December 07, 2009 10:29 PM UTC

McInnis Hedges on "Dr. Evil" Initiatives

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Independent reports:

As Colorado wrestles with an already lean state budget growing leaner by the day – one that has forced Gov. Bill Ritter to propose repeated controversial cuts to state services this year – a trio of budget busting anti-tax initiatives is speeding its way to the 2010 ballot. The dramatic nature of the initiatives, which plainly seek to shrink state government, and their timing, coming as they do amid an historic budget crisis, has sparked high media interest and political buzz…

Ritter last week called the initiatives “dangerous.”

As late as a week ago Friday, however, Scott McInnis, the Republican frontrunner in the race to unseat Ritter, had yet to take a position on the initiatives. Campaign spokesman Josh Green told the Colorado Independent that the former Congressman had not fully reviewed the initiatives and so had yet to decide whether he would support or oppose them.

“[McInnis] really hasn’t looked at those initiatives closely yet, so we can’t comment at this time,” he said.

Neither did McInnis address them in a lengthy interview conducted by 9News over the weekend, in which he discussed the state budget crisis and the state budget engineering put in place nearly two decades ago by the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, which passed as a ballot initiative.

It’s very interesting that these initiatives are a ‘no comment’ for Scott McInnis, isn’t it? As we pointed out this weekend, local governments and officials of both parties statewide–even in arch-conservative El Paso County–have seen enough information about these initiatives to unequivocally oppose them. As we saw with the swift abandonment of the FASTER repeal pledge in McInnis’ Platform for Prosperity, he’s obviously got people advising him who read the papers.

But given all the problems McInnis is having keeping the rebellious “Tea Party” base on board, might that justify a little hedging on their pet ballot initiatives? That’s as close as we can get to a good explanation for being cagey about these crazy proposals–this shouldn’t be a hard decision for any responsible elected (or aspiring to be elected) official.