Six Republican candidates for U.S. Senate voiced nearly identical themes Saturday night at an in-person forum at Twin Peaks Charter Academy in Longmont. They decried government excess and the need to eject U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and President Joe Biden from office..
For the most part, the candidates said they would rein-in inflation, drastically cut government spending, protect America’s borders and decimate, if not destroy, the U.S. Department of Education.
“The Department of Education is a complete waste of money,” said Eli Bremer, a former Air Force Officer, Olympian and now an advisor for small business startups.
Bremer joined Peter Yu, Deborah Flora, Ron Hanks, Gino Campana, and Greg Moore and answered questions from radio host Kim Monson and Marshall Dawson, vice chair with the Boulder County Republican Party. The forum was hosted by the Longmont in partnership with the Boulder County Republicans and the Boulder Republican Women.
Not present at the forum was Joe O’Dea, also vying for the Republican nomination to defeat Bennet, a Democrat.
The candidates fielded questions from the moderators as well as from the audience. They also answered multiple-choice questions about local Boulder County culture and landmarks. (“What is the English translation of Chief Niwot’s name…..Left Hand.)”
Hanks, a retired Air Force veteran who now represents District 60 in central Colorado, told the audience that he believes the inflation rate is twice than what has been reported, and can be fixed by opening up the energy industry and the supply chain. “We restored energy independence, we can do it again, but we have to get the Biden regime out of power,” Hanks said.
Campana, a former Fort Collins city councilman and Trump administration appointee, said inflation and other economic woes can be solved by cutting off payments to people who don’t work.
“Three things: Stop paying people to stay home and not go to work. Two, stop spending so much money,” said Campana, a home builder “I see a lot of younger generations in this room tonight, maybe they’re a little upset with the fact we’re leaving them with over $30 trillion in debt. Three, stop trying to control your lives.”
The audience cheered when Campana mentioned the convoy of truckers in Canada that protested COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Flora was a former Miss Colorado and second runner-up in the Miss America pageant in 1990. She is the founder of two media companies and a parents rights advocate. She said school must stop politicizing children.
“We need to cut our Department of Education down to almost nothing,” Flora told the audience. “We also need to look at executive orders that are politicizing our children’s education. There’s indoctrination, not education right now.”
Moore, a global studies professor at Colorado Christian University, said he has not yet seen scientific evidence that global warming helped stoke the Marshall fire. “Show me the connection between all this science data and a fire in Boulder,” Moore said. “...There is no way to prove this hypothesis that climate change caused that fire. We don’t know why it started.”
Yu, a first- generation immigrant, said the nation’s immigration courts are behind many of the problems with the crisis at the nation’s borders. “They are really backed up, where it takes six months to a year before your visa or assignment request is even reviewed,” Yu said.
