PEYTON — Gordon Klingenschmitt won’t back down, and there’s a lot riding for him and his true believers in El Paso County after three political losses in three years. If a warrior for God like Dr. Chaps, as he’s called, can’t win here, where can the candidates for Christ do better?

That, by no means, sells the Pentecostal pastor and state lawmaker short, as he seeks a seat on the El Paso County Commission.

He is an outspoken opponent of gay marriage and abortion, enough in itself to make him a political lightning rod. Klingenschmitt, however, flies kites in a thunderstorm.

Insiders know his story, but let me refresh the memory of the rest: Klingenschmitt was stripped of his military pension and rank and went on a hunger strike in 2005 to pray in Jesus’ name in his Navy chaplain’s uniform outside the White House, disobeying a command.

Klingenschmitt served two years in the state House, before he lost a GOP primary race for state Senate in 2016, 62% to 38%, to Bob Gardner. The next year, he lost his bid to become vice chair of the El Paso County Republican Party.

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Last April he ran for Colorado Springs City County. He finished fourth in a 11-way for any of three at-large seats, but he appointed himself well. The top voter-getter was former Secretary of State Wayne Williams, with 18.6%. Klingenschmitt got 11.1. They were separated by two incumbents, Bill Murray and Tom Strand. Klingenschmitt beat Terry Martinez, the preferred candidate of the left who was supported by the Sierra Club.

Klingenschmitt speaks softly but boldly. 

In 2015, a few months before he announced a run for higher office, Klingenschmitt made national news and was stripped of a committee assignment after a Longmont woman was attacked and had her baby cut from her stomach. 

“This is the curse of God upon America for our sin of not protecting innocent children in the womb,” Klingenschmitt said on his “Pray In Jesus’ Name” show show. “And part of that curse for our rebellion against God as a nation is that our women are ripped open.”

He once accused then-President Barack Obama of being possessed by demons, and claimed then-U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, now the state’s first Jewish governor, wanted to “join ISIS in beheading Christians,” though he walked it back and said he wasn’t serious.

Credible party leaders have sought to silence Klingenschmitt, back before Donald Trump was a big GOP deal. Now the brash and the bold run the show on the right.

Don’t engrave 14 letters on his office door just yet. He faces Carrie Geitner, the politically astute and well-connected wife of Republican state Rep. Tim Geitner. A former high school teacher and small business owner, she’s been a political consultant and volunteer for Colorado Springs candidates. In local politics, returned favors and old friends make a difference.

About two-thirds of District 2 is in the state House district Klingenschmitt won with nearly 70% in 2014.

The district is historically conservative, sprawling out to the northeast from Colorado Springs, bisected by U.S. Highway 24 past developments with fine suburban ranch homes close to homesteads where it looks as though folks are barely getting by.

This district also was represented by Douglas Bruce, the godfather of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights who won the race in 2004 on a platform of “pro-life, family-values and ‘never raise taxes’ platform,” as the Colorado Springs Independent described it in 2007.

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This also was the district of Betty Beedy, who went on “The View” in 1998 and explained “normal, white Americans” to host Star Jones, who is black. Beedy was there to talk about whether gay people are pedophiles, as Beedy had claimed they were. 

Amy Lathen, a well-regarded GOP insider, served the district for two terms, and the current officeholder, Mark Waller, is a former state House Republican leader. Waller is running for district attorney.

Early on a chilly Saturday morning in December, Klingenschmitt showed up at the Peyton Fire Station along a crumbling slab of asphalt called Main Street with Dunkin Donuts and coffee for a half dozen supporters.

These were his true believers sitting around a heavily lacquered conference table near the fire trucks.

He didn’t talk about fire or brimstone. He talked about “better, faster, smarter government.” He didn’t make national news. He talked about doubling the county road budget for rural roads.

He would resist any effort to move the only county building from Peyton, and he plans to cut spending, too. El Paso County is governed by five Republican commissioners, but it’s high in taxes with the growth of government outpacing the growth in population, he said.

“They run as conservatives,” Klingenschmitt told the Peytonians. “They run on a platform to lower your taxes, and then after they’re elected, they drink the water and they raise your taxes.”

He assured me after the meeting that the Republican Party in El Paso County is stronger and more conservative than ever, thanks to a galvanizing force called Donald Trump.

“El Paso is still what I consider God’s county,” the pastor said.