Dick Wadhams surprised politicians and pundits alike on Monday when he announced that he would not run for a third term as chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

Wadhams had previously announced he would run, but he said that while he figured he had the votes to win, he had tired of dealing with people who “saw conspiracies around every corner.”

It seems that Wadhams’ decision simply came down to the frustration with a major wing of his party wanting “true” conservatives, yet still desiring to win a state that is still firmly purple and moderate.

Activist Republicans in the state want to have their cake and eat it too, and that simply isn’t possible against a very competitive Democratic Party. I can certainly understand Wadhams’ issue with party activists that want the most conservative candidates in the primary, but can’t understand why those same candidates are beaten in the general election.

That would be a frustrating attitude to deal with as a party chair. But, Wadhams’ stint as party chair didn’t start out with that much frustration. In fact, it started out with much more optimism.

When Wadhams came back to Colorado to head the Republican Party, I figured he was going to snap the party into shape and get the party back on track after losing the State House. Wadhams was extremely effective as a Campaign Manager here in Colorado in the late 1990’s and his national campaign with Sen. George Allen was derailed by the candidate, not his strategy.

Frankly, despite the Allen mishap, Wadhams was coming home with a strong and competitive reputation.

However, the big problem for Wadhams was that as a party chair, he didn’t have the kind of power to create change in the trenches of the campaign that he did as a Campaign Manager.

I like to think of it like this. Gen. George Patton was one of the most effective Generals to serve in the U.S. military. He demanded a high level of performance from his troops and did his best when he was right there in the battle with his soldiers.

But if you put Patton in, say, Eisenhower’s position in World War II, he would have floundered. Without direct authority over the instant movements in the war, Patton would have failed to have the same effectiveness. He wouldn’t have been any less brilliant, the environment would have hampered his style.

Wadhams is not unlike Patton, and as party chair, Wadhams was too far from the front lines and didn’t have the direct authority over the campaigns to make the instant changes that effective campaigns need to make.

In the end, I think we will see Wadhams back in Colorado politics fairly soon. 2012 might be too soon, only because there will not be a statewide race in Colorado.

However, in 2014, Sen. Mark Udall and Gov. John Hickenlooper will both be running for re-election. That sounds like the prime opportunity for Wadhams to take his rightful place as one of the GOP’s best field generals.

That also might be enough time for GOP party activists to decide if they want truly conservative candidates, or if they want to govern. We’ve already seen that doing both really isn’t an option.

About The Blogger

- Dominic Dezzutti, producer of the Colorado Decides debate series, a co-production of CBS4 and Colorado Public Television, looks at the local and national political scene in his CBSDenver.com blog. Read new entries here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Dezzutti writes about federal, state and local matters and how our elected leaders are handling the issues important to Colorado. Dezzutti also produces the Emmy winning Colorado Inside Out, hosted by Raj Chohan, on Colorado Public Television.