Freemen Mediator Often Controversial
State Sen. Charles Duke is getting a lot of attention for mediating the freemen standoff in Montana and, as Duke has in Colorado, his time in the spotlight likely will stir controversy.
The Republican from Monument, a foothills community north of Colorado Springs, has come to be seen as a leader of the “patriot” movement to limit the power of the federal government. What remains to be seen is how his Montana trip will play with another group with whom he is associated - the Republican Party.
Duke is seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.
“I was astounded,” said Bob Gardner, chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, of his role in the freemen standoff.
“He doesn’t work well with his colleagues in the General Assembly. His record of public remarks is one of intemperance,” Gardner said. “One must ask what sort of a … decision is the Department of Justice making … giving limelight to an individual who is encouraging this movement.”
Republicans may be irked by Duke’s behavior, but Democrats are not.
“When you’re all of a sudden selected by the freemen to be their negotiator, it says something about you,” said Mike Beatty, the chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party.
“It says that the Republicans are going the same path the Democrats were going in the late ‘60s … that they’re leaving the center. And when they leave the center they lose elections.”
Duke, 54, is an unlikely lightning rod. A soft-spoken, bespectacled man, he has said logic is his guide.
Born in Nashville, Ark., Duke earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Arkansas. He worked as an electrical engineer for Hewlett Packard and was a small business owner, but now is an instructor at Colorado Technical College in Colorado Springs. He is a member of Mensa and director of the American Constitutional Law Foundation.
Duke’s trip to Montana is another step along a rather amazing political road. A political novice back in 1988, he ran against an incumbent Republican in a primary, and won a seat in the Colorado House.
Duke campaigned with copies of the Colorado and U.S. constitutions and told voters he would go “to hell and back to defend the Constitution.”
Since then, Duke has taken some controversial stands. In the House, he was alone in voting against a resolution commemorating Holocaust victims. Duke claimed he simply did not like the wording of the resolution, in particular the part that counted homosexuals among the victims. He also told a gun rights group he believed the federal government “is capable” of carrying out the Oklahoma City bombing.
Yet, Duke clearly has his supporters - as he pointed out after his comments on the Oklahoma City bombing. “They’re telling me to just have the courage to stick to my guns - figuratively, of course.”