{"id":40192,"date":"2022-06-06T19:10:59","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T01:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gop-governor-candidates-take-aim-at-polis-during-conspiracy-fueled-western-conservative-summit\/"},"modified":"2022-06-07T01:10:59","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T01:10:59","slug":"gop-governor-candidates-take-aim-at-polis-during-conspiracy-fueled-western-conservative-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gop-governor-candidates-take-aim-at-polis-during-conspiracy-fueled-western-conservative-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP governor candidates take aim at Polis during conspiracy-fueled Western Conservative Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Donald
Donald Sweeting, president of Colorado Christian University, takes the stage at the Western Conservative Summit in Aurora on Saturday. (Chase Woodruff\/Colorado Newsline)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

With just days remaining before voters start casting their primary ballots, the two candidates in a head-to-head battle for the Republican nomination for Colorado governor didn\u2019t so much as acknowledge each other in separate appearances onstage at a conservative conference in Aurora on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Instead, Greg Lopez and University of Colorado Regent-at-Large Heidi Ganahl reserved their attacks for Democratic incumbent Gov. Jared Polis, echoing the ominous warnings and conspiracy-laden rhetoric delivered by other speakers at the two-day Western Conservative Summit.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado has seen some of the most extreme, most harmful and most oppressive legislation and executive orders in recent history,\u201d said Lopez, a former mayor of Parker who secured the top ballot line in the June 28 primary at the GOP\u2019s state assembly in April. \u201cA dark agenda of government overreach and elitist control is destroying our Colorado way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hosted annually by the Centennial Institute, a think tank at Lakewood\u2019s Colorado Christian University, the Western Conservative Summit returned as an in-person event in 2022 for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds gathered at the Gaylord Rockies convention center for speeches, workshops and a slate of candidate forums that also included Friday appearances by U.S. Senate candidates<\/a> Joe O\u2019Dea and state Rep. Ron Hanks.<\/p>\n

Ganahl, who was elected to a six-year term on the CU Board of Regents in 2016 and is currently Colorado\u2019s only statewide Republican elected official, assured the crowd that she can defy expectations and pull off another statewide GOP victory in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are suffering. Jared Polis has been an out-of-touch failure for our state, and we\u2019ve got to stop him,\u201d Ganahl said. \u201cAnd if Jared Polis and the liberal media doesn\u2019t think I\u2019m a fighter, they haven\u2019t seen anything yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ganahl said her plans as governor include reducing the state income tax to zero, cutting the gas tax in half and an effort to \u201creduce bureaucracy\u201d by 40% in her first term. But as she invoked grim visions of Colorado\u2019s rural areas \u201cdecimated\u201d and of a Denver \u201cfilthy and filled with needles and crime,\u201d Ganahl distilled much of her agenda into a reversal of many of the policies pursued by Polis and Democrats in the General Assembly over the last four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs your governor, the most important thing I can do is undo as much of the damage as possible,\u201d she said. \u201cOn Day 1, I will undo as much I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Republican
Republican Greg Lopez, a 2022 candidate for Colorado governor, attends the Western Conservative Summit in Aurora on Saturday. (Chase Woodruff\/Colorado Newsline)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Far-right conspiracy theories<\/div>\n

Lopez and Ganahl were preceded on stage by Frank Gaffney, a far-right activist long criticized for Islamophobic <\/a>and anti-immigrant rhetoric, who warned summit attendees of the threat posed by \u201cthe enemy within our own country\u201d \u2013 people and organizations that he said are agents of the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

Predicting a war with China in the near future, Gaffney told summit attendees that the United States will \u201cneed something like a national unity government,\u201d not made up of the \u201cclowns we\u2019ve got now, but of people \u2026 who have taken and will fulfill the oath of office to protect and defend our constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.\u201d<\/p>\n

National unity governments<\/a> have historically been formed by countries around the world in times of invasion, civil war or constitutional crisis. The term has most recently been adopted <\/a>by the National Unity Government of Myanmar, a coalition of exiled and imprisoned lawmakers formed after that country\u2019s 2021 coup d\u2019\u00e9tat.<\/p>\n

In another speech earlier Saturday, Peter Kerr, a Colorado Christian University business and marketing professor, compared current events to the fall of the Roman Empire, accusing the Biden \u201cregime\u201d of plotting to undermine the American financial system to aid China.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Romans finally realized, as we have finally realized, that the real threat is from within,\u201d Kerr told the crowd. \u201cIf you want a world government, what you\u2019ve got to do is to take down the United States\u2019 military and economic dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exhibitors at the summit included The Epoch Times<\/em>, a far-right newspaper described <\/a>by The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> as a \u201cglobal-scale misinformation machine,\u201d and New Tang Dynasty Television. Both outlets are part of a media consortium tied to the Falun Gong<\/a> religious movement and fierce critics of the Chinese government. Through its print and digital media network, The Epoch Times<\/em> has become a leading purveyor of a wide range of right-wing misinformation<\/a> and conspiracy theories<\/a>, including baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

\"Mesa
Mesa County Clerk and Colorado secretary of state candidate Tina Peters talks with 710 KNUS radio host Randy Corporon at the Western Conservative Summit in Aurora on Saturday. (Chase Woodruff\/Colorado Newsline)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Ahead of Saturday\u2019s opening session, displays directed summit attendees who were \u201ctired of feeling powerless when something fishy happens with an election\u201d to an \u201celection integrity\u201d effort run by a conservative activist group. Several speeches and workshops at the conference were devoted to the topic.<\/p>\n

Jenna Ellis, a former CCU legal studies professor who helped lead former President Donald Trump\u2019s effort to overturn the results <\/a>of the 2020 election, took the stage Saturday and urged the crowd to be \u201cculture warriors\u201d and committed Christians.<\/p>\n

Responding to recent media coverage of the rising influence<\/a> of Christian nationalism<\/a> in the GOP, Ellis said she rejected the label, but nonetheless insisted that the Founders intended the U.S. to be a \u201cChristian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to answer that question of \u2018Christian nationalist\u2019 by saying, \u2018Of course, I\u2019m a Christian. Of course, I\u2019m a nationalist\u2019 \u2013 meaning America First, meaning I care about my country,\u201d Ellis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what makes this country great \u2013 it is not our tolerance, it\u2019s not our diversity,\u201d she added. \u201cThe only reason that America is great is because our Founders recognized God first.\u201d<\/p>\n

In brief conversations onstage with KNUS radio host George Brauchler after their speeches Saturday, both Ganahl and Lopez affirmed their belief in five \u201cstrategic priorities\u201d identified by CCU leadership: \u201csanctity of life, traditional family values, free markets, limited government and a commitment to the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all here today to honor God, and family, and our founding principles of this great country,\u201d Ganahl said. \u201cIt\u2019s time for all of us to stand up and fight for the things that we hold so dear.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ganahl, Greg Lopez blast Colorado Democrats\u2019 policies ahead of June 28 primary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,266,819,896,28,2972,1304,1509],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-election","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-primary","tag-republican-party","tag-state-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40192"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}