Website ‘RINO Watch Colorado’ Causes An Uproar In Political ­Media World

by Glen Richardson

A political website called “RINO Watch Colorado” (www.rinowatchco.com) has turned the political media world upside down in Colorado. The website was mentioned in last month’s lead story (As Colorado Becomes A One-Party State The Main Parties Fracture). RINO Watch bills itself as “the voice of grassroots Republicans” where “it exposes RINOs (Republicans In Name Only)”  and “supports grass­roots Patriots” while “cutting through the Establishment and liberal spin.”

The grassroots believe they represent about 70% of the Republican Party in Colo­rado. But the Republican billionaires who donate in Colorado (Phil Anschutz. Paul Singer, and Charles Koch), as well as all the media, oppose and demonize the grassroots and now, of course, RINO Watch.

RINO Watch, an upstart website, was attacked relentlessly by virtually every media outlet in the state of Colorado. It was re­peat­edly attacked by moderate Republican columnist and political consultant Dick Wadhams. He published  entire columns about RINO Watch in the Denver Gazette, Colorado Springs Gazette, Colorado Politics, and Complete Colorado — all owned or controlled by billionaire Phil Anschutz. Jimmy Sengenberger, another columnist in those publications wrote another whole set of columns denigrating RINO Watch.

The Denver Post had Republican opinion writer Krista Kafer attack RINO Watch along with a full-sized cartoon by the writer. Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, and Sherrie Peif, a reporter for Complete Colorado, separately penned articles letting RINO Watch have it in the Institute’s quarterly bulletin. Democrat Ann Marie Swan, the Opinion Editor for the Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez, Colorado, wrote her lead editorial attacking RINO Watch for trying to shame Republicans she liked because they were always losing to her Democrats.

The radio world is equally and universally vicious. Jimmy Sengenberger, before quitting in a huff, had a Saturday morning show where he repeatedly went after RINO Watch on his and Peter Boyles shows. He was replaced on 710 KNUS on Saturday mornings with Jon Caldara who kept up the attacks slamming RINO Watch.

Perhaps the site’s greatest critic on radio has been Mandy Connell who has a radio show on 850 KOA weekday afternoons. Con­nell invited contributors of RINO Watch, including a marketing representative of the Chronicle, to come to the KOA studio to discuss the website. In what appeared to be an incredible display of ill temper, she began yelling and berating them only to embarrass herself as they, according to listeners, calmly out debated her.

 

RINO Watch discovered that Connell had lied during the show about her best friend, Republican Consultant Kelly Maher, who claimed she had nothing to do with Bob Beau­prez’s Colorado Pioneer Action, an entity fined the greatest amount ever for campaign violations in the history of Colorado. Matt Arnold, of Campaign Integrity Watchdog, who brought the action against Colorado Pioneer Action, was listening and had in his files the checks from Colorado Pioneer Action for the benefit of Kelly Maher, appearing to prove that Mandy Connell was lying and knew it.

According to it’s website, RINO Watch minds the crescendo of criticism as the huge amount of press converted the once obscure website into a behemoth with more clicks and reads than any other political site in Colorado.

But what exactly does RINO Watch do? It appears to identify Republicans who it believes are moderates but claim to be strong conservatives. It then places them on a fictional Wall of Shame, sometimes with colorful language. In turn, it identifies people it believes are real conservatives and places them on a fictional Patriot Hall of Fame.

The outrage goes to the fact that moder­ate Republicans, who go along with the Dem­ocrat agenda, are never criticized in the Colorado media but lionized as “rock rib­bed” conservatives. A previously unknown website that disagrees with this analysis becomes an enormous threat to the Establishment, not dissimilar to the little boy who states that the emperor has no clothes on.

But failing to destroy the website, the Colorado media has made a must-read site for tens of thousands of Coloradans. Unfortunately for the Colorado media they can not put the genie back in the bottle and RINO Watch is anticipated to continue to grow.