Uh-oh. If Gov. Bill Ritter actually invites Scott Gessler for a Colorado secretary of state tryout, he’s gonna have some ‘splainin’ to do — what with the major rule being no one is supposed to embarrass the governor and the Republican attorney already called some of Ritter’s big-dollar supporters Maoists.
As Colorado Media Matters has deliciously memorialized, Gessler, the Denver attorney who seems to be at the heart of all things Republican in Colorado — and who is among 20 applicants for the open secretary of state position — spent a good chunk of airtime yammering on Sunday with former state treasurer Mark Hillman on Backbone Radio at KNUS 710 AM.
Hillman, a current Republican National Committee member, was serving as guest host, and as Media Matters reports, laughed when Gessler said he liked calling several prominent progressive benefactors “the ‘Gang of Four’ because of its Maoist connotations.” The four, of course, include Tim Gill, Pat Stryker, Rep.-elect Jared Polis, and Rutt Bridges, though Gessler didn’t say exactly how they were Maoist.
Courtesy of Media Matters, here is the pertinent exchange:
GESSLER: Well, I think what the — when you look at the Colorado Democracy Alliance, what it basically is is an alliance of about four or five Democratic interest groups that have gotten together to coordinate their funding and coordinate their political activities. And the groups that you have, they fall into a couple of categories, but they are really sort of the ones with a lot of money that are controlling this. So that initially starts off with a “Gang of Four”, as I call them. That was Tim Gill, Pat Stryker, Jared Polis, and Rutt Bridges, sort of four multimillionaires; I think that a couple are billionaires, actually. That has sort of dropped off to the “Gang of Two” lately. I usually like the “Gang of Four” because of its Maoist connotations.
HILLMAN: [laughter]
GESSLER: So you sort of have the “Gang of Four,” now the “Gang of Two,” which are extremely wealthy folks, and then connected with that, you have a couple of other groups — the teachers unions, sort of collectively the Colorado Education Association. They have — they bring to the table several million dollars. You’ve got sort of the trade unions, or the AFL-CIO grouping, as well as that SEIU, that’s sort of the public workers union. So those three unions are all at the table. And then, really, between the activists, sort of hyper-wealthy Democratic activists and the unions, that’s most of the money at the table. Now, you also have some of the foot troops, that will sort of be the environmental groups — there’s a whole variety that sort of pitch in. And now and then you sort of get the abortion folks on the Democratic side as well that are interested in this. So —
HILLMAN: Wait a second. Democrats actually talk about social issues? Am I understanding this correctly?
GESSLER: Well, you know, they try not to call it social issues. They try to call it just sort of reasonable people thinking this way, and everyone else is unreasonable.
Looks like Gessler got in just about everyone, save those evildoers the “Castro Brothers” — as Sarah Palin famously referred to them (and we’re not talking about the 60s-style Judy Garland variety show crooners).
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