Starin says Wadhams 'was spread too thin'; claims GOP ignored congressional, legislative races

Second Congressional District Republican nominee Scott Starin said Colorado Republican Party Chair Dick Wadhams "was spread too thin" this past election cycle by running Bob Schaffer's U.S. Senate campaign while remaining party chair.

He also criticized the state party for not paying enough attention to state legislative races, and blasted national Republicans for focusing on U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's (R-Fort Morgan) re-election campaign while ignoring him and other long-shot GOP congressional candidates.

Starin, who was soundly beaten by 2nd Congressional District Democratic nominee Jared Polis on Nov. 4, said he didn't intend his criticism as "sour grapes."

But he said he was piqued at Republicans complaining anonymously about Wadhams running Schaffer's campaign while staying on as party chair.

"(Wadhams) says nobody is going to come forward and say that they disagreed with his decision to stay on as party chair and run the Senate campaign," Starin said. "I definitely disagree with that. I think he was spread too thin."

Starin said he planned to call Wadhams to discuss his concerns.

However, Starin said he didn't want people to mistake his criticism of Wadhams for taking on two jobs with his overall support of Wadhams as party chair. Wadhams is up for re-election as party chair next March, and some have questioned whether he'd be challenged.

"I think (Wadhams) brings a lot to the party, and I would probably vote to keep him on if it came down to that," Starin said. "But I will also air my differences with him that I think we spread ourselves too thin here and this is the way I'd like to go forward."

Wadhams did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Starin was much more critical of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP's national congressional fundraising arm, saying their strategy in Colorado this year was "abysmal."

"They spent millions of dollars on Musgrave's (race) - I mean,  if they gave me $20,000, we could've had extended our media buy, we could've done a direct mailing to targeted areas," Starin said. "If there was more attention paid to the congressional races here, (John) McCain would have done better and Schaffer would've done better," Starin said. "Because who's in the district every day but the congressional candidates, and they're out there speaking."

Starin also said the state Republican Party "could have paid more attention to the state legislative races."

"I still felt that a lot of credible races that would've benefitted from party focus at the state level - that was lacking," he said.

Starin said Republicans need to emulate Colorado Democrats' "64-county approach," in which Democrats competed in every area of the state, regardless of their chances of victory.

"We've got to compete in every county, every district every precinct," Starin said. "We have to have credible candidates, and we need to be supporting these candidates and articulate the message that we want to be articulating of core Republican principles. And we lost our way."