Ben Carson, Gov. Mary Fallin rally GOP base in Aurora’s Del Mar neighborhood
. @RealBenCarson takes the stage to standing ovation. #copoliticspic.twitter.com/EyQTMPVvul
— Quincy Snowdon (@QuincySnowdon) November 5, 2016
AURORA | A crowd of about 200 people gathered at the Aurora Center for Active Adults Friday night to hear comments from former Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and other local politicians running on the GOP ticket.
Standing before a sea of red “Make America Great Again” yard signs, the speakers rallied support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and railed against his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, bringing up familiar, party-line issues, including healthcare, national security and Clinton’s ongoing email scandal.
Carson, who spoke after Fallin, repeatedly appealed to attendees’ patriotism and spoke relatively little of Trump’s candidacy.
“This election is not about Democrats and Republicans,” Carson said at the event. “This election is about the political elite class and their media minions and ‘we the people.’ And ‘we the people’ are going to win.”
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, and Fallin, a former U.S. congresswoman who has served as the Governor of Oklahoma for the past five years, spoke in both Colorado Springs and Castle Rock earlier in the day.
Fallin bashed President Obama’s signature healthcare legislation and repeatedly lambasted Clinton’s credibility.
“That’s what is so critical this year, is having someone that we can trust with integrity,” she said. “And by the way ladies, it’s the wrong woman for the job.
“Do you want someone running the country — that’s under FBI investigation, that’s had all kinds of problems — worried about terrorism after next Tuesday? I don’t.”
Carson touched on several historical events in his remarks, including the War of 1812, and invoked the current stalemate on the bench of the Supreme Court.
“For 50 or 60 years now the secular progressives have been attempting to fundamentally change America,” he said. “They’ve almost completed the fundamental transformation of America.
“All they need is one more four-year term of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. It would be the same thing, because that will give them the opportunity to appoint two of the four Supreme Court justices and stack the federal court system. After that, it doesn’t matter who the president is for generations to come.”
Attendees of the event came from across the metro area. Robert Killion, a 23-year-old graduate student at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, said he made the trek to partake in the political discourse one last time before Election Day.
Killion said that while Trump isn’t ideal, he believes in the candidate’s message.
“I really believe in what Trump can do,” Killion said. “I think, obviously, he’s not a perfect candidate in any way, but I think he has a chance to, like he was saying, ‘drain the swamp.’”
That final reference invokes a phrase both Trump and his Vice Presidential Candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike pence, have been trumpeting in recent days.
Several other local politicos appeared at the Friday event, including Colorado Republican Chairman Steve House, former state Rep. Kathleen Conti (R-Littleton) — who is now vying to become the Arapahoe County Commissioner in District 1 — and Casper Stockham, the Republican candidate running against incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana Degette in the state’s 1st Congressional District.
There were no protestors at the event.