July 17, 2010 03:28 AM UTC

McInnis Staffers Head for the Lifeboats

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• by: Colorado Pols

The latest from Fox 31’s Eli Stokols:

Already reeling over accusations of plagiarism, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis is now facing defections from his campaign staff, FOX31 News has learned.

Sources say at least 3 staff members offered their resignations on Friday.

Meanwhile, two new polls show support for McInnis eroding among all voters and registered Republicans.

A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters shows Democratic frontrunner John Hickenlooper with 45-percent support to 43-percent for McInnis. Five percent are undecided…

We’ll say this much: few staffers leave a campaign with paychecks still in the bank account unless there’s a really good reason. In fact, the only sign we’ve seen that McInnis is perhaps not headed for inevitable matter-of-hours withdrawal, is the possibility that GOP brass may still need him to rub out Dan Maes in the primary–assuming he’s still capable of even doing that.

We opined previously that because McInnis is an obstinate guy, he’s not going to be persuaded by anything other than hard numbers showing this scandal has damaged his candidacy. Well, there you go–even Rasmussen says it’s enough to flip the race, and there’s nowhere to go but down.

UPDATE: 7NEWS adds some color from “knowledgeable sources.”

Sources close to the campaign say these three, and several others, can no longer defend Scott McInnis’ actions after he tried to get 82-year old Rolly Fischer to take the fall for McInnis’ mistakes…

A knowledgeable source told Ferrugia that staffers feel betrayed by the man they trusted.

“The turning point in the campaign was the interview with Rolly Fischer,” the source said. “Jaws dropped. They couldn’t believe Scott tried to pin it on him … It was game, set, match. It was a crusher.”