrave

Yesterday, arch-conservative state Sen. Dave Schultheis, who made a show of backing the Conservative Party’s Hoffman over the Republican candidate, announced he would not be running for a second term. His would-be primary opponent Tom McDowell, however, took little comfort in the news. McDowell told the Colorado Independent that conservatives of Schultheis’s ilk were stubbornly wrecking the party. The single-mindedness on abortion in Schultheis’s case, for example, he said, amounted to Republican “fratricide.”

Schultheis is “too in love with single issue inspired fratricide. I expect that his wing of the party will try to put up someone else, but that candidate will have to carry Schultheis’ fratricidal baggage.’”

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During my years in the Legislature, I have purposely never sought a leadership position, as I believed my role was to stand firmly against every temptation to moderate my conservative views for greater acceptance by the caucus,” he wrote. “As a result, I felt free and unencumbered, to hold high the banner of each and every conservative principle that Republicans say they believe in … and to do so without compromise.

Schultheis has served in the Colorado House and Senate since 2000. In February he outraged Democrats when he said he planned to vote against a bill to require HIV tests for pregnant women because the disease “stems from sexual promiscuity” and he didn’t think the Legislature should “remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior.” Schultheis proceeded to cast the lone vote against SB 179, which passed 32-1 and moves on to the House.

State Sen. Dave Schultheis, a Colorado Springs Republican (Photo/Bob Spencer, The Colorado Independent)

“HIV does not just come from sexual promiscuity, it comes from many other things — contaminated blood, for one,” fired back one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Lois Tochtrop, after Schultheis spoke on the Senate floor.

“What this bill will do and why it’s so important to test the woman when she is pregnant — if she is HIV-positive, treatment is started immediately to protect the baby, the unborn baby,” the Thornton Democrat, who is also a nurse, said.

Listen to Schultheis and Tochtrop here.

Schultheis last week signed onto a letter with Colorado conservative lawmakers Sens. Scott Renfroe, Kevin Lundberg, Greg Brophy and Rep. Kent Lambert endorsing New York Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over “liberal Republican” candidate Dede Scozzafava.

The Republican establishment should stop supporting candidates that merely call themselves Republicans to get elected, and whose actions then undermine principled Republican legislation. We should represent our loyal Party members better by heeding their warnings against compromising Republican principles. Unlike Scozzafava’s views, the Republican Party Platform is pro-life, pro-capitalist, and pro-traditional marriage, and is opposed to radical leftist groups like ACORN.

Schultheis Republican primary opponent Tom McDowell was moved to run against Schultheis for the way he said Schultheis’s single-minded focus on abortion was hurting the party, amounting to Republican “fratricide.”

I oppose him, said McDowell, “because he’s too in love with single issue inspired fratricide. I expect that his wing of the party will try to put up someone else, but that candidate will have to carry Schultheis’ fratricidal baggage.’”

The primary might well have echoed the front range 4th Congressional District race last year, where moderate Democrat Betsy Markey unseated social conservative Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave.

Schultheis’s statement:

After considerable deliberation, I have decided to forgo running for my second and final four-year term as a Colorado State Senator representing Senate District 9. I will, however, continue to serve out my current term, which culminates at the end of 2010, concluding ten years of political service for the citizens of Colorado. This has been an extremely difficult decision for me, as I love the challenge of serving the best interests of my constituents on legislative matters, by steadfastly advocating for traditional, conservative values, which I know to be the best overall values for the citizens of Colorado and the nation.

After much prayer and discussion with family members and close friends, I have come to this decision in order to spend more time with family, including my five rapidly-growing grandsons. As is common knowledge, the responsibilities of political office are extremely demanding on one’s time and schedule — often to the detriment of time spent with family and friends.

Having served to the very best of my ability since 2001, first in Colorado’s House of Representatives for six years and now in the Colorado State Senate, I have consistently attempted to uphold Conservative principles to the best of my ability, even when it was difficult to do so. I remain convinced that those principles are essential for a society whose citizens value freedom, liberty and personal responsibility.

The citizens of Senate 9 District deserve a strong, unwavering Conservative to be their Senator; it is an important responsibility that I have taken very seriously. While I have been honored that the voters have had faith in me over these years, it has always been my view that if there were others who could fulfill those duties with the same level of passion for Conservative principles as I, then I could direct my efforts to other areas; there is so much to do to reclaim the vision of our Founding Fathers. There are now individuals standing in the wings who can and will passionately and consistently carry that mantle.

During my years in the Legislature, I have purposely never sought a leadership position, as I believed my role was to stand firmly against every temptation to moderate my conservative views for greater acceptance by the caucus. As a result, I felt free and unencumbered, to hold high the banner of each and every conservative principle that Republicans say they believe in…and to do so without compromise.

It is with a great deal of gratitude to the citizens of Senate District 9, and a strong sense of personal accomplishment that I move forward to meet future challenges.

God bless you, the citizens of Senate District 9 and of Colorado.

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Sixty-two-year-old McDowell told the Colorado Springs Gazette that the emphasis on social issues is driving people away from the party– at least enough of them that the GOP is effectively relinquishing any chance to regain the majority. The GOP, he said, is “choosing to lose.”

McDowell compared local Republicans to the Colorado Rockies, whose attendance figures jumped this summer when the team started winning. “Politics works the same way,” he said. “If you choose to lose, you can’t get political contributions, you can’t get people to work for you.”

You also can’t control the political agenda, he noted.

It’s an argument that goes to the heart of a debate simmering in local, state and national Republican circles since the GOP wipeout in November 2008: Does the party need to reach out to moderates and liberals to succeed? Does success require a “big tent” where anti-abortion and pro-choice Republicans are equally welcome?
Schultheis has never made a secret of his preference for ideological purity over let’s-make-a-deal politics.

“He wants to abandon the principles of the Republican Party in order to win elections,” he said of McDowell. “I don’t agree with it.”

In fact, Schultheis said that the party has already become too liberal. “It’s gone too far the other way.” It’s all the opposite of what McDowell is saying, said Schultheis. It’s the softening of the GOP ideological edge that is costing elections.

Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams seems to believe this is a non-issue and downplayed it to the Gazette.

“The issues that unite us as Republicans are fiscal and economic,” he said, “and I think you’re going to see those issues playing out in the 2010 elections.” He said the Schultheis-McDowell fight was “the rare exception.”

That’s probably not true at all. Republican Kit Roupé is battling Mark Barker to face incumbent Democrat Dennis Apuan for Colorado Springs House District 17. The main issue dividing the two Republicans is abortion. In the 4th Congressional District last election, moderate Democrat Betsy Markey unseated major social conservative and anti-abortion crusader Marilyn Musgrave in a campaign that mostly fell along these lines.

But McDowell likely lives in the wrong district to sell this version of Republicanism.

“A pro-choice Republican is never going to win in northern Colorado Springs,” said Daniel Cole, a local conservative activist and a regular contributor to The Gazette’s editorial page.

“There might be some parts of the country where Republican voters don’t like social conservatism,” Cole continued. “All I know is that the voters certainly do like social conservatism in Senate District 9.”

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