We, along with the Denver Post and various other amused parties, have talked quite a bit about GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton's call to 'abolish' the federal Department of Education. The Post's examination of the issue last December found that Norton was pretty distantly behind the times with this Reagan-era canned prescription for "reform," and it's not a talking point we expect to see repeated much once her Tea Party-centric primary is over.
Somebody really ought to get that message to gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis though, and check in on what McInnis is actually talking about--state versus federal departments for one thing, since there's a difference. Here he is speaking extemporaneously at a Tea Party/912 Movement candidate forum last month:
A transcript, in case you found it tough to hear:
Katie Kafer: Are there any Colorado agencies, boards or commissions you would eliminate and why?
Scott McInnis: You could look at the Department of Education. You could also merge the Division or Wildlife, perhaps with -- not Wildlife -- but the Department of Agriculture with the Department of Natural Resources and some other mergers.
So, it's one thing to talk idly about eliminating the federal Department of Education, with its arguably more remote and indirect role. It's quite another thing to talk about eliminating the state Department of Education, which is much more directly involved with the day-to-day administration of Colorado schools, teacher accreditation, standards and testing, and other core functions. Suggesting we eliminate the state Department of Ed is...well, it's totally ridiculous and unworkable, and crazier by several orders of magnitude than what Norton was lampooned for suggesting.
We'll say it again: this is not some cutesy budget cutting gimmick; this is like suggesting that we eliminate the Colorado Department of Transportation, which as we all (should) know, would mean that roads would not be fixed, maintained or plowed. It's completely unserious on its face.
In fact, it's far enough over the top that it makes us wonder if he didn't understand the question--but the moderator clearly did refer to "Colorado agencies," and the other government departments McInnis mentioned are definitely state-based. Therefore, we have no choice but to conclude that eliminating the Colorado Department of Education really is what he said he would do as Governor.
We have no doubt that sweeping statements about 'eliminating' evil government departments at every level go over well at a Tea Party campaign forum, after all the percentage of homeschoolers in that room almost certainly was well above mean--but this feels a lot like one of those moments they looked back on with Bob Beauprez after his seventeen-point loss in 2006, and began to realize when it was that voters stopped taking him seriously.
Interesting news from former Rocky Mountain News reporter Kevin Flynn's Inside Lane blog:
But McInnis' missed opportunity came when, after criticizing fee increases and the growing technology that would enable mileage-based road fees to replace the gas tax, he was asked what his ideas were for fixing the funding crisis.
He said he had no specifics, because "I'm not a transportation expert," and instead asked the questioner what proposals he would have...
...The two candidates were on the same page on one issue, however - three ballot measures this November that would slash government and school revenues and limit the ability to borrow for projects should be defeated.
Proposition 101 and Amendments 60 and 61 "don't add up," McInnis said. He understands voter frustration with the cost of government, he said, "but as a leader I gotta say do the math. It doesn't add up on these amendments. These are not good amendments."
Hickenlooper also said he opposes the trio of measures.
"All three of those ultimately will result in us being unable to build anything," Hickenlooper said. "From your point of view, it would be impossible for government to build anything. You're condemning us to be a second tier country."
Kudos to McInnis for opposing the three ballot measures that would virtually destroy Colorado's budget, and our ability to really do anything at all. McInnis' statement won't go over well with Tea Party folks, but perhaps he finally realized that it wouldn't be much fun to be Governor in a state that was dead broke should these measures pass.
The regular nationwide "Governor's Line" from Washington Post blog "The Fix" is out today, and the big news is no news: Colorado is no longer listed as one of the 15 states where the Governor's mansion is most likely to switch parties.
Why the change? Well, as we have written before, there are a couple of reasons:
Sorry to our Western Slope pals, but we had to comment on this bit of nonsense from something called The Snowmass Sun, titled "Can Hick Win the Western Slope?"
When Colorado Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak came to Glenwood Springs last week, she came bearing a message from John Hickenlooper: "Tell everyone in Glenwood Springs hi and sorry I can't be there."
That's nice, but it's not enough. If Hickenlooper is going to win Colorado, he has to win places like this, and that means he's going to have to show up.
Waak knows that. Hickenlooper does, too. He may be wildly popular in Denver, and pretty darn popular outside of Denver, too, but to win as governor of Colorado he has to win the whole state, and that means winning the Western Slope.
His likely Republican foe, Scott McInnis, is an old hat on the Western Slope, and he mastered the art of winning it. As a congressman, he was an unbeatable force. Democrats rarely pitted anyone against him, and when they did, they lost.
McInnis has often argued that winning any state election comes down to winning the Western Slope, and there's some logic to that. Figure liberal Boulder and conservative Denver counter each other out. The conservative 'burbs counter liberal Denver. That mostly leaves the Western Slope to battle it out for the winner.
That's why this part of the state has become a big battleground, especially in recent elections. [Pols emphasis]
The Western Slope is a "big battleground?"
Um, yeah.
We've said it again and again here on Colorado Pols: Population shifts over the last 10 years have completely changed the electorate in Colorado. When Colorado had fewer residents, the electorate was more spread out across the state. But today, well more than 80% of Colorado voters live along the Front Range between Ft. Collins and Pueblo. We have no doubt that both John HickenlooperandScott McInnis know this, even if the Snowmass whatever does not.
Both candidates will come to the Western Slope and will campaign there, but the numbers just don't lie. The first major example of the population shift in Colorado and its effect on elections came in the 2004 Senate race, when Democrat Ken Salazar beat Republican Pete Coorsbecause of Denver voters. In Denver alone, Salazar outpolled Coors by more than 100,000 votes (169,580 to 60,387). That same year, a total of 62,341 people cast a ballot in all of Mesa County, which includes Grand Junction, the largest city on the Western Slope. In other words, Salazar got more than twice as many votes in Denver as there are voters in all of Mesa County, the most populous county on the Western Slope.
Those numbers have only increased in the years since. In 2008, Barack Obama beat John McCain in Denver by a 204,882 to 62,567 margin (a difference of 142,315 votes). In Mesa County, Obama lost to McCain 44,578 to 24,008 (a 20,570 vote margin). McCain would have needed to win Mesa County six more times just to erase the advantage Obama gained in Denver alone.
So will Hickenlooper or McInnis win the Western Slope? It doesn't matter, because if they don't win along the Front Range, and in the Denver Metro area specifically, then what they do on the Western Slope is irrelevant.
When Scott McInnis appeared on Fox News last month underneath a title calling him the "Tea-Party-backed candidate" for governor, he triggered a tempest. Tea Party leaders fired off angry e-mail messages and public statements insisting that he was not their choice.
"Let it be known that we will not be used by any party or candidate!" Lu Ann Busse, the head of a coalition of Tea Party brethren known as 9/12 groups, declared at a "Defend the Republic" rally where she was invited to set the record straight after Mr. McInnis's appearance.
Mr. McInnis said it was Fox that gave him the description without consulting him. But he was quick to try to make amends, issuing a statement on his Web site, and in the weeks since he and the head of the state Republican Party have toured Colorado meeting with Tea Party groups.
Across the country, many Tea Party activists believe that they have to work within the Republican Party if they want to elect fiscally conservative candidates. But they want the party to work for them - not, they argue, the other way around.
For Republican officials, managing the tensions between the two parties - one official, one potent - can be something like a full-time job.
"I do spend a lot of my time running interference," said Dick Wadhams, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.
"I'm a big believer in the Tea Party groups," he said. "I'm not going to claim that every Tea Party or 9/12 leader thinks I'm hunky-dory, but I do think the people who I've reached out to would acknowledge that I've welcomed them into the Republican Party. It's a big priority of mine."
Some Republican Party officials say privately that they are not yet certain whether the Tea Parties will prove to be a real force or simply the loudest voices. But the Tea Parties have proven their populist rage can be a power, whether to destroy Republicans - driving one out of a special Congressional election in upstate New York - or elect them in the most surprising of places, like Massachusetts.
So publicly, Republicans are trying to make nice with Tea Party groups, particularly in states like California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky and New Hampshire, where Tea Partiers are upending Republican unity with primary challenges to establishment candidates.
(Bumped into Thursday for self-evident reasons - promoted by Colorado Pols)
After a wild 24 hours that saw more than 500 comments from Polsters in two separate posts, its time to take a look at the questions and answers from one of the more surprising political announcements in recent Colorado history.
Here's what we know, what we've heard, and all of the questions both answered and unanswered surrounding Gov. Bill Ritter's announcement today that he will not run for re-election in 2010.
The political blog "The Fix" recently named Republican Bob McDonnell's campaign for Governor in Virginia as its "Campaign of the Year." As you'll see in a moment, the award says a lot about the problems ahead for Scott McInnis:
...from the start of the race, McDonnell had the message exactly right: jobs, jobs and more jobs. Everywhere he went, McDonnell talked about not only his commitment to create more jobs in the state but his plan on how to make it happen. His slogan -- "Bob's for jobs" -- was a little cheesy but it undoubtedly stuck in the minds of voters whose number one priority was the health of the economy and the need to bring more jobs to the Commonwealth...
...McDonnell, learning from the mistakes of past GOP nominees Mark Earley (2001) and Jerry Kilgore (2005), almost never talked about his social conservative beliefs -- understanding, rightly, that it would alienate a critical segment of votes in northern Virginia and that even among his base of support there was as much interest in solving the economic crisis. [Pols emphasis]...
...In winning so overwhelmingly -- 59 percent to 41 percent -- McDonnell helped revive the Republican party nationally but also provided aspiring GOP candidates with a campaign plan for how to win (and win big) in a swing state.
Virginia has some political similarities to Colorado in that both have relatively moderate electorates that had recently trended toward Democrats in races for U.S. Senate and Governor. McDonnell understood from the beginning that he needed to stick to an economy/jobs theme and avoid divisive social issues, particularly since he had a weird history of strange proclamations in his past.
Here in Colorado, McInnis may understand that he should avoid social issues, but he also might not have a choice given that the State GOP has clearly decided that Tea Party activists are going to be vitally important in 2010. In order to placate the Teabaggers, McInnis must pander to their interests, including taking public positions on things aside from divisive social issues. As we've pointed out before, opposing things like FASTER and the destructive "Dr. Evil ballot initiatives" may make the Tea Party people happy, but it doesn't endear him to traditional GOP supporters like private construction contractors who depend on government projects to stay afloat.
McDonnell may have provided a great blueprint for McInnis to follow in his own gubernatorial campaign, but that doesn't mean he can follow the instructions. It could be a mighty frustrating 11 months for McInnis of doing exactly what he knows he shouldn't do.
(Apparently they didn't get the message that the GOP/McInnis platform is meant for them. - promoted by Colorado Pols)
POLS UPDATE #3: Be there or be square--Tea Party, uh, party against McInnis coming soon. Details after the jump.
POLS UPDATE #2:Michelle Malkin is most displeased.
POLS UPDATE: Here's the clip, forwarded to us--chutzpah like only Fox News can deliver.
Original post follows.
--
Northern Colorado's two largest Tea Party groups have laid into presumptive Republican gubernatorial nominee Scott McInnis over what they see as his false claims of Tea Party support.
What really got the Tea Party folks riled up was McInnis appearance on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox News Wednesday. As McInnis was introduced, an on-screen graphic read, ""Tea Party Backed Candidate Leading in CO Governor's Race."
As anyone who's spent more than a couple of minutes watching Colorado politics knows, the idea that McInnis has the backing of Tea Party activists is ludicrous. Cavuto comes across as pretty ignorant about Colorado politics, I thought.
Representatives of the Tea Party of Northern Colorado and the Loveland 9-12 Project were incensed at the suggestion that their movement was backing McInnis. Leaders of both groups blasted out e-mails to their membership following the Cavuto appearance.
"We are being played like pawns. And we can't put up with it," said Lesley Hollywood of the Tea Party of Northern Colorado.
From Sunday's Denver Post interview with Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, there's so many softballs for us to swing at that we don't know where to start:
Politicians dream of the kind of press that gubernatorial candidate Josh Penrygarnered in recent months.
Fox News reported Penry was ready to lead a national comeback of the Republican Party. The Washington Post surmised that the young state Senate minority leader might be the best hope to lay the new foundation for the GOP.
Then Penry dropped out, paving the way for his one-time boss, former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, to easily capture the GOP nomination...
A: He does. No question in my mind. Scott in these last two weeks has shown an openness and a genuine humility. Anyone at these meetings can tell you that.
The left-wing blogs and objective observers are saying the Republicans' chances of taking back the governorship and regaining other ground we lost just increased by orders of magnitude.
Q: Orders of magnitude? O-r-d-e-r-s? What does that mean?
A: (Laughing) Say it increased by a lot.
Q: Those same left-wing bloggers keep reporting you were pushed out. There's talk that some high-roller donor backing McInnis approached you or your people and threatened to spend a fortune attacking you.
A: Those bloggers are also sitting in their underwear in their grandmothers' basements. They're making stuff up out of thin air.
I wasn't pushed out. No one approached me. I made a shrewd decision based on the realities around me.
Scott has some significant advantages that I recognize, financial and otherwise. He was in Congress for 12 years. He has a bunch of third-party money backing him. The Republican Party historically nominates people who have been down this road before. The insurgent newcomer rarely wins it. I'm not whining about it, but it's a reality.
Enough of the spin and posturing. We're not saying anything that isn't completely obvious: Josh Penry is not running for Governor because he was the weaker candidate and was pushed out by a much stronger candidate. The idea that Penry just decided not to run because he is the "bigger man" is horseshit. Penry's polling numbers were in the toilet, and he could only raise money from a small base located on the Western Slope. Democrats wanted Penry to be the GOP nominee for Governor because everybody knew that he was the weaker candidate.
Bottom line: If Penry really thought he could beat Scott McInnis, he would still be in the race. Period. Does anybody really think for a minute that Penry just got out of the race out of the kindness of his heart? He's spinning as fast as he can here, and we understand the effort -- but reality, uh, bites.
Penry actually looks pretty sad in this interview, claiming over and over that he is the bigger man for bowing out of the race.
At some point somebody's got to be the adult and say, "I'm going to step back and do what's right for the cause." Ironically, it was the 33-year-old who made the decision.
Here's a tip: If you have to tell everyone that you are the coolest guy in the room, then you're not the coolest guy in the room. The more you try to spin your exit as though you did it because you are a leader, the more people see right through it. Penry would have been much better off sticking with "it wasn't the right time for me, etc." than this sour grapes silliness.
And as for the whole "bloggers sitting in their underwear in the basement" thing...really? That line is sooooo lame. Penry's campaign blogged. Mainstream reporters blog. Everyone blogs. And it's "sitting in their mother's basements," not their "grandmother's." If you're going to spew cliches, at least get it right. (Not to mention the "527 that was set to go after Penry" was reported by MSNBC and the Denver Post before any 'bloggers in their underwear' said anything. Don't get us wrong, we're not offended, but that's just incredibly stupid on several levels.)
Q: Speaking of retro, here we are talking about McInnis, Tancredo, Owens and Wadhams. It feels a little like 1998 here.
We noted yesterday that while the Republican "Contract for Colorado" "Platform for Prosperity" might be a good political move to get voters to believe that the GOP actually has a plan, the meat of the "Platform" was a little weak.
We aren't the only ones asking just how GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis plans to fix Colorado's budget crisis with mystical new cuts and no plan for bringing in new revenue. Even conservative Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll is having a hard time with McInnis' vague answers:
If McInnis wants to establish a new level of seriousness in political campaigns, however, he's got to do more than rail against the current administration's tax hikes and regulatory excesses, and disdain for voter-approved amendments. He ought to explain how he'd balance the budget and make needed investments, too. After all, even the most pro-jobs governor can't wave a wand and repeal the business cycle.
If he intends to roll back auto-registration fees, for example, how would he repair Colorado's decrepit bridges, or get a handle on the backlog of road maintenance? How would he invest in infrastructure without going to voters with fees, taxes or tolls? [Pols emphasis]
"I can't drive the machine until I get the keys to the machine . . . ," McInnis told me Tuesday. "We won't even know what we're facing until after the legislative session. . . . What we can talk about are basic premises."
I received essentially the same dodge when I asked him about support for higher education, which could plummet when federal stimulus funds expire.
Not only is McInnis determined to spare taxpayers when balancing the budget and shoring up highway or higher-ed spending, he even opposes an extension of Referendum C's timeout on TABOR refunds - a position that could come back to haunt him if the economy heats up.
McInnis talks as if he will identify major waste or inefficiencies once he dives into the budget and reviews property leases, credit card use, management of state lands and buildings, and so forth. This is unlikely, to say the least. When pressed, he volunteers that more dramatic reform is inevitable. "We are going to have to do with less," he says. "We are going to have to make very hard decisions between what we want and what we need. . . . We are going to have to downsize."
Yes, we are - absent new sources of revenue or a visit from a very wealthy leprechaun. And at some point next summer or fall, McInnis should be expected to tell us how. [Pols emphasis]
We've seen a noticeable change from the media in recent months in regards to how they cover politicians and their talking points about the budget. Reporters and columnists are no longer letting them get away with broad generalities about how "we need to just cut more" without saying exactly what we could cut that hasn't already been decimated. Politicians are no longer getting away with boldly claiming "no new taxes" when the stark reality is that Colorado needs some kind of new revenue, and soon.
So kudos to those reporters and other media folks who are keeping a closer eye on the reality of our state's troubled budget and ignoring empty statements. Telling the public that we can just cut our way out of the problem and won't need new revenue isn't just disingenuous -- it's downright dangerous. Whoever ends up as Governor in 2011 is going to have a lot of work to do, and they are going to need the support of the general public to turn the budget around.
UPDATE: More editorial boards weigh in after the jump.
Rumor has it that Tom Tancredo has decided against running for Governor--not that we ever really thought he would, no matter what he said--and will formally endorse Scott McInnis on Monday in a press conference that will include Josh Penry.
For all Tancredo's boasting and blustering, running for Governor is a serious commitment--in both time and money spent--not really something Tancredo is up to after retiring from a congressional seat that required no effort on his part to maintain. There's also been an exceeding amount of "pressure" put on him to not run by Republicans who know they can't afford a primary with a moderate McInnis if they hope to knock off the moderate Gov. Bill Ritter next November.
That all said, we can't help but wonder what the real purpose of this "threat" of a Tancredo candidacy was, and the "concessions" supposedly demanded of McInnis by Tancredo and Penry. There's something about the timing of all these related op-ed columns and news articles that stinks of contrivance--of theater to appease angry conservatives.
UPDATE #2: No Penry run for Rep. John Salazar's CD-3 seat or Lt. Gov., says MSNBC (pretty much what we said at the bottom of the post a little earlier):
A campaign source says that up-and-comer Josh Penry decided against a CO-GOV primary challenge against Scott McInnis, his former boss when McInnis was in Congress, because he was scared off, in part, by a 527 that was ramping up for McInnis that was set to go after Penry. [Pols emphasis] He is sitting out the 2010 cycle and is NOT running for CO-3 despite the rumors...
The source added that Penry's Name ID, they were seeing, was only about 15% to 20% statewide, and Penry felt that a 527 and a nasty political fight could have ruined or significantly damaged his reputation and hurt his political capital with Republicans. This path helps Penry, who's only 33, build up political capital, the source said.
UPDATE:Denver Post puts uncertainty to bed, though Penry himself has yet to make a statement:
Two sources who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on Penry's behalf confirmed for The Denver Post that Penry intends to leave the race.
One source said an announcement was imminent and that Penry met with McInnis Monday morning to inform him of the decision. Penry explained he was leaving the race for "personal reasons," the source said.
Penry has not returned phone calls seeking comment...
Colorado state Sen. Josh Penry (R) plans to end his gubernatorial campaign and endorse former Rep. Scott McInnis (R), according to two sources familiar with his thinking.
Penry's decision to opt out of the race is a stunner as many national Republicans had touted him as a potential rising star (and we had featured him in our "Rising" series that looks at up and coming politicians).
Chatter in the immediate aftermath of Penry's decision suggested he may well be considering a run against 3rd district Rep. John Salazar (D) who won the Western Slope seat when McInnis retired in 2004. Salazar's seat is one of 49 held by Democrats that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) carried in 2008. (McCain won it 50 percent to 48 percent for President Barack Obama.)
McInnis, who spent six terms in Congress, now has a clear shot at Gov. Bill Ritter (D) next fall. Democrats have expressed serious concern about Ritter's electoral prospects and his poll numbers have lagged badly since he was elected in a landslide in 2006.
Obviously this would be a major move, but it would make a lot of sense. For all the "rising star" accolades, Penry is clearly not yet ready for a race like this, and badly losing a primary is a quick way to end both the "rising" and the "star." A Penry loss also knocks him out of the State Senate and his Minority Leader status, leaving him in a tough spot to make a jump to higher office at a later date.
If this is true, it makes much more sense for Penry to run for re-election to the Senate and then re-assess his future later. Leaving this race to take on Rep. John Salazar and his million-dollar warchest would be silly and completely counterproductive. You don't leave a tough race that you might lose in order to run in another tough race that you might lose (especially when there is no way to transfer the money you raised for Governor to a Federal campaign).
As for McInnis, internal polling numbers and fundraising reports obviously show that he is in a great position. This is what we said when McInnis announced he wouldn't debate Penry -- clearly McInnis knew he was in the catbird's seat.
The timing of Penry's announcement does put McInnis in an interesting predicament where Gov. Bill Ritter is concerned. McInnis was in a great position where he was -- raising money and not having to stake out positions on tough issues -- but now he can't avoid the spotlight as the presumptive GOP nominee (sorry, Dan Maes). Whether McInnis is really ready for that is another question.
And finally, this is the worst-case scenario for Ritter. Both polling and common sense (McInnis is much more moderate than Penry) showed that Penry was the better general election opponent for Ritter; but even if McInnis had won the primary outright, at least he would have had to spend the next nine months in a slugfest. Now McInnis can save all of his powder for the general election.
As always, please vote based on what you think will happen, not on who you would vote for or which candidate you support personally. Think of it this way: If you had to bet the deed to your house, who would you pick?
The point of these monthly polls is to attempt to see how the perceptions of each campaign are changing. Once the voting is done, we'll show you how this month's results compare with last month.
GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis told the Associated Press this afternoon that he has no plans to debate fellow Republicans Josh Penry and Dan Maes. This, of course, means that staffers/supporters of his opponents will start descending upon McInnis events wearing chicken suits and holding signs that call him "Chicken McNugget" or "McChicken," or some such...
Apparently, 'it would just give the Democrats ammunition.' From the AP report cited:
GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis on Monday refused to share the stage with his chief party rival and said he had no plans to debate him before next year's primary...
"We don't see any use in debates for Republicans in a family discussion taking shots at each other," McInnis said. "This is an in-the-family situation, and we want to talk about the issues and not give the Democrats the bylines for their commercials."
...Until Monday, Penry held out hope for at least one debate.
"If you can't stand in front of a friendly crowd of businessmen, what are you going to do when the bullets are flying and the stakes are highest? It's silly," Penry said.
Despite what you might think at first glance, this is actually very bad news for Penry, because it shows that McInnis is confident enough in his own internal polling and campaign operation that he doesn't view Penry as a legitimate threat anymore. Penry may not be able to keep up with McInnis in fundraising (he came in third behind McInnis and Gov. Bill Ritter in the Q3 fundraising period), and he's been flailing away with talking points that consistently contradict each other.
Candidates ignore opponents when they don't feel like they have anything to gain by engaging them (in 2004 Ken Salazar rightly refused to debate Mike Miles because there was no upside for Salazar in doing so), and it sets the tone that McInnis is the frontrunner. Even if McInnis isn't completely confident that he is well ahead of Penry at this point, this is a smart political move to set the tone and put Penry on the defensive in the position of "also-ran" (note how McInnis lumps Penry in with Dan Maes, the latter, of course, being completely irrelevent).
Penry needs to respond to this, and fast, before the narrative becomes permanent.
Conventional wisdom (which we never subscribed to) held that GOP gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry would post a substantially higher Q3 fundraising total than opponent Scott McInnis. Though we acknowledge the polls that show McInnis in the (very) early lead, we perceived momentum very clearly building for Penry over the last few months at McInnis' expense.
As of yesterday, that conventional wisdom is in need of alteration--and with it a number of other assumptions about McInnis' viability in this race. Things that previously looked disastrous for McInnis are being reassessed, as the Denver Post reports:
Gubernatorial contender Scott McInnis RSVP'd that he would attend a candidate forum later this month but only after organizers agreed there would be no debate with his primary rival, Josh Penry.
McInnis' campaign also asked that the candidates not be on the stage at the same time.
The requests, coupled with McInnis' decision to skip a straw poll last month when the Colorado Republican Party held its fall meeting, puzzled a number of GOP members, most of all Penry.
McInnis' campaign said the focus needs to be on booting Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter in 2010 instead of on debates that could lead to intraparty squabbles...
Penry and Maes have attended more forums than McInnis, which two Denver political consultants said is understandable.
"It's probably the first good management move I've seen by the McInnis people," said Democratic consultant Steve Welchert. "He has the name ID, and he doesn't have to play these games."
Consultant Eric Sondermann, who is unaffiliated, said the candidates are practicing "predictable politics."
"McInnis is playing the role you would expect of the top dog, and Penry is playing the role of the insurgent underdog," Sondermann said. "I think the risk for McInnis is . . . he can't let it become part of his image that he won't take on his challenger."
After McInnis' very good quarter, he obviously thinks the last few months of debate evasion and on-air gaffes won't hurt him in the long run. He's the frontrunner now for the GOP nomination, a position that allows him to be "selective" in his public appearances. Given how those appearances have gone so far, we don't blame him for wanting that to be true.
But Penry isn't going to just fold. By now it's evident that Penry is the preference of the Republican base, and Penry's supporters have shown no compunction about viciously attacking McInnis at every oppportunity. That's going to intensify in the coming weeks, while Penry's campaign scrutinizes "McLobbyist's" huge take for embarrassments--attempting to turn McInnis' re-proven ability to raise coin against him.
Bottom line: McInnis answered the contempt expressed toward him by Penry and the GOP base, who assumed McInnis' long goodbye would begin with Penry posting a dominant total for Q3. Now that McInnis has defied them, the real blood will begin to flow.
Oh, and why in the hell is The Post talking about what Dan Maes is doing?
As we've done in other election years, we regularly poll our readers on various races to gauge changing perceptions. These obviously aren't scientific polls, but they do help to show how the perception of various candidates are changing. We'll conduct these polls each month and then show the results to see how the winds are shifting.
As always, please vote based on what you think will happen, not on who you would vote for or which candidate you support personally. Think of it this way: If you had to bet the deed to your house, who would you pick?
Throughout the rest of the week we'll poll on the other big races for 2010.
As The Denver Post reports, GOP Gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis is working on his attacks. Some are better than others:
At a fundraiser in Greenwood Village on Tuesday night, McInnis ripped the governor, saying Ritter was more interested in his re-election campaign than handling delays at the Department of Labor and Employment, which has been besieged with unemployment claims.
"Get these unemployment checks out of the door. It means something to somebody," McInnis said.
"You know at the department of labor, these people all get their paychecks on the 30th of the month," McInnis said. "They don't have to worry if they're getting their paycheck or not."
Why McInnis would attack state employees is beyond us, especially since they are all being forced to take furlough days to help with the budget crisis. There are more than 30,000 state employees, and we'd assume most of them vote.
But the messaging wasn't all bad for McInnis.
McInnis also took a swipe at his most formidable GOP opponent, state Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, of Grand Junction, although he never mentioned Penry by name.
"Somebody told me the other day, 'I kind of like a fresh face,' " McInnis said.
"I said, 'Good, keep that in mind the next time you're in an accident and they rush you to the emergency room. Say to them, 'You know, I want the new doctor, the one that just graduated from medical school.'
We've said before that we think Josh Penry's age is an issue that will become more and more of a problem for him as the campaign progresses, and McInnis' comparison to a new doctor is a great line. Voters across the country have been willing to elect younger candidates to Congress and U.S. Senate, but will they really pull the lever for a young candidate to lead the entire state?
According to the Republican website Complete Colorado, GOP Gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis made a big boo-boo. While Complete Colorado may look like it was designed by your 8-year-old niece, and this is clearly an orchestrated attack on McInnis, they do appear to have the goods on a major mistake by the Republican contender:
Moments into the message, McInnis describes people who have joined the "team," specifically mentioning Sean Tonner. McInnis also mentions that Tonner is running a "527." The mention of Tonner being on the team and also running a 527 could be problematic. It is illegal for a candidate committee to coordinate with a 527 "issues" committee.
Futhermore, towards the middle of the message, McInnis mentions that "we've been out in the field, we've done extensive polling." If true, McInnis might need to show what funds were used to perform said polling.
Finally, McInnis mentions that Mike Hesse is performing the "day-to-day" operations of the campaign. Again, if true, it is then unclear how or if Hesse might be receiving compensation for this work, especially since McInnis has not filed any paperwork which would allow for paid work to be done on his behalf for a gubernatorial run.
The biggest problem here is the first one - the direct acknowledgment by McInnis of a 527 committee raising money to support his campaign. Under federal law, McInnis can't have anything to do with a 527 relating to his own campaign, and this would appear to be pretty strong proof of that.
The rest of the accusations aren't that big of a deal. McInnis may have someone doing day-to-day operations that is not offically being paid yet, which happens all the time. And if he's done polling, that doesn't mean that the polling firm has billed his campaign yet; if that expense doesn't show up on his next report, then you can raise a few eyebrows.
But on the other hand, if the 527 committee paid for the polling, then McInnis is in deep shit - because that is more proof that he is illegally coordinating with a 527 committee. No doubt there will be some sort of investigation that looks into this deeper, which will lead to more bad press and a potentially large electioneering fine.
Either way, a professional politician like McInnis should know better than this. That he would make an amateur mistake of this caliber - leaving a voicemail message acknowledging his own 527 committee - says a lot about his readiness for a statewide race.
(Many commenters have been (rightly) confused as to why this map includes states in 2010 that are not even in play. See the update below. - promoted by Colorado Pols)
UPDATE: This map is part of a presentation created by the RGA earlier this year called The Four Year Plan. It's possible the map below is mislabeled and should say "Best Case 2012," but the message is the same either way: Colorado would still have a Democratic Governor under the best case scenario laid-out by the RGA.
We've found it a little curious that the Colorado Governor's race is rarely listed among the top 10 most likely to switch parties nationally, but perhaps there's good reason for that. Check out this image from a presentation made recently by the Republican Governor's Association (RGA), which maps out a state-by-state "Best Case Scenario":
So what does this mean? Well, it means that polling doesn't look favorably on Republican chances to retake the governor's office in Colorado, and more importantly, it means that the RGA isn't likely to spend a lot of national money helping Republicans to defeat Democrat Bill Ritter in 2010.
In other words, Scott McInnis and Josh Penry, good luck...but you're on your own.
Republican Marc Holtzman told friends and supporters over the weekend that he would not run for governor in 2010 after all.
Holtzman had been widely expected among Republicans to formally enter the race for governor this summer. He had strong support from heavy-hitters in the business community, and would likely have had the full backing of folks such as Larry Mizel and Mike Fries. Business community leaders who wanted to see a businessman run for governor will be left looking elsewhere now, since both Scott McInnis and Josh Penry are lawyer/lobbyists and career politicians, respectively.
So why did Holtzman, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006, decide against a run in 2010? Holtzman works in International banking and development, and he told friends that he could not in good conscience pull out of his many business responsibilities given the current economic crisis.
Of course, it's probably not a good year to run for higher office with banking and/or finance in your title, either, but those close to Holtzman say the perception problem wasn't what pushed him out of the race (and neither was a potential primary with McInnis and/or Penry, since Holtzman would have raised the most money of the three).
From 
According to the Republican website 