January 07, 2010 06:46 PM UTC

Belated Grace?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As news was breaking Tuesday evening that Gov. Bill Ritter would not seek re-election, GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis could barely contain his glee–the AP reported:

GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis told The Associated Press that polls showed Ritter was too weak to survive a general election.

“He was in severe trouble. This guy could not win re-election,” McInnis told The Associated Press. “What is their plan B?” he asked.

Speaking to the Denver Post, McInnis spokesman Sean Duffy was no less of a, uh, jerk about it:

Sean Duffy, spokesman for McInnis, said Ritter had looked increasingly weak in recent months while McInnis’ polling numbers continued to rise.

“Scott has had a very strong positive message about job creation and economic opportunity for Colorado families, and he’s pounded it for six months, and he’s done what strong candidates do, which is raise a lot of money and go up in the polls,” Duffy said.

“Our point is, we beat the varsity team. Now we have to go beat the junior varsity. We’re ready for whomever they bring.”

About eighteen hours after all this smack talk from McInnis Ritter actually withdrew, and McInnis’ statements turned much warmer and more complimentary toward Ritter–more like the gracious statement one would expect from the guy who’s not pulling out of the race. And sure enough, the top story in today’s Glenwood Springs Post-Independent reads, “McInnis wishes Ritter the best.”

In fact, at least until somebody pointed out that this was an opportunity to look like a statesman, not so much! It isn’t a huge thing to dwell on, but it’s the sort of quote that establishes perceptions of how a candidate behaves in high-visibility situations–if you will, a window into their personality. And as has been pretty well discussed here and in many other forums, media appearances gone awry, etc., most of what is known about McInnis’ personality suggests he is a bit of a combative guy. We hear McInnis described a lot of ways, “personally ingratiating” is seldom one of them. These sorts of character impressions do matter to voters, as any image consultant (McInnis needs one if he doesn’t have one) will tell you.

Of course it’s also possible the McInnis campaign realized sometime yesterday morning that they didn’t beat the “varsity team” after all–nobody believes the spin that Ritter was scared of McInnis. We would have sobered up pretty fast, too: how long do you think it took the McInnis campaign to switch from high fives to “wait, Ken Salazar?“