Ryan Frazier’s bid for Aurora mayor eschews party labels
If you favor a Republican, and if you like the tried-and-true, there's
The Democratic counterweight is
And then there's
We met for lunch at his favorite restaurant,
Frazier dropped out of the
He finished fifth in the
Coffman has an odd predicament. He refused to swear allegiance to President
A political action committee supporting Coffman is one of those that accepted alleged foreign money from Soviet-born associates of the president's lawyer and political ally
"That's his challenge out there knocking on doors," Frazier said. "I'm talking about a vision for the city. My campaign is about
Timing, resources, bad advice and rookie mistakes tripped up his early runs for higher office, Frazier explained over beans and rice.
This time, it might be a question of whether the electorate is polarized to their parties, even for a city race that's supposed to be nonpartisan.
Frazier became a Republican more than 20 years ago. He identified with the party that fought for the abolition of slavery, fought to pass the Civil Rights Act and fought for women's suffrage.
"I really believed in the principles of limited government, but not necessarily no government, but I believed it gave us more freedom," he said. "I believed in fiscal responsibility. I believed in protecting the rights of all people."
It was never easy being a young, black Republican, Frazier said.
"I took a lot of crap from people who looked at me and said, 'What are you thinking?'" he said.
Frazier said the conservative path he was on aligned with his values, until they diverged. He became more independent in his political thinking starting about eight years ago. He went on to leave the party.
"I'm not going to be someone I'm not," he said, putting down his fork.
He wasn't a Democrat, though, and, moreover, he was tired of the partisan mud fights.
"My goodness, if you're a Democrat or a Republican, the other side automatically says you're dumb or you're bad for the country, you have evil intentions," Frazier said. "I decided, 'You know what? Maybe, just maybe, people have different experiences that give them different opinions, but we're all Americans and we all love our country. Maybe if we could all just be civil and have respect for that and for one another, we could have conversations about different viewpoints and really find common ground.'
"I think we have to restore civility. It's the linchpin of our republic and our success."
"
"But it also brings a lot of challenges on how do you bring such a diverse constituency together. I would argue that 60% of the city is just left or just right of center, and it's those folks who hold the keys to our elections and which direction we go in."
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