A true giant in Colorado Republican history has passed away. Carl Williams, a pioneer in the cable industry, noted aviation enthusiast and philanthropist died on Nov. 27. He was 87. He served one term as a Republican state senator in the late 1960s. Williams left an indelible mark on state politics with his tenure as Colorado Republican state chairman during the 1976 election cycle.

Colorado Republicans were decimated in 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, when an entire generation of Republican leaders who had dominated Colorado politics during the 1960s and early 1970s were swept away. It actually started in 1972, when three-term U.S. Sen. Gordon Allott was upset by an anti-Vietnam war Democrat, Floyd Haskell, who had been a Republican state legislator but switched parties after President Nixon started bombing Cambodia. The immensely popular Gov. John Love who had been elected three times, resigned in 1973 to take a job as Nixon’s “energy czar,” which only lasted a few months. But the bottom really fell out in 1974 when Dick Lamm unseated Republican Gov. John Vanderhoof, who had succeeded Love. Gary Hart, who was campaign manager for George McGovern’s ill-fated 1972 presidential campaign, unseated two-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Peter Dominick. Republicans lost control of the Colorado House and retained only an 18-17 majority in the state Senate. The only statewide office that Republicans were able to hold was secretary of state with Mary Estill Buchanan.

Against this backdrop, Carl Williams was elected chairman of a very dispirited state party in 1975 in a heavily contested election. But under his leadership — the state party was much more empowered in the 1970s before “campaign finance reform” emasculated state parties — Colorado Republicans in 1976 were swept into a large majority in the House and increased the Senate majority and President Gerald Ford won Colorado over Jimmy Carter. It also set the stage for Bill Armstrong’s election to the U.S. Senate in 1978, when he unseated Haskell.

Carl will also be remembered for presiding over one of the most contentious state conventions in Colorado political history in 1976 at Moby Gym on the Colorado State University campus in Fort Collins. President Ford and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan had been engaged in a long slugfest and the nomination was still in doubt when Colorado Republicans gathered in July 1976, just weeks before the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in late August. Incredibly, Moby Gym was not air conditioned in 1976, so it became stiflingly hot on that July day, and emotions and tempers by the respective presidential campaigns were just as high.

While President Ford decided not to address the convention, Governor Reagan did do so, and he electrified the Reagan delegates with a powerful speech that resulted in one of the most interesting moments of the 1976 campaign. Towards the end of Reagan’s speech, Chairman Williams approached the podium and told Reagan his time was up. Reagan disagreed and continued talking to the loud cheers of Reagan supporters and boos by Ford supporters. It remains unclear to this day who was right, but a few years later when Reagan traveled to Colorado to speak to a Republican dinner, Williams good-naturedly presented Reagan with an engraved stopwatch and they buried the hatchet.

It was my honor and pleasure to get to work with Chairman Williams after no one wanted to serve as Bent County Republican chairman in 1975, so they elected the only guy who would take the job, a 19-year old college student who had volunteered during the 1974 campaign. I sought his advice and counsel during my tenure as state chairman.

Dick Wadhams served two terms as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.