Such scenarios play out in politics, too. Take George Brauchler, a Republican who served Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties as district attorney for the 18th Judicial District from 2013 until January 2021, when he departed because of term limits. Just over a year later, talk-show legend Peter Boyles announced his retirement from KNUS, an outlet at 710 AM with a notably conservative perspective — and in August 2022, Brauchler, who'd remained in the public eye through radio fill-ins and opinion columns for the Denver Post, was named Boyles's permanent replacement. He quickly established himself as a first-rate host.
But now Brauchler has hung up his microphone (the move is being termed a "leave of absence") in favor of a run for district attorney in the brand-new 23rd Judicial District, which encompasses a significant, and notably right-wing, part of his previous stamping grounds. And while he has fond memories of the time he spent in the morning-drive slot at KNUS, Brauchler sees the move as a hoped-for return to his chosen vocation.
"I don't consider myself a regular or career radio guy," Brauchler says. "And with this new judicial district, there's a real opportunity to start a DA's office without having to worry about 'This is the way we've done things in the past.'"
He adds: "I'm invested in this community. I've been here for almost three decades. My kids go to school here. My business is here. And since I'm the guy who represented this area for eight years, maybe it makes sense to put someone in there who has the passion and commitment to make sure it's done right."
Brauchler's stint as DA earned him plenty of national attention owing to his prosecution of the Aurora theater shooter, who was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in August 2015. But Brauchler wasn't able to parlay this notoriety into electoral success on a statewide basis, in part because Colorado was moving to the left. His bids for two major offices — first governor, then state attorney general — both fell short, and while he subsequently toyed with taking a stab at a couple of congressional seats, he ultimately chose not to do so based on family considerations, he says.
Radio turned out to be a lot more user-friendly, even if it required him to wake up earlier than he might have preferred. "I enjoyed everything about it except the hours," he admits.
Not that his shows always went smoothly. Brauchler came of age politically in the era that preceded the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party in Colorado and beyond, and he continued to espouse his original views whether they were beloved by the red-hat crowd or not. "I was a conservative talk-show host, but I was not viewed as a die-hard Trump supporter," he says.
This approach — one also taken by Boyles, whose longtime producer, Bill Thorpe, Brauchler inherited — meant that exchanges with devotees of The Donald could shift from love fests to ideological bloodbaths at a moment's notice. "There were definitely days when I'd take the headset off and look at Billy and say, 'What in the hell is going on?'" Brauchler recalls. "Sometimes it felt like we were on the radio during a full moon."
Rather than getting into regular howling contests, however, Brauchler chose a less confrontational tack. "I would let folks talk about things they believed and then ask, 'How do your values support that decision?'" he notes. "I felt that was a bit of a public service, and it allowed for a lot more engagement. Most of the conversations I tried to have on the air are conversations I would have had in my yard when I turned the mower off and talked to my neighbors."
Along the way, Brauchler got a sense that plenty of KNUS listeners shared a philosophical kinship. "I got a lot of texts," he explains. "I found that people felt more comfortable texting than they were when calling in; I imagine a lot of that was not wanting to say certain things that people they knew or their boss would hear. But it reassured me the bulk of folks who share my values politically aren't extremists. The ones on the fringe are more vocal, more willing to get out there. But that doesn't make theirs the dominant view."
Meanwhile, Brauchler remained on the lookout for political opportunity — but he didn't initially focus on the 23rd Judicial District, which was created by the Colorado Legislature in 2020 and will become a going concern on January 7, 2025. Indeed, a 2019 Post article about the proposal to have the 18th Judicial District concentrate on Arapahoe County and create a new entity that would handle Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties, included a quote from Brauchler shrugging off the idea of becoming the 23rd's first DA. He said he hadn't given the prospect much thought, then added, "I don't know if my wife would tolerate any more politics at this point."
What changed Brauchler's mind about the 23rd? One factor Brauchler now cites involves the historic nature of its creation. "Since the early 1960s, Colorado has only had 22 judicial districts," he points out; the last of these, the 18th, was launched in 1962 to handle matters in Arapahoe and Douglas counties, with Elbert and Lincoln added later that decade. "And we haven't had a change in almost sixty years, because we don't add districts based on population."
Dagny Van Der Jagt is also campaigning to become the first district attorney for the 23rd Judicial District.
Granted, there's no guarantee Brauchler will win the Republican primary for DA in the 23rd. Dagny Van Der Jagt, an attorney based in Douglas County who lost the GOP primary for district attorney in the 11th Judicial District (Chaffee County) back in 2012, has a considerable head start over Brauchler, and she's lined up some influential endorsers, including former congressman Tom Tancredo (who had his own stint as a radio talk-show host).
Brauchler has much greater name recognition than Van Der Jagt, and he's hopeful that his platform will engage voters of all stripes. For example, he pledges that his office will be the most transparent of that of any DA in the state, and that his staff will stick to the law rather than tilting the balance of justice in one direction or another.
"There's a hard-core group of far-right folks who have an opinion about where the DA's office should be going, and then there's the rest of the folks — and I'm appealing to the rest of the folks," he says. "I'm dismayed by how political prosecution in the criminal justice system has become in a lot of places, including nationally. I want to remind people that whether you're an R or a D is less important in the use of prosecution power than whether something is right or wrong. I want to run to emphasize the fact that the rule of law doesn't know a party."
But Brauchler's agenda has some red meat, too. "Theft at every level is running rampant," he stresses, "and I want to have conversations with judges, law enforcement and the community about if we want to establish the idea that if you steal in our jurisdiction, you should expect to go to jail. I'm not saying you'd get ten years for stealing a candy bar, but if that message came out, I'd be very interested in seeing what impact that would have on property crime, whether it's car theft or anything else."
He also decries "laws our legislature has passed over the past six years of so that prevent us from knowing what percentage of crimes were committed by the illegal aliens, the undocumented, whatever you want to call them. I can tell you that 60 percent of crimes in the 18th Judicial District are committed by people who don't live in the 18th, but I can't tell you what percentage of crime is committed by the undocumented. And if we don't know that, I'd like to."
This last goal aside, Brauchler is hardly the sort of candidate likely to thrill the Trumpiest voters in Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties. But his most recent radio appearance gave him reason for optimism.
On Tuesday, February 6, "I announced I was running on my old radio show, which is now being hosted by Bill Thorpe and Jeff Hunt," he says, referring to the executive director of the Centennial Institute, a branch of Colorado Christian University, and field general of the annual Western Conservative Summit. "They asked me if I would take phone calls, and I said I would, and there were back-to-back calls from guys I'd done heavy debate with over the years. We'd had vigorous disagreements, but they said, 'I think you're going to make a great DA. I loved that you were a straight shooter and you always treated everybody with respect even when it was clear you disagreed with them.'"
And then, Brauchler continues, there was a tweet from a woman "who said, 'I donated. You and I disagree on President Trump, but I think you're going to be a great DA and I support you.' Those are the kinds of things that stick with you. I didn't expect that."
