Patient. Vigilant. Energized.

A group of Republican representatives, senators, advisors and attorneys arrived to Holyoke the afternoon of Saturday, March 18, for the Lincoln Day Dinner, where they addressed 150 residents within the Phillips County Event Center amid scattered American flags, and a meal of meat and baked potatoes. Radio host Kim Monson presided, opening more than two and a half hours of speeches by calling Colorado "the tip of the spear" for reclaiming "our great American idea."

United States Congresswoman Lauren Boebert then entered the room via Zoom call to the sound of clapping, stressing that her party would not "default on our nation's debt." The Democratic Party, according to Boebert, had raised the debt ceiling in the last Congress and "continued to spend, spend, spend your money." To combat the debt issue, the congresswoman continued, she and many of her colleagues intended to "begin by defunding every woke program and/or agency in the federal government."

"Any program that has diversity, equity and inclusion, or critical race theory," she said, "these need to be defunded. Those are your tax dollars that are going to this woke and weaponized agenda that the Democrat Party has put forward."

Following Boebert, also via Zoom, Congressman Ken Buck of Colorado's 4th congressional district told those assembled he planned to "move forward and win elections." Democrats presently control both chambers of the legislature within Colorado as well as the U.S. Senate, while Republicans control the U.S. House. "A lot of people are breathing a sigh of relief," Buck continued, now that Democrat Nancy Pelosi has been replaced by Republican Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House. Pelosi, he noted, "will never be speaker again," prompting another round of clapping.

"A big presidential election is coming up," he said. "It's going to be interesting to see what happens," he continued, if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis enters the race against former U.S. President Donald Trump, "but the one thing that I know for sure is that, as Republicans, we've got to come together, and make sure we are united behind a Republican candidate and do a great job in getting Republicans elected.

"We need to be patient, we need to be vigilant and we need to be energized."

Bringing in swing voters

Dave Williams, new chair for the Colorado GOP, gained yet more applause with the statement: "We should not be ashamed of who we are and we sure as heck shouldn't apologize for who we are." Conservative issues, he continued, "are winning issues: on being pro-life, limited government, less spending, less taxes."

As an example of staying true to conservative values and still gaining support, he brought up an instance where he found "good folks" who were Republicans, Independents and Democrats while promoting a bill against vaccine mandates.

"There was a Democrat out of Boulder, Colorado," he said. "She ended up supporting my campaign and actually donating to my campaign when I was running for reelection.

"I'll never forget this: She came to the committee room and testified, and she looked at all the Democrats, and she said, 'Shame on you. Shame on you for making me support someone like Dave Williams ... I'm a Boulder, lesbian, atheist Democrat and how dare you for making me support a right-wing, Christian conservative from Colorado Springs.'"

If Republicans plan to win in the future, Williams said, they will need to show swing voters they are honest and trustworthy, and willing to give constituents a "fair shake" on issues important to them.

His party, he continued, also would need to "take the gloves off" when dealing with opponents. As an example, he cited an instance where Boulder County Republicans revealed Democratic State lawmaker Tracey Burnett had falsified her residency in order to qualify for reelection. She resigned her post in January and pleaded guilty to two charges the following month.

"That's the type of aggressiveness, that's the type of boldness that we need to win and that's the type of strategy that we're going to replicate around the state," he said. "We're going to look at all these Democrats and we're going to dig up their dirty laundry, and we're going to find where those skeletons are, and we're going to expose them."

Plans for 'ballot harvesting'

Republicans, according to Rep. Richard Holtorf of House District 63, failed to get out the vote during the last election. "Yeah, the Democrats ballot harvest and they're damn good at it," he noted. "Let me tell you how it's done and let me tell you how Republicans can do it."

By watching lists of eligible voters, organized by clerks and recorders, he said, one can find people who have not voted in "the fourth quarter, with two minutes to go." When Democrats see this, he continued, they begin making phone calls.

"They got a bunch of hippies getting in old Subarus and they're running around, calling and picking up ballots," he said as the crowd began to laugh. "And what are we doing? We ain't doing a damn thing, or getting in our 4x4s or trucks or making the same damn phone calls."

For picking up voters' ballots, he said, "The limit is 10."

"I've got 10 rednecks that can get 100 damn ballots in less than 12 hours," he continued, "and if you've got a lot of beer, they'll do more than that."

Keeping the communists,

socialists at bay

Speaking on education, community consultant Laura Boggs - a former member of the Jefferson County Board of Education - said local school boards are the "front lines of defense" against attempts by the "woke agenda" to spread the influence of socialism or communism. She asked the crowd to raise their hands if any of them had shown up to a school board meeting; while pleased with the number, she told them it should be higher come next year.

"The communists in our world, the socialists in our world, know the only way they can overthrow this great experiment of a republic is to get our children to do it," she said. "Who believes that? Who believes that?" She watched hands raise from the crowd. "I'm in the right room. I love you guys. I'm in the right room."

"Inalienable rights from ..." she began, waiting for the crowd's answer: "God." She repeated the phrase. The audience answered "God" a second time. If "we don't tell our children where their rights come from," she added, "they think they come from the government."

Giving 'grace' to school boards

The U.S. Supreme Court, according to Attorney Brad Miller - managing partner of Miller, Farmer, Carlson LLC - has "reasserted that parents are the authority in their child's education." More applause ensued. By extension, he continued, touching on a topic that popped up throughout the event, "they also have the right to determine what gender their child expresses and how they express it."

Schools need a practice, he said, where teachers engage with parents rather than hold back the experiences of students. If parents arrive and tell teachers "about their son wanting to be a daughter," Miller said, schools should accommodate the student with a staff bathroom, but the student should not be allowed on sports teams that align with their chosen gender, "because it's not the right thing to do."

The education system may be "dead-set against us," he said, but the "teachers aren't." Teachers, according to Miller, did not enter their professions so they "could somehow groom or indoctrinate your kids."

"A lot of us look back fondly to our eighth-grade social studies teacher or that English professor who inspired us," he said. "Most teachers are that way and so we want to be careful not to message to them that we don't trust you ... Let's be very careful as a community about that. That, to me, is a very big deal."

Volunteer school board members are a "bigger deal," he continued, though "not all-powerful." Many of them "come green off the vine," he said, ready to support parents and communities, only to enter "a beaurocratic nightmare" with hundreds of policies, all difficult to amend.

By entering a school board, he said, members pushing for conservative policies are going up against an entrenched system run by "great people who have no profit motive and no desire for change." Legal counsel, he noted, often advise against conservative positions based on their interpretations of the law. Change will come slowly, he continued, and parents do not need to be berating these volunteers in the meantime.

"Let's give grace," he said. "If you are on a school board, you are doing the most consequential, most important service that can be done in our society right now.

"Let's assume the best, let's support these people and let's not bring in the ghosts of somewhere else ... of CRT and the LGBTQ agenda."

Added to these "ghosts," he speculated earlier regarding the identity of the Antichrist and a resulting transition between realities. Should such an apocalypse come to pass, however, it may interfere with political aspirations - both Republican and Democrat - as well as local school board amendments and scheduling.

"I think we're really close to the precipice, we're really close to the end of time," he said. "It's an amazing time that we live in."

Further speakers at the event included Sen. Byron Pelton of Senate District 1; Rep. Brandi Bradley of House District 39; Kristi Burton Brown, senior policy advisor for Advance Colorado; Ron Hanks, a former Colorado representative and U.S. Senate candidate; and Peg Cage, creator of MyColoradoGOP.org.