June 30, 2010 05:36 PM UTC

So Much for Them

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• by: Colorado Pols

Two GOP state house candidates announced in recent days they are dropping out of their respective races, more signs of difficulty ahead for the GOP’s main objective this year of retaking the legislature. The Fort Collins Coloradoan’s Bob Moore reports on one we mentioned last week:

Fort Collins City Council member Aislinn Kottwitz withdrew her candidacy for a Colorado House seat Tuesday, leaving Republicans searching for a challenger to state Rep. John Kefalas.

“I genuinely appreciate the overwhelming support for running. After much consideration, discussion with my family and prayer, I have come to this decision,” Kottwitz said in an e-mail to Bob McCluskey, the former state representative who is the Republican Party chairman for House District 52…

Kottwitz was the only name put forward for the Aug. 10 primary ballot at this spring’s Republican House District 52 assembly. But she never started fundraising or took other steps to advance her candidacy after the assembly.

She was elected to the City Council in April 2009.

As we said before, Republicans might have realized the potential for trouble with Aislinn Kottwitz after looking at her attendance record at the Fort Collins City Council and other boards she has served on since her election barely a year ago. Kottwitz seems to really like being elected to public office, but the work? Judging by her having missed a majority of meetings of the Poudre Fire Authority Board, and similarly bad habits on the City Council, we’d say not so much. And after all the difficulty carrying out her duties on the City Council, Kottwitz decides the best thing to do…is run for the legislature? Sorry, it’s kind of ridiculous.

But now it’s the problem of whoever Republicans choose to replace her on the ballot–he or she has got a lot of ground to make up to catch incumbent John Kefalas.

We’ve also learned that Edgar Antillon, another young and energetic GOP challenger recruited to run against Cherilyn Peniston in HD-35, has withdrawn from that race, determining after some campaigning that he “was unable to generate enough support to win.”

In both cases, the GOP has time to find new challengers, but both will start considerably behind where they would have been had Dick Wadhams done his homework and recruited serious candidates to begin with. Which leads to the next logical question, one we think you’ll be hearing as more GOP “great hopes” either drop out or are shown to be laughably poor choices in the coming weeks: is this what Democrats are supposed to be afraid of?