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November 15, 2009 09:43 PM UTC

Tom Tancredo and Dede Scozzafava's Ghost

  • 18 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The Denver Post reports:

GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis has largely cleared the field of Republican competitors – for now – but supporters of a former rival say he must prove his fiscal and social conservatism to win them over.

Following state Sen. Josh Penry’s pullout, McInnis’ reception as the likely GOP nominee was frosty in some circles.

State Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams and others were quick to point out that McInnis, a former congressman, still had time to draw another GOP challenger…

McInnis touts the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights on the campaign trail and has railed against higher car-registration and late fees. He’s been critical of Gov. Bill Ritter’s energy policies, which McInnis said have hurt the oil and gas industry.

But Penry and his cadre say they want to see details.

“People want to know how are you going to balance the budget and how are you going to fund core priorities,” Penry said. “It’s not ‘no government.’ It’s not big government. It’s making government set priorities.”

And McInnis still faces a contingent within the GOP that is focused on social issues and is eager to welcome back Tancredo.

Tancredo’s entrance would bring illegal immigration, abortion and gay rights to the fore of debate despite the prevailing Republican strategy to focus on fiscal issues, said former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave…

Tancredo “getting in is going to change everything,” said Musgrave, who supported Penry in the primary. “Scott McInnis would do well to really say publicly where he stands on the issues very clearly.” [Pols emphasis]

We haven’t changed our original view: Tom Tancredo can’t possibly win the general election, though he can do damage to Scott McInnis in a primary. Tancredo is perhaps more dangerous to McInnis than ex-candidate Josh Penry, because Tancredo isn’t bound by the same constraints (desire to not ultimately be laughed at, real future career possibilities, etc.). What’s more, Tancredo can rally an army of like-minded, uh, polite synonym for ‘kooks,’ from around the country to his banner–if he really wanted to, he could turn the GOP gubernatorial primary into a circus the likes of which Marc Holtzman could only have dreamed of.

The unpredictable element in this situation is the Republican base. The angry “Sarah Palin wing” of the Republican Party is where the energy is today. Penry, if you recall, said that the Republican Party’s biggest problem is that there aren’t enough “Tea Partiers.” Can McInnis win a contested primary without appeasing them?

In the NY-23 special election, after all, wasn’t the lesson that conservatives will rebel if not given a choice who represents their values? Democrats crow about their squeak of a win in New York, but Marilyn Musgrave, as if she herself wasn’t a cautionary tale, replies that ‘principle’ will bring long-term victory for the GOP: in NY-23 and elsewhere. Scoff all you want, she’s got a loud enough echo chamber that she’ll never hear you. And if there’s going to be an electoral surge next year, won’t the “Tea Party” right be where you’ll see it? Isn’t that what the GOP is counting on?

Bottom line: can Musgrave and Tancredo make the “Sarah Palin wing” the decisive factor they imagine themselves to be? And who is that more dangerous for in the long run–Democrats, or Scott McInnis? At the very least, what will having to mouth the hard right’s Shibboleths, a dance that already began opposite Penry, mean for McInnis’ general electability?

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18 thoughts on “Tom Tancredo and Dede Scozzafava’s Ghost”

  1. …but can we please stop this fairytale about Dede Scozzafava being a moderate?  She was pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-union, pro-stimulus, pro-cap&trade, and supported by ACORN/WFP.  The main problem is that the people didn’t actually get a choice in who their candidate was.  11 party bosses, with a lot of encouragement from the dumbasses at the NRCC, picked her unilaterally.

    There’s no “purge of moderates” going on in the Republican party.

        1. This election goes beyond Highlands Ranch and Douglas County.  Saying Tancredo is popular in your neighborhood is like saying Diane DeGettes is popular in LoDo so she would make a swell statewide candidate.  Might want to widen the perspective a bit.

          1. He won CD6 3x in a row pretty easily. He’s a popular candidate and he’ll win here in the primary.

            Same in CD5. I think he’ll do well in CD4 and in th eprimary ihe’ll do well in CD2 and maybe 1.

            I think MCinnis wins 3 – and 7 is a split

            Yes- in the gerneal he’ll get crushed in CD1

            But he’ll do well in 3,4,5,6 and 7.

            I don’t think he can win- but I was always surprised how well he did in the past.  Where I grew up candidates like him were a joke. Then again Cook County politics are a whole different thing compared to Aurora & Greenwood Village

            1. It is no surprise that he would garner the deranged teabagger vote which might be enough to win in the primary.  Obviously his great challenge is trying to convince the rest of the population that he isn’t as nutty as his core base.  Good luck selling that one.  What is that only line about you can’t fool people?

  3. Is if Tank jumps in with both feet and forces McInnis so far right that he’s dead in the general. At which point McInnis realizes that forcing Penry out killed his own chances.

    That would be karmic justice 🙂

      1. and the historical past of Republican big wigs picking their candidates.  Don’t pay any attention to all those conversations Penry had with the Republican money masters before he dropped out.  All pure coincidence.  Really!

  4. if Tancredo gets in the race and rallies the “Tea Partiers”, who are tired of the government taxing them, will Tom Tancredo follow Newt Gingrich’s lead and refund and stop his Congressional pension?

  5. from Marilyn Musgrave on is like seeking marriage counseling from Elizabeth Taylor.  She lost election in a landslide in a district drawn to elect Republicans.

    Republican candidates pretty much need to decide if they want to win primaries or general elections.  At this point, winning both seems to be mutually exclusive.  

    1. if R’s would support open primaries. That way some of the disaffected indies could vote in the primary, which might allow a moderate R to prevail more easily.

      Or is it better to be pure?

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