Jim Pfaff didn’t mince words, at least not many.

He doesn’t work with losers, and that’s what Republicans in the Colorado Capitol are becoming. There’s no arguing with the math and status quo.

As with the rest of the state and nation, Republicans are a house divided, fighting among themselves over Donald Trump, doctrine and losing to Democrats. That erosion of unity and conservative values has undermined Republicans for a decade-and-a-half now.

“I decided I would not use my skills and expertise to support losing strategies,” Pfaff, the now-former chief of staff to the House Republican Caucus said in a formal statement he released Nov. 17. No way, no how did the staunch conservative intend to serve Hugh McKean, the newly elected leader of the minority caucus, however.

McKean succeeded term-limited House GOP leader Brian DelGrosso in the Loveland area district in 2016, and it was DelGrosso as well fended off some of the more aggressively conservative House members.

Patrick Neville won over DelGrosso’s assistant caucus leader, Polly Lawrence, four years ago.

Along the way, the assistant caucus leader, Rep. Cole Wist, was voted out of office in 2018 after he supported a red-flag gun law. That was an unavoidable wedge between him and the gun-backing Nevilles. As a result, the split delivered the seat not only to a Democrat but a fierce opponent for the gun lobby, Tom Sullivan, to shoot the caucus in its own foot.

With the votes aligned against him, Neville opted not to seek a third term as minority leader after this year’s election.

Pfaff is convinced McKean and his allies backed a slate of primary candidates aimed at electing McKean to leadership, and they weren’t the best candidates to run in the fall.

Republicans split in three competitive primaries in Weld County and one featuring a Neville ally, former Rep. Justin Everett, against who lost to the more moderate Colin Larson to represent the foothills around Evergreen.

These moderates, however, don’t excite the base, given the Trump-infused state of the Republican Party, Pfaff told me. Money spent on competitive primaries weakened the House GOP nominees’ chances to win in November, said Pfaff, a veteran of Colorado and national campaigns.

Pfaff is widely viewed, including by me, as the operative who will drive Neville’s eventual congressional campaign, but he denied that intent when I asked him.

Though he was hired as the chief of staff to the House Republican Caucus, Pfaff said he was only interested in working with Neville, part of the Nevilles who are Colorado’s first family of conservatism on guns, low taxes and abortion restrictions.

Patriarch Tim Neville, you might recall, lost his Senate seat handily to Democrat Tammy Story two years ago.

The Nevilles, including lobbyist brother Joe, are part of the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners faction of state politics, which went after Wist.

Joshua Hosler, a former chair of the El Paso County Republican Party, penned an op-ed in The Denver Post last year in which he called the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners Colorado’s Taliban. That’s personal, given Patrick Neville was an Army combat platoon leader in Iraq, fighting the Taliban.

Hosler singled out Pfaff to be fired from his statehouse job, after Pfaff allegedly called up Hosler to urge him to support the RMGO agenda or face political repercussions from more conservative Republicans.

“Pfaff then threatened to smear me with rumors – false rumors that I had heard before from someone close to RMGO trying to influence my decisions – that I had rigged the party chair election and had inappropriate relationships with women in the Republican Party,” Hosler wrote. “I told Pfaff that I had already heard those fake rumors and it was old news. Pfaff stated, ‘I am sure I will find more on you.’ “

Asked for a response, Pfaff told the newspaper’s editorial department, “If I, or my organization, had blackmailed someone, please file a suit. We have never done anything close to that.”

After the Nov. 3 election, the partisan split in the House remained the same: 41 Democrats to 24 Republicans.

When Colorado Politics called him about Pfaff’s resignation statement blaming him, McKean declined to mix it up in order to move on. McKean is an even-keeled bloke known to work across the aisle.

It’s hard to see how such a broadside on the new leader provided any aid or comfort to a state party that could use all the wins it can get.

See, that’s just it, Pfaff told me: They’re not winning. 

Ignoring the conservative base won’t win elections or converts to the cause, he said.

Playing harder and louder to the principles that the base adores will do that, said Pfaff. At the same time, with Gov. Jared Polis’ ambitious agenda, Republicans need to pull their act together, or see their relevance and beliefs slip further into the muck.

Trust me, Democrats will screw this up, given the chance. Their splits and splinters are a topic for another Insights soon.

History is on my side here. The question will be whether Republicans can muster their votes and offer a viable policy alternative, beyond rattling sabers and shaking fists.

I’ve said it a lot: Plenty of Colorado voters like Republican ideas – low taxes and libertarian independence, specifically. They just don’t like Republican candidates.

Pfaff is one of them.