Yup, Boulder is one of those ultrarich, ultra-White, and ultra-liberal communities, and they aims to keep it that way (in every way -- especially the racial part. Rich White liberals are THE most racist group of people you'll ever meet -- if not necessarily in what they "support", but in how they act).
According to other sources, John Ramsey had moved around a bit, from Colorado, to Georgia, to Michigan. When he announced he was running for office as a Republican, a collective "WTF ?!?" came out of almost everyone's mouths. For all we know, he might've tried to do it just to embarrass and damage the party (imagine if he had been indicted for the murder -- as a sitting Republican legislator !). It was, after all, when Roy Romer finally left the Governor's office that the new Republican Governor (in 1999), Bill Owens (before he went RINO) held a press conference publicly blasting the Ramseys (though stopping short of saying straight out what many folks believed -- they were guilty as hell, but the inferrence was there).
Like you said, it just gets stranger and stranger. We just have to trust in the Lord that He will be just in rendering final judgment on the guilty parties. Only He knows where Patsy Ramsey is right now. At least we know which direction the poor, innocent JonBenet went...
John Ramsey was always a Republican. It was his attorney, Hal Haddon, that was the connected-up Dem in CO.