Republicans Say DNC Will Be a Grand Ol' Party

Although the Democratic National Convention doesn't open in Denver until August 25, 2008, press coverage in these parts makes it seem as if the balloons are just about to drop. There's hardly an edition of a local daily newspaper or a nightly newscast that doesn't include some tidbit of DNC news, leaving Republican politicos to fight over the scraps. And as the convention nears, the coverage disparity is likely to expand.

Such a scenario should fill Colorado Republican Party head Dick Wadhams with despair — but if that's the case, he's doing a fine job of hiding his pain. He acknowledges that getting reporters to concentrate on Republican concerns in this environment will be problematic. "With Denver hosting a national convention, it'll be easy for the media to gravitate to anything Democratic," he says. But, he goes on, "I see it as an opportunity for the Colorado Republican Party as well. I think the Colorado media, in particular, will be sensitive to this and will actually seek out a Republican response as we get closer to the convention. And I think it will help Republican candidates."

How? Wadhams's response plays on already familiar GOP themes. While he views Hillary Clinton as a weaker candidate than her two highest-profile rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, he predicts that the Democrats will nominate her for president anyway. Moreover, he believes any of the Republican presidential frontrunners — Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson — can beat her, at least in Colorado. And he expects that the party platform approved at the convention will be "so liberal" it will hurt Colorado candidates such as senatorial hopeful Mark Udall, who he says is "trying to cultivate a moderate image." That could boost Bob Schaffer, the presumptive Republican nominee.

In the meantime, Wadhams has a secret weapon when it comes to disseminating the Republican message: himself. "What I hope to do as state chairman is to be engaged with Colorado reporters on a day-to-day basis in terms of offering our viewpoint from the Colorado Republican perspective," he says. "And I'll do the same thing nationally. There'll be some national interest in what we have to say since the convention is being held in Denver." He points out that he's already receiving regular calls from scribes and TV types beyond state lines, which doesn't surprise him in the slightest. "Because I've been involved with elections outside Colorado, I've gotten acquainted with a lot of national reporters who cover national politics," he allows. "I stay in contact with them on these things, and I think that's helpful."

Of course, Wadhams's rep with big-time journalists is tough to gauge given the ups and downs he's experienced in recent years. He made his name as a campaign manager and consultant by helping candidates widely perceived to have deep flaws get elected — and re-elected. Take former Montana senator Conrad Burns. During a visit to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle amid his Wadhams-assisted 1994 run for a second term, Burns was asked by a rancher how he could live in Washington, D.C. "with all those niggers," and he replied that it was "a hell of a challenge." He won in a landslide anyway, and with Wadhams by his side again, he earned a third Senate stint in 2000 even after referring to Arabs as "ragheads." (Wadhams wasn't part of Burns's 2006 race, which he lost.) Wadhams also oversaw the 1996 and 2002 Senate campaigns of Colorado's Wayne Allard, who was no one's idea of a political firebrand. "The Democrats used to make fun of him," Wadhams says. Even so, Allard twice defeated Tom Strickland, whom Wadhams effectively branded as a "millionaire lawyer-lobbyist."

Wadhams did just as well when it came to strong contenders such as Bill Owens, whose gubernatorial campaigns he managed to victory. (He also served three years as Owens's press secretary.) But his biggest score was in 2004, when he engineered South Dakota senator John Thune's defeat of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. As Wadhams tells it, few observers saw the incumbent as vulnerable. "They just hoped we could make the election close and keep Tom Daschle busy," he says. "But I didn't go up there to get an e for effort." Wadhams-haters charged him with dirty trickery along the way, doing their best to link him to stunts such as delivering bumperstickers to churches that read "Vote Daschle, Vote for Sodomy." But Wadhams stresses that Thune nearly had been elected to the Senate two years earlier — "You couldn't beat Daschle by finding any Republican with a pulse," he concedes — and credits a strategy that "showed people the way Senator Daschle had voted in Washington versus what he was saying in South Dakota."