As the current Republican Party continues to burn, the question of what becomes the conservative alternative – the real alternative, not this collection of fourth raters – to the Democrats?
Current Republican Senate candidate in Colorado, Joe O’Dea, isn’t given much of a chance of winning in November, and I’d prefer Senator Bennet (D) win anyways. But this CNN/Politics report may point to his political future:
Joe O’Dea, the Republican nominee for US Senate from Colorado, fired back at Donald Trump on Monday after the former President slammed him as a “RINO” and suggested Trump’s supporters wouldn’t vote for a “stupid” person like O’Dea.
In a statement to CNN, O’Dea, the CEO of a Colorado construction company, didn’t walk away from the criticism he’s been leveling at Trump, including on Sunday when he told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that he would “actively” campaign against Trump and for other GOP candidates if the former President runs again. O’Dea also told Bash that Trump should have done more to prevent the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
“I’m a construction guy, not a politician,” O’Dea said in his statement to CNN. “President Trump is entitled to his opinion but I’m my own man and I’ll call it like I see it. Another Biden, Trump election will tear this country apart. DeSantis, Scott, Pompeo or Haley would be better choices. These elections should be focused on Joe Biden’s failures – supercharged inflation, a broken border, rampant crime, a war on American energy – not a rehash of 2020. America needs to move forward.”
Sure, he’s wrong on several of those statements. Even crime isn’t rampant compared to other decades, and certainly Republicans of any stripe won’t be considered adults until they reconsider their stance on 2nd Amendment absolutism.
But these things come in steps, not gallumphs, and O’Dea is rejecting Trump, rejecting, by implication, the paradigm of the authoritarian leader who does what they wish, regardless of the law. Hopefully, he’ll continue down this path, rejecting the election denial disaster, affirming accepting the results of an election. As a non-politician, he has a better chance than most in the Republican Party of accomplishing these goals.
And if he does so? He and those like him may form the foundation of a future conservative party, the sort of party that respects liberal democratic tenets, and can balance a Democratic Party that desperately needs balancing by an articulate adversary.
