State Republican elected officials and party leaders sought to tamp down concerns and consolidate support among vital El Paso County Republican activist voters who attended the party’s county assembly on Saturday. In a series of speeches, they conceded that it has been a wild ride on the right this year and that many Republican voters in the bedrock conservative county may not be able to vote for their favorite candidates in top races but that any Republican candidate, including Donald Trump, is the best choice against any Democratic candidate.

State Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, urged Republicans to keep the turmoil of the GOP presidential primary race in perspective.

“Five candidates at my caucus on the straw poll. All of them got votes. And then our caucus complained that we couldn’t get together on things. I was like, ‘Isn’t that what makes us strong? Isn’t our diversity what make us great?’” he said, warming up to knock Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton. “As this (race) unfolds, the final thing to remember is this: Not her, him. Regardless of who him is. Repeat it after me, ‘Not her, him. Amen.’”

Secretary of State Wayne Williams and state party Chair Steve House drove the message home for the thousand-plus delegates gathered at the local University of Colorado campus. The speakers mentioned the presidential primary race in the same breath as the race to unseat Democratic Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, which has attracted more than a dozen Republican candidates.

“Many of us here today will not have our first choice for a U.S. Senate candidate,” Williams said. “But it is absolutely critical that whoever we chose as our party’s nominee, that we get out and work hard for them, because if we don’t, we’re talking significant problems in Washington D.C. We have to unite behind our presidential nominee. We have to unite behind our Senate nominee. The Supreme Court of the United States is at stake.”

The entreaties aren’t likely to persuade all of the conservative voters in attendance at the assembly. Pockets of delegates argued whether Trump even could be counted as a Republican.

To win in swing-state Colorado this year, the presidential and statewide candidates will need strong support in El Paso County, a populous area of the state, home to evangelical mega-churches and military bases and academies.

House worked to rally the crowd, conceding that the state party has weathered a bumpy year. In-fighting has made headlines and voters are still grumbling over the way the party handled voting in the presidential primary race.

“I want to know what we’re going to say to our kids if we get to 2023 and we say ‘You know what, it was too hard. I didn’t like the presidential candidates in 2016. I didn’t like the fact that we had a straw poll, so I walked off the battlefield at the biggest moment in American history other than 1860.’ I hope you don’t go there,” he said. “I know I’m not going to go there. Whoever the candidates are, we must give them our 100 percent support, because if we don’t now, we’re going to have that challenging conversation with our children and grandchildren that none of us want to have.”

Anticipation built for hours around a key state Legislative race, and then it was suddenly over in a flash.

The race to replace Cadman in Senate District 12 pits establishment conservative former state Rep. Bob Gardner against first-term firebrand internet preacher state Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt.

Gardner withdrew from the assembly nomination race, declaring that he had acquired more than the necessary 1,000 signatures to petition directly onto the primary ballot.

Gardner said he hadn’t decided to withdraw from the assembly nomination process until moments before his speech. He said the party was struggling to credential delegates and he didn’t want to prolong the proceedings unnecessarily.

“You can also lock yourself out (of the nomination), and that’s a risk one doesn’t necessarily want to take,” he said. “And I know, too, that if we went through balloting, we would be here another hour, and we didn’t want people to be here another hour when I knew I could be on the ballot.”

Delegates complained that they were here, that they had waited hours for the assembly to begin and to be vetted and double vetted as delegates and that they were ready to vote. “Why had Gardner waited so long to make his announcement?” they wondered.

Klingenschmitt support was thick in the hall, and Klingenschmitt pounced.

“A lot of the delegates came up to me afterwards and said two things: ‘Congratulations Gordon, we were with you,’ and ‘We’re really disappointed that Bob Gardner is petitioning on,” he said. “I feel sorry for them. These people showed up at caucus, paid money to come to assembly, sat through an hour of procedure and then were denied a chance to vote… Unfortunately my opponent took the voting process out of their hands.”

Gardner said he was confident he could have won enough votes to be nominated for the ballot along with Klingenschmitt.

— ramsey@coloradostatesman.com