Recall efforts exposed an existential crisis for Colorado Republicans

Following a disastrous week for recall efforts, the Colorado Republican Party finds itself not only in disarray, but in existential crisis.

Over the next year the party’s actions will determine if it will have any relevant future in Colorado politics.

Recall efforts to date have only laid bare the utter electoral weakness the Republican Party finds itself in after years of political infighting have left it politically emaciated.

It’s one thing to fall short of a record 631,266 signatures necessary to remove Gov. Jared Polis, but another to admit an inability to collect 11,304 in one state Senate district.

Adding self-imposed insult to self-inflicted injury, the recall efforts refuse to allow any third-party verification of the number of signatures actually gathered. Instead, organizers have made themselves into the political equivalent of a blowfish, inflating their size many times over hoping nobody will notice how vulnerable the party has become.

Detractors will point out that none of the recall efforts originated with the party. That line strains credulity.

Read the rest of this column in the Colorado Sun.