The Republican Party is running a slate of “Big Lie” proponents for every available electable position in every state of the Union. The Colorado GOP has a real whose who of MAGA-supporters including suspected election fraud criminal Tina Peters. Peters is the Mesa County Clerk who broke security protocols and likely the law, by allowing Dominion voting machines under her purview to be tampered with. In between times being arrested, Peters is running for the secretary of state job in the hopes of hijacking the office that is investigating her election malfeasance.
But Peters isn’t the only piece of work running in Colorado on the MAGA-GOP ticket. Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez wants Coloradans to know that he too believes the election was stolen from Donald Trump, and has also pledged to pardon Tina Peters for all of her crimes, because what’s law and democracy got to do with anything in the GOP platform these days, anyway? Lopez is running against University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl in the GOP primary, the winner will face off against Democratic incumbent Jared Polis.
On Tuesday, Next 9News’ Kyle Clark released his interview with candidate Lopez. Clark decided to ask real questions about Lopez’s apparent hypocrisy about almost everything he says and does, and boy, was the interview a doozy.
The interview opened with a question about the leaked Supreme Court decision set to overturn Roe v. Wade, and Lopez predictably said he agreed that the decision should be left up to the states to decide. When Clark followed that up by asking what that means to Lopez who is running to be the governor of the state, Lopez was vague saying that the state seemed to be making decisions, based on what Coloradans wanted. And while the decisions that have been made have been to try and codify the protection of a person’s reproductive rights, Lopez stayed as vague as a cowardly GOP politician can when asked hard, pre-election questions.
Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court's leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats must do now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast
Clark does a good job here of gently asking Lopez to clarify what the hell his position is in a state that has long supported the reproductive rights of its citizens. Clark then does a little two-step: while the overwhelming poll numbers and the democratically elected legislature have passed and continue to press for laws supporting reproductive rights, he thinks that might be a mirage. He would like to see a “conversation” about taking away abortion rights. Asked if he would like a state-side referendum where Coloradans vote on the subject, Clark quickly walks that wildly unpopular position back and says he would like a “statewide conversation” about what to do with these people and their wombs.
Lopez’s opponent, Ganahl, has already staked out the position that the recently passed and signed law protecting a citizen’s right to choose what to do with their body should be overturned. Lopez agrees but wanted to point out that the big problem is the language that life does not exist in “the womb of a female.” That’s how he put it. He then went on a circular semantic roller coaster when asked whether he would sign “an abortion ban” were he to become governor. After a long-winded pointless response, he said he would sign an abortion ban. That’s all Clark asked.
Clark followed that up with a reminder of the time Lopez was arrested for assaulting his then-pregnant wife.
Everybody deserves a second chance, yada yada yada. That’s fine, but don’t pretend that taking away a person’s right to govern their own body isn’t exactly what it sounds like.
Lopez then went on to make the claim that cutting taxes would be the best thing for Colorado. How would he make up the money in lost tax revenue? He wouldn’t need it, because “30% of the budget is fraud and waste,” and social programs and educational programs were a scam. Clark asked about the large education budget; Lopez pointed to outcomes being lackluster and proof of waste. You might wonder how cutting teachers’ budgets might help to increase the educational outcomes Lopez claims he wants. Easy: Bootstraps!
Lopez literally says that, “By allowing teachers to be creative.” He then goes on to say that the teachers’ unions need to be destroyed in order to free teachers from the oppression of unions. It’s such a gross set of statements about education it is hard to even watch.
From there, Lopez diagnoses the epidemic of fentanyl and opioid addiction with people being soft on crime. That’s it. It’s also because we don’t have a heavily Christian society anymore. “What,” you ask? Exactly. Writing out Lopez's half-statements is sort of like watching a dog with a dog whistle in its mouth trying to play a song.
After pressing Lopez on how having more police on the street to end drug addiction is truly preposterous, Clark wants to know why Mr. Lopez is against mail-in voting—something Coloradans have been doing since well before the COVID-19 pandemic. Lopez starts blathering about how Americans wait in line for a baseball game and how he’s proud to wait in line to vote. Clark then reminds Mr. Lopez that for the last 10 years, he, Greg Lopez, has voted by mail. Personally. Mr. Lopez has voted by mail for the last 10 years.
Lopez says he’s done “both.” And while he was fine using mail-in ballots for the last 10 YEARS, now he believes that “standing in line is more appropriate.” Listen, Mr. Lopez is a piece of shit. This is clear. But if you feel like that language is too strong, Clark reads a quote from Lopez that is a clear homophobic slam against Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay and married to another man.
“It’s time Colorado had a real First Lady again,” Clark reads. [There’s a good chance Lopez has made this similar statement more than once, but there’s also this version of the statement from a few weeks ago: “I think it’s time we had a real First Lady, don’t you?”] Clark asks Lopez why he “would introduce homophobia into the race for governor.” It is here that you really get to see the true cowardice of a craven Christian conservative.
Lopez: “It's interesting that you would even mention that word, because I didn't use it. I don't know how you connected my words to that sentiment that's the problem.” Let that sit there. This is a “man” who wants to pretend that there are defined gender attributes and God-given types of responsibilities for those genders, and yet by “his” own homophobic and sexist standards, he cannot even be “a man.”
It’s all hogwash of course, as the only gender anyone needs to worry about is whether or not a person has integrity or not. But, Lopez, like many operatives in his political party, only manifests the deepest levels of cowardice, hypocrisy, and lack of integrity. Lopez then follows up his cowardly display by hiding behind his wife, saying something about how long they have been married and how great he thinks she is.
Clark does a good job of telling Lopez that his response is at best disingenuous and everybody watching and everybody at the rally where Lopez gave his homophobic speech knew exactly what he meant. Lopez, on his heels, probably slipping in the metaphysical swamp of hell where he dropped his soul, attempts a weak attack on Clark for misleading the audience.
Like the rest of the country, Colorado has its work cut out in the fight to save our democracy from theocratic conmen like Lopez.
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You can watch the whole 20-minute interview below.
RELATED STORY: Colorado governor signs bill guaranteeing the right to an abortion regardless of SCOTUS decision
RELATED STORY: Tina Peters was arrested twice last week. Now she’s running to control Colorado’s elections