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GOP could signal its direction with Larimer County pick

By Ed Sealover, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 11, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The battle for the soul of the Republican Party may begin in a state Senate district in rural Larimer County.

Republican Sen. Steve Johnson, who was elected to the Larimer County Commission, plans to resign his Senate seat next month. State Rep. Kevin Lundberg, of Berthoud, and business owner Mike Lynch, of Loveland, are expected to compete for the slot that will be filled by a vacancy committee.

Lundberg, a staunch anti-abortion, small-government legislator entering his fourth term, is considered by some to be the most conservative member of the House.

Lynch is a first-time candidate who believes Republicans need to shift their focus to helping Colorado businesses and creating jobs.

The committee vote, which is likely to come in late December, occurs as Republican leaders debate the future of their party after three straight elections in which the once-dominant GOP lost major races.

Former Congressman Scott McInnis said last month his fellow Republicans must move away from splinter social issues and concentrate on bread-and- butter topics that concern voters outside the party's base.

"It's absolutely the first step," Rep. Don Marostica, a moderate Loveland Republican, said of the Lundberg-Lynch matchup in determining the party's direction.

Senate District 15, which includes all of Larimer County except for Democrat-heavy Fort Collins, holds a significant GOP voter-registration advantage.

But former Senate President Stan Matsunaka, a Democrat, held the post from 1995 to 2003, and Johnson, a social conservative and fiscal moderate, said appointing the wrong person could put the seat up for grabs again in 2010.

Lundberg said the largely rural district he represents wants someone of a limited-government mindset. It is not conservatism that has cost Republicans in recent elections, he said, so much as the false conservatism embodied by a big-spending GOP Congress that has betrayed the party's principles.

Lynch said he would vote like Lundberg would on many issues, but won't concentrate on outlawing abortion as much as he will on growing the economy.