The Republican challenging U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) made me laugh Tuesday when he told Colorado Politics, “Republicans may be looking around saying, ‘OK, we really want to win,’ as opposed to looking at the litmus, purity test that often is the assembly.”

Republicans are looking around and saying, ‘Ok we really want to win?’

I want to believe Bremer, because it would be good for all of us. But all I see is Republicans, well beyond the assembly, acting as if they really want to lose.

Yes, they say they want to win, but then they dress in multiple layers of ideological straight-jackets (King Trump! Death to Obamacare! Biden wasn’t elected! Abortion is murder! Family leave will kill the economy! And more!) that make it impossible for them to win in Colorado.

if Bremer were right about Republicans in Colorado really wanting to win, he’d join Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney and object to Trump.

But he knows if he did, he’d join Cheney at the Evil Doers encampment far away from the already shrimpy Republican tent.

But this might set him up to win in Colorado someday.

The GOP’s continued love for Trump, and Trump’s love of the spotlight, spells death for statewide candidates like Bremer in next year’s CO election.

But Colorado’s Republicans don’t want to change course.

That’s the confounding part. You’d think they’d want to win at something they spend so much time and money at. Why waste your precious time on Earth?

Bremer was a competitive athlete, which might explain why he projects his desire to win on his fellow Republicans.

It also might explain his optimism that Trump won’t be a factor in next year’s election. A true competitor sees a path to victory, even if it’s make-believe.

“In 2020, the election was about (then-President Donald) Trump,” Bremer told Colorado Politics on Tuesday. “This election will not be about Trump. This election will be a referendum on how Democrats are handling single-party control, from defunding the police to masks in schools to problems we don’t even know yet.

Ironically, you’d have to believe in conspiracies, like so many Colorado Republicans do, or miracles to think the election won’t be enough about Trump, even if it’s not all about him, to compel enough Trump-hating unaffiliated voters, who lean left, to vote for Democrats. Trump was a big reason they supported Democrat Jared Polis in 2018 over Stapleton 59% to 25%. That’s a 34% margin of victory for Polis, in case you have your head in the sand and don’t want to do the math. And things have gotten even worse for Republicans since then.

But Republicans in Colorado show no signs, no glimmers, of looking around and wanting to win elections, as Bremer put it.

The highest-profile Republican in Colorado is U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, and she’s the antithesis of what our unaffiliated voters are looking for in a politician.

But do you see any Colorado Republican candidates calling her out? On the contrary, leading Republicans (including Bremer) are flocking to stand by her and other extremists.

Do you see any of them saying Biden won the election? Barely. The leaders of the Colorado Republican Party hold tight to the Big Lie.

In recent months Bremer himself hosted two fundraiser parties for pro-Trump Members of Congress, Florida Congresswoman Kat Cammack back in May and then U.S. Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) in June. Both have Colorado connections, but both also refused to certify the 2020 presidential election results.

A serious faction of Colorado Republicans even wants to ban unaffiliated Coloradans from voting in the GOP primary. What a great way to court swing voters!

Colorado’s Republican leader, Kristi Burton Brown, also demonstrated a focus on the pro-Trump base by appointing a member of an election fraud conspiracy group to run the Colorado Republican Party’s “Election Integrity Operations Action Committee.”

So again, here’s what Bremer thinks.

“Republicans may be looking around saying, ‘OK, we really want to win,’ as opposed to looking at the litmus, purity test that often is the assembly.”

If only.