{"id":797882,"date":"2019-07-23T10:00:58","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T16:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=369059"},"modified":"2019-07-23T10:00:58","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T16:00:58","slug":"vice-president-mike-pences-aspen-visit-brings-out-supporters-protesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/vice-president-mike-pences-aspen-visit-brings-out-supporters-protesters\/","title":{"rendered":"Vice President Mike Pence\u2019s Aspen visit brings out supporters, protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Vice President Mike Pence arrives at Aspen\/Pitkin County airport on Monday.<\/strong>
Austin Colbert \/ Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Vice President Mike Pence hosted the well-heeled Monday afternoon at a private club fundraiser in downtown Aspen and is expected to leave Tuesday morning after meeting with a group of Republican governors in town for a meeting.<\/p>\n

Pence\u2019s Gulfstream V airplane landed at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport about 2 p.m. after he attended a fundraiser for Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in Windsor near Greeley.<\/p>\n

He greeted and talked with a group of about 30 supporters at the airport and waved to reporters from The Aspen Times and a Denver news station but did not take questions from the media.<\/p>\n

Anna Zane, chairwoman of Pitkin County Republicans, was within the group of supporters at the airport and said she appreciates that Aspen draws politicians from both parties.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Pence) was very gracious and he spoke to every one of us,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to have the vice president come to town. I don\u2019t know that we\u2019ll ever turn Pitkin County (blue), but we can change some minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roger Nicholson of Snowmass Village said he was \u201cthrilled\u201d to meet Pence and praised the vice president\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI admire him sticking to his faith and sticking to his principles, and I asked him to please stick with them,\u201d Nicholson said. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018That means so much to me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Pence\u2019s motorcade almost immediately left the airport, though he didn\u2019t arrive in downtown Aspen until about 3:15 p.m., when his motorcade came down Main Street, turned right onto Galena Street and parked in the alley behind the Caribou Club, located on Hopkins Avenue.<\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

The VIP reception at the club was not originally scheduled to start until 5 p.m., according to an invitation sent out last week. Well-dressed couples who paid $35,000 a pair to attend the reception<\/a> could be seen entering the club in the mid-afternoon.<\/p>\n

Bob Jenkins, Pitkin County Republicans vice chair, had said he expected a relatively small crowd of about 25 couples to attend the fundraiser, which will benefit both President Donald Trump\u2019s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee. Trump will receive $2,700 per person from each $35,000, while the RNC will receive the rest, Jenkins has said.<\/p>\n

A small group of mainly young women with a rainbow banner that read \u201cHypocrite\u201d on it protested Pence\u2019s appearance from in front of the Isis Theater across from the Caribou Club entrance. A lone man carried a sign that read: \u201cMike Pence Satan Thanks You\u201d on one side and \u201cMike Pence Hitler Thanks You\u201d on the other.<\/p>\n

By the time Pence left the club about 4:45 p.m., a group of pro-Trump fans had gathered across from the women with the rainbow banner, and shouted \u201cGo Trump\u201d as his motorcade passed on Mill Street. Pence\u2019s Suburban slowed down and he waved to the supporters on his way out of downtown.<\/p>\n

As a congressman, governor of Indiana and as vice president, Pence has repeatedly opposed efforts to legalize gay marriage and other measures meant to improve the lives of members of the gay community.<\/p>\n

The Caribou Club is owned by two gay men, one of whom did not return a phone message last week seeking comment about his decision to hold the event. Also, efforts to reach members of AspenOut, the group behind Aspen\u2019s Gay Ski Week in January, for comment on the event were not successful Monday.<\/p>\n

However, the issue appeared to be resonating within the larger, national gay community with online publications like Queerty, Out Magazine and LGBTQNation running articles on the subject. Newsweek, The Denver Post and talkingpointsmemo.com also published pieces emphasizing the gay issue.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group, issued a statement Monday about Pence\u2019s Aspen visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cVice President Pence has made a career out of demonizing LGBTQ people and undermining our rights,\u201d said Lucas Acosta, HRC\u2019s national press secretary. \u201cColoradans deserve to know more about Pence\u2019s opposition to basic hate crime protections and the Equality Act as well as his failure to combat HIV transmissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEquality voters will remember Gardner and Pence\u2019s horrific record on LGBTQ issues and will hold them accountable in 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time Pence visited Aspen \u2014 in December 2017 \u2014 neighbors of the home where he stayed in the Owl Creek area hung a rainbow banner on a shared driveway pillar<\/a>that read \u201cMake America Gay Again\u201d and planted numerous small rainbow flags in the space between the two homes.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Democratic Party also weighed in on Pence\u2019s appearance at the two Colorado fundraisers, which were both closed to the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear that the GOP knows how unpopular and vulnerable Donald Trump is, which is why they\u2019re sending Vice President Pence and other members of Team Trump for closed-door fundraisers for Sen. Cory Gardner and Republicans instead of a public event,\u201d according to a statement issued Monday. \u201c(Perhaps) these private fundraisers are a sign that they\u2019ve finally given up their desperate attempt to turn our state red.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo said Monday evening that he still hadn\u2019t been able to track down the name of the Caribou Club member who hosted the event and had made no headway in persuading that person or the Trump campaign to pay for his deputies\u2019 overtime providing security for Pence.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually by this time, we\u2019re aware of who\u2019s going to pay,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been trying for a week and I still can\u2019t get anyone to tell me who the Caribou Club host is. So far I\u2019ve been ghosted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m concerned we\u2019re gonna get stiffed.\u201d<\/p>\n

DiSalvo has said he will provide security for free if politicians meet with members of the general public. However, his department charges the hosts of political events to which the public is not invited, and campaigns generally pay up, he has said.<\/p>\n

He estimated that overtime costs for the numerous deputies who worked security Monday were between $10,000 and $20,000. If the Sheriff\u2019s Office is not reimbursed, Pitkin County will have to foot the bill for the private fundraiser security.<\/p>\n

Other agencies involved in the security besides the Secret Service and the Sheriff\u2019s Office were Aspen Police, Aspen Fire, Colorado State Patrol, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and the U.S. Forest Service.<\/p>\n

Pence is scheduled to participate Tuesday morning in a quarterly meeting of the Republican Governors Association, which is taking place in Aspen, according to vppublicschedules.com. He is set to leave Aspen at 9:30 a.m. and fly to Des Moines, Iowa.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a> 
Aspen Times journalists David Krause and Austin Colbert contributed reporting to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vice President Mike Pence arrives at Aspen\/Pitkin County airport on Monday.Austin Colbert \/ Aspen Times Vice President Mike Pence hosted the well-heeled Monday afternoon at a private club fundraiser in downtown Aspen and is expected to leave Tuesday morning after meeting with a group of Republican governors in town for a meeting. Pence\u2019s Gulfstream V […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 07:41:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}