Denver talk-radio host Craig Silverman challenged GOP U.S. Senate canidate Ryan Frazier’s assertion May 6 that the petition path to the primary ballot is a grassroots route, and Silverman asked, after Frazier was off air, whether donations to Frazier’s campaign would “go directly to Scott Gessler and his legal fees.”
The exchange started with Frazier, who’s waiting for the Colorado Supreme Court to decide whether he’ll qualify for the primary ballot, telling Silverman that the “system is broken and the process [of ballot access] is stuck in the last century.”
Silverman responded by asking if Frazier regretted not going “through the assembly process like Darryl Glenn.”
Frazier (at 1:45): No! Look, we got over 18,000 people to sign our petitions. You can’t tell me that’s not a grassroots approach. That’s why we chose to go the petition route, is that we felt it was a grassroots approach to getting out to talk to tenss of thousands of voters. We’re very, very much committed to the process we took. But quite frankly, guys, sometimes you don’t realize how flawed the system is until you’re in the middle of it. And that’s what we’re realizing now. But here’s what we know –nand it’s not in question, Craig – is that the voters – these are valid Republican voters. There’s no question about that. And we believe that they should be counted. So that’s what we’re fighting for. And we believe that – or at least, we hope – that a logic will prevail in this case.
Silverman responded by saying, “I don’t understand how that’s grassroots, to pay over $100,000 to get some stranger to hold the petition outside the various courthouses where I go. ’ve seen the petitioners. It doesn’t feel like I’m meeting Ryan Frazier or really participating on a grassroots level, if I decided to sign that.”
Frazier said he and his team are out there, too, and it’s a grassroots process.
At the end of the show, after Frazier solicited donations from listeners and then departed, Silverman wondered out loud whether Frazier’s donations would go directly to the pocket of Frazier’s lawyer, Scott Gessler, who’s representing Frazier’s cause in the courts.
Frazier (6:36): I just want to encourage your listeners to go to FrazierForColorado.com. We could use every donation, every contribution some can make — no matter how small – to help us as we fight to fix this broken system….
Silverman: Does that money go directly to Scott Gessler and his legal fees?
Dan Caplis: You know, it’s the nature of the business.
Silverman: I don’t begrudge it! I like lawyers to get paid
Caplis: Yeah. No, the nature. Of. The. Business.
El Paso Country Commissioner Darryl Glenn and former CSU athletic director Jack Graham easily made the Republican primary ballot, while businessman Robert Blaha and former State Rep. Jon Keyser both required a judge to add them to the ballot.
