Turnout was exceedingly light for Tuesday night’s Republican caucuses being held at Longmont’s Mountain View Elementary School.
Of the six precincts scheduled to meet at Mountain View, only three had participants show up, drawing a total of 20 people for the caucuses — the party’s traditional starting point in the process of deciding at least some of the GOP candidates who will gain spots on June’s primary-election ballot.
However, many of those Longmont Republicans have tentatively picked their favorites among candidates seeking to be the party’s standard-bearers in this November’s general-election contests for U.S. Senate and governor.
Former Boulder County Commissioner Paul Danish said he’s supporting former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo’s gubernatorial bid.
Tancredo “is my friend,” said Danish, a onetime Democrat who left that party in 2008 to become an unaffiliated voter and who switched to the Republican Party in 2012.
Danish said Tancredo “is a really bright, creative, original guy” who “runs on solutions.”
Meanwhile, former Longmont Mayor Roger Lange, another of the Mountain View Elementary caucus-goers, said that he’s “kind of excited that Cory Gardner threw his hat into the ring” for the Republican nomination in this year’s U.S. Senate race.
Gardner, who’s in his fourth year representing Colorado’s 4th Congressional District — a district that extends into Longmont — “has done well in office,” said Lange, who was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for a seat on Boulder County’s Board of County Commissioners in 2004.
No GOP candidates for any of the county, state legislative, state government or federal government seats up for election this year dropped by Mountain View Elementary to personally pitch themselves to the caucus participants there, although most of the people there became eligible to serve as delegates to the county assembly later this month and the party’s congressional district and state assemblies being held in April.
Nor did anyone attending the Mountain View caucuses take site leader Roxie Olson up on an offer to take up to two minutes to speak on any candidate’s behalf.
Some candidates, however, had sent campaign literature to the gathering. And there were some brief caucus-by-caucus discussions of the hopefuls seeking the Republican Party’s U.S. Senate and gubernatorial nomination.
As was the case at other Republican caucuses elsewhere in Longmont and Boulder County, the Mountain View caucus-goers participated in non-binding preference polls in those two contests.
Former Colorado congressman Bob Beauprez, a longtime Lafayette resident who is running for governor, came out on top in one of those straw polls, garnering six votes. Former state senate Minority Leader Mike Kopp received two votes, and state Sen. Greg Brophy received one.
In that same precinct, Gardner nabbed eight votes for the U.S. Senate race while state Sen. Owen Hill got the other.
Former Longmont mayor Bob Askey said he’d spoken on behalf of both Beauprez and Gardner before people marked their printed preference ballots.
“I believe many of the candidates are well qualified,” Askey said after the caucus, “but I think those two can win” the general election.
“Republicans need winners,” Askey said.
At the start of the night’s proceedings, site leader Olson told the Mountain View attendees that “I’m sorry so few of you are here.”
But Olson thanked them for coming, “for taking the time and taking part in the democratic process.”
Olson encouraged them “to stay involved” and to help the party and its candidates as the election season proceeds. She urged them to “think about your kids and your grandkids” with the political choices the caucus-goers make.
The Boulder County Republican Assembly will be held on March 29 at the Plaza Conference Center in Longmont.
Meanwhile, 16 Democrats perched themselves on tiny chairs usually reserved for children Tuesday night in a classroom at Boulder’s Foothill Elementary School, one of that party’s numerous Tuesday night central caucus locations in Boulder County.
Although this year’s midterm election is still many months off, the band of voters gathered at that Democratic Party meeting had no qualms about giving up a Tuesday night to get an early start on election season and participate in their party’s 2014 caucuses.
Cynthia Russell, former Boulder County Democratic Party chairwoman, was one of three people selected to serve as delegates representing Boulder precinct 886 at the March 22 county assembly at Monarch High School in Louisville.
“I’m just a political junkie, and I love the process,” Russell said.
Russell differed from her fellow precinct delegates — former Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor and former Boulder Valley school board member Lesley Smith — on which Democrat to support for the county commissioners’ District 3 seat.
While Toor and Smith support incumbent Cindy Domenico, Russell voiced her support for challenger Alan Rosenfeld because she said she wants to see a new direction and wants to see someone who is passionate about his beliefs in the seat.
Toor gave a speech supporting Domenico as a candidate to all 47 people who attended the caucus at Foothill Elementary, before people split up into their individual precincts.
“We need Cindy there to keep doing the good work she’s been doing,” said Toor, listing Domenico’s efforts to improve human services in Boulder County among her achievements.
The voters in precinct 886 voted 10 to 3 in favor of Domenico over Rosenfeld, with two voting not to commit and one person sitting it out.
Boulder Camera staff writer Joe Rubino contributed. Contact Times-Call staff writer John Fryar at 303-684-5211 or jfryar@times-call.com
