Impossible but true. I’ve now rolled past the three-quarter century mark in a long, wonderful political life that dates back to the Nixon campaign of 1960. To mark the occasion, an old friend, Colorado journalist Dan Njegomir, proposed a rambling interview on topics from Governor Polis and President Trump, to Christianity and Islam, to Watergate and roads not taken. Here’s our exchange in full.
Dan: You were the third-to-last Republican state Senate president to date, but in a sense you were the last to serve in that post during a long period of GOP dominance at the General Assembly. That era came to an abrupt end in 2004, and with the exception of a short-lived comeback in each chamber, Republicans haven’t been able to regain their footing since. What has happened to the state’s political alignment? Some familiar explanations for the 2004 watershed — like redistricting and big Democratic donors funding a supercharged ground game in 2004 — still might not explain the Democrats’ longer-term staying power. Has there been a more fundamental shift in Colorado’s political tilt, and if so, what do you believe is behind it?
John: In 1998, the year I got to the Senate, Bill Owens broke a decades-long Democratic lock on the governor’s office. In 2000, Democrats led by Stan Matsunaka broke a similar Republican lock on the Senate. A seesaw, just as it should be. Back to the 1970s, my whole time in Colorado politics, it’s always been a seesaw if you look across the board at US House and Senate, the legislature, governors, and statewide constitutional offices.
That said, we’re clearly in a prolonged season of Democrats having their way. Some of that is demographic change, a blue migration from both coasts, and some of it is superior strategy and tactics from their side. Rob Witwer and Adam Schrager’s book The Blueprintanalyzes this in detail. What Dems call “the Colorado Model” is now being rolled out nationally. It’s that good.
But I take heart that the pendulum has a way of swinging. Jared Polis has dropped the moderate mask he wore in campaigning for governor, revealing himself as a zealot on the left for issues from tax and spend to oil and gas to sex indoctrination in the schools. We’ve seen that movie before. It boosted the GOP in 2014 and may do so again in 2020.
Colorado Trends
Dan: You’ve been saying President Trump is going to win re-election. What’s your up-to-the-moment reading of the president’s prospects in Colorado in particular, where he not only lost in 2016, but polls show he remains unpopular among Colorado’s swing voters? Is it Republican candidates in general they object to, or is it largely about Donald Trump?
John: Again, look at the big picture. Trump 2016 ran closer in Colorado than Romney 2012, who in turn ran closer than McCain 2008. What was that about? Partly, I’d argue, it was because Hillary Clinton was a less appealing candidate than Barack Obama. Will the Democratic nominee in 2020 be less appealing still?
Probably, judging from the debates and the contenders so far. If Hillary herself gets in, so much the better. But if Michelle Obama gets in, look out. Don’t you love this game? My point is, President Trump’s weak poll numbers in Colorado right now don’t reflect the “compared to what?” factor when bloody and battered Dems finally choose their socialist-leaning nominee.
I do expect Trump to win a second term, and I expect him to surprise some people by how competitive he is here in the state. I expect Republicans to make some legislative gains, thanks to Gov. Polis and his hard-left agenda, and I expect voters to reelect Senator Cory Gardner. Cory is a remarkable political talent and he’s doing a good job for all Coloradans back there in Washington. Colorado’s two-party system is alive and well, you watch.
The Great Disrupter
Dan: As one of the most prominent patriarchs of Colorado conservatism, what do you tell Republicans from the “never Trump” movement who wonder at your support for a president viewed — fairly or unfairly — as at best an inconsistent advocate of limited government? Is he merely the less problematic contender in our two-party system, or do you perceive in him a genuinely conservative mind under that much-talked-about hair?
John: This president is a conservative one day, a populist the next day, a freelance improviser the day after that. Sometimes raucously entertaining, sometimes woefully petty and coarse. But what he always is, day in and day out, is the Great Disrupter we’ve so badly needed after a long stretch of bipartisan insider misgovernment in Washington DC—a fierce and fearless patriot putting America first—a champion of the little guy and gal, “the forgotten man” in FDR’s words.
Historians find, as I warned in my book Responsibility Reborn, that great nations decline because they overreach abroad and go soft at home. America has been on that trajectory at least since Reagan, maybe since FDR himself. Donald Trump isn’t having it. That’s what I admire about him, more than the textbook “conservative” label or any other label. It’s why I was with him before most other Colorado Republicans and why I hope and trust he wins again next year.
Faith and Politics
Dan: There is a distinctly spiritual facet to your political profile; you have a long and close association with Colorado Christian University, having led its Centennial Institute; you weigh in regularly and very publicly in defense of Judeo-Christian values; your widely read Backbone America blog includes a self-described “Bible blog” inspiring deeper thought on the scriptures. Some of us get your daily e-missives on the subject. In your estimation, is much of Colorado, along with the country at large, in need of a spiritual awakening along with a political one?
John: I’m glad you asked that. It’s generally recognized that politics is downstream of culture, and culture is downstream of religion—whatever it is we worship, our sense of the holy, the supreme good. So the material and moral problems of how to govern, how to prosper, how to get along together, only start to get solved when we tackle the underlying spiritual problems—what to do about selfishness, how to face fear, things like that.
Defined that way, Colorado and the whole nation obviously need a spiritual awakening, just as all human communities always do. It’s the ultimate ongoing challenge. “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can be made,” said the philosopher Isaiah Berlin.
So I look in the mirror and see a guy desperately in need of spiritual awakening, day in and day out. I’m a sinner saved by God’s grace through Christ’s cross. I’m still a work in progress at age 75—ask my family. My fortunate career in politics, education, media, and ministry has just been a series of ventures in contributing what I can to this land I love.
Impeachment Then and Now
Dan: You were a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon and, as noted in your Wikipedia bio, famously resigned from the White House staff in protest amid the Watergate scandal. Recap for us how that came to pass — and how you had landed such an influential White House job in the first place.
John: Two of Nixon’s top aides, John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman, had sent their sons to my dad’s summer camp in Buena Vista, Colorado. Through them, after getting out of the Navy in 1969, I was invited to interview with the White House press secretary, Ron Ziegler. I was a gofer in his office for a year, then when the President wanted an under-30 perspective on his speechwriting team, I moved over there.
I learned a lot from some brilliant colleagues like Patrick Buchanan, William Safire, and Ben Stein. Henry Kissinger ran me ragged. It was a dream job until the 1972 campaign scandal. From the first, I took Watergate more seriously than most of the Nixon staff, maybe because I tried to build each day around the Lord’s Prayer with its plea to “deliver us from evil.” Something just smelled very wrong to me.
I was far too junior to force any kind of course correction as we headed over the cliff, so I got out and said publicly impeachment should be on the table. You had a string of serious crimes reaching right into the Oval Office. Whereas with President Trump you have nothing of the kind. This impeachment is as phony as a $3 bill.
Islam vs. Christianity
Dan: Some critics on the left labeled you an “Islamophobe” after a speech last summer in which you were quoted as saying, "They will tell you that a good and faithful Muslim can also be a good and faithful American. Sorry, but I don’t see how.” Your blog refers to “Marx & Mohammed” as “enemies of liberty.” Are you guilty of Islamophobia as charged, or is it more complicated than labels would suggest? Is the U.S. an intrinsically Christian, or perhaps, Judeo-Christian nation?
John: Protestants, Catholics, and Jews invented America. The record is clear. The ideas of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Locke gave us our system of ordered liberty and the astounding run of human flourishing that is the envy of the world. No Bible, no USA—it’s just that simple. But that doesn’t make us a "Christian nation,” because from the outset we’ve offered freedom of religion to ALL religions that believe in freedom. When we call ourselves a nation under God, that refers to a deity who dispenses justice and mercy, who welcomes, who forgives.
My religious-freedom warning at the Western Conservative Summit this July was based on the concern that Islam is in fact a totalitarian political system, irreconcilable to this country’s core values. Its religious overlay doesn’t change the underlying Islamic doctrine of brutally dominating the whole world and coercing submission by everyone. We can have the US Constitution from our founders, or we can have Sharia law from their prophet—but we can’t have both. The Koran spells that out.
No doubt there are millions of casual, fellow-traveling Muslims here and abroad who wouldn’t harm a flea. But there are millions of others more faithful to the Koran and thus actively or passively committed to global jihad. It’s a life-and-death issue for the free world. Douglas Murray’s book The Strange Death of Europeis a chilling preview of what could happen here. Some may call it a “phobia,” but I call it common sense, self-preservation.
Roads not Taken
Dan: What would you have done differently in your political life in you could hit rewind?
John: “The saddest words, what might have been,” that old parlor game? I’m not really one to second-guess the fabulous ride I’ve had for all these years since being a page at Richard Nixon’s nominating convention way back in 1960. My overwhelming emotion is just gratitude for the opportunities and eagerness to see what’s next, where can I still make a difference?
But given another chance, I’d have started sooner and prepared better in my 1990 run for governor against the unstoppable Roy Romer. I’d have played more hardball with fellow Republicans in 2004 before we lost the majority as one winnable seat slipped through our grasp. I’d have fought harder to pass our judicial term limits ballot issue that led in October 2006 but went down in November under a wave of trial-lawyer money.
Love This Game
Other than those few do-overs, I can’t think of much else. So let me end by saying I’m confident the best is yet to come for this sweet land of liberty, this America we love. The cycle will go on—one party hitting the gas pedal on what government can do FOR people, the other tapping the brakes on what government can do TO people. We need both, always will. Don’t you love this game?
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John Andrews adds: Another version of this interview appeared in the print and online editions of Colorado Politics magazine, October 12, 2019. It is gated as subscriber-only content. I find my weekly access to all of the great reporting and commentary in Colorado Politics well worth the annual subscription fee.