July 14, 2010 11:49 PM UTC

Who Would Replace McInnis as the GOP Candidate for Governor?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Scott McInnis campaign completes its total destruction, politicos from both sides of the aisle are buzzing that the GOP’s only hope at winning the Governor’s race is if they can find a replacement candidate after the primary.

This assumes that McInnis can still defeat Dan Maes on August 10, since Maes most certainly would not withdraw from the race if he wins the nomination, but the scenario being discussed is that McInnis would limp to a primary win, and then withdraw from the race so that Republicans could appoint someone else as their candidate (of course, this also assumes that McInnis would pull out of the race). But if this all happens, who would the Republicans put forward as their candidate?

One of the obvious names thrown out is that of Josh Penry, the former Senate Minority Leader and now the Campaign Manager for Jane Norton’s Senate bid. But if Norton loses the Senate nomination to Ken Buck, which appears likely, would Buck — and the GOP base — really embrace Penry as their top-ticket candidate? We doubt it.

So who would you put forward to replace McInnis on the GOP ballot, should this scenario take place? It would need to be someone with decent name ID already, since there wouldn’t be much time to raise their profile before mail ballots drop in early October. It would also need to be someone who would be willing to jump into a race as a clear underdog.

Remember, it’s not necessarily important that the Republican candidate actually be able to beat Democrat John Hickenlooper in November; at this point, the main concern would be finding someone who could at least put up a good fight so that the effect of a potential Hickenlooper landslide doesn’t cripple every GOP candidate down the ballot.