Whatever your stand on the health-care legislation at the center of this article, this open revolt by libertarian members against local and state Republican parties should be applauded and encouraged; [caption id="attachment_1203" align="aligncenter" width="142" caption="Not your average Republican power broker"]
Sarah Anderson is peculiar. For one thing, she's a Republican. At 22, that makes her a statistical anomaly, even in El Paso County.
She spent her formative years reading a series of books that explain the free-market theory to teens. She will gleefully argue the superiority of the market-based Austrian School economic model of F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises over the Keynesian mixed-economy version. On her Facebook page, she describes her political views as "a beautiful blend of Anarcho-Capitalism and Minarchism."
Another thing: Anderson is a born campaigner. Home-schooled, with college on hold, she says she's worked on more than 60 campaigns over the past seven years. She started at age 9, after pleading with her mother, by volunteering at county headquarters while Bill Owens was running for governor. Six years later, she went door-to-door for Douglas Bruce, then a party hero who wanted a seat on the county commission. From 2004 to 2007, she worked at the state Capitol for legislators including Sen. Kent Lambert of Colorado Springs.
This past February, at the meeting of the county GOP's central committee, she was elected party secretary in a decisive victory over party stalwart Holly Williams, wife of County Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams. Anderson says her speech — referencing work done for Lambert, former state Sen. Dave Schultheis, U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck and plenty more — clinched it.
"Let's not just say we want youth in the party," she told the crowd. "Let's put experienced youth in leadership."
Feisty, ambitious, intelligent and pretty, Anderson's exactly the kind of person that the aging GOP is eager to draw into the fold. Except that, as she happily offers, "My beliefs aren't popular with the majority of the powerholders of the Republican Party."