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December 01, 2009 07:39 PM UTC

Wall Street Journal: Colorado GOP Platform is Candy for Tea Party

  • 36 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Republican Party’s “Contract for Colorado” “Platform for Prosperity” has been unraveling faster than a stale fruit roll-up as Colorado media outlets rip into the nonsensical details. Republicans, led by gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis, are pushing the 1+1=4 idea that they can reduce spending, cut taxes, and increase or maintain services all at the same time. Sure, it’s not just implausible, but impossible, but that may not be important to the goal.

As The Wall Street Journal reports on its front page online today, Colorado Republicans are using their “Platform for Prosperity” to attract the “Tea Party” folks:

Colorado Republicans last week made a bold move to woo him and other restive tea-party activists by setting forth a conservative agenda — dubbed the “Platform for Prosperity” — and encouraging all candidates for state office to adopt it. The platform stresses limited government, fiscal restraint, opposition to further stimulus spending and a determination, it says, to push back against “a federal government that is too big, too intrusive and all-too-eager to seize power from the states.” The move paid immediate dividends by unifying the party in the critical gubernatorial race…

…To the consternation of Republican leaders, tea-party activists are jumping into primaries for U.S. Senate and other races, promoting their own candidates to challenge Republican front-runners in Kentucky, Florida, Illinois, California and elsewhere.

A similar dynamic is beginning to emerge in Colorado’s U.S. Senate primary, where several Republicans trying to ride the tea-party wave are taking aim at Jane Norton, a former lieutenant governor who has support from the GOP’s national leadership.

By introducing a platform that echoes tea-party mantras — smaller government, less spending, lower taxes — Colorado Republicans say they hope to avoid primary battles. Among the bullet points in the platform: Developing Colorado’s oil and gas reserves, requiring all employers to verify that their workers are legal U.S. residents, and eliminating state subsidies for reproductive health-care services at Planned Parenthood, which also performs abortions.

Adopting that platform avoided an interparty struggle last week when two Republicans who enjoy considerable tea-party support set aside their ambitions for the governor’s mansion and united behind Scott McInnis, a six-term congressman who will likely take on incumbent Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter in 2010.

“People realize if we want to get a victory, we need to unify however possible,” Mr. McInnis said. [Pols emphasis]

That last line from McInnis is key. “Unify however possible,” damn the consequences or the logic behind it. Republicans will do anything it takes to win in 2010, drawing a line in the sand that they may someday wish they had never crossed.

The GOP’s “Platform” may be like crack for Teabaggers, but Republicans are taking a bold risk by essentially trading loud activists for their traditional support from the business community, which doesn’t like the continued weakening of Colorado’s economy.

Republicans are hoping that they can win enough elections in 2010 with support of the Teabaggers that they can force everyone else to fall in line behind them. But if that gamble doesn’t work, we could look back at 2010 as a year that permanently damaged the Republican Party by cutting its ties to the business community in favor of a few loud activists.

It’s a risky strategy for the GOP to go “all-in” with the Teabaggers. Now they have to hope like hell that they get dealt the right cards.

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36 thoughts on “Wall Street Journal: Colorado GOP Platform is Candy for Tea Party”

  1. It was a smart strategy that was very poorly executed, and I think it’s only fair to mention both aspects. Well…I suppose actual substance has always been overrated in politics.

  2. Will be the re-districting of our state.  Can we make a district that will force the likes of Polis and Lamborn to sign for their supper?

    The budget will come and go.  The fiscal cycle will come and go.  Re-districting will have a permanent effect for a decade…

    1. What does that mean?

      Redistricting will be a major political issue, but it is not the biggest issue facing the state. Nothing will be bigger than fixing a crumbling infrastructure and decimated state budget. Nobody will care about redistricting if the roads and schools are falling apart.

        1. Unless and until we get actual elections at the general level instead of the preliminary level, we THE VOTER will NEVER get our roads worked on, our budget fixed, etc.  

          I think it is time to start addressing root issues.  Everything else is deck chairs on a sinking ship…

          1. but either way, you’re wrong. Redistricting won’t change the fact that we have a $2.2 billion budget shortfall.

            The budget is messed up because of a number of reasons, but the lack of “actual elections at the general level instead of the preliminary level” whatever that means, isn’t one of them.

            1. I’ve said it before, the opposing view is a $2.2billion overspending problem.  Reality is somewhere in between depending on the level of services and handouts you prescribe.

              You Democrats knew the financials were craving in early 2007.  Surely you could have gone to the ballot with a Tax Hike under TABOR in the fall of 2009.  Admit it you’re in denial which is a tell tale sign of failure.

              Leaving thousands of Coloradan’s without the services and handouts you promised them and taxing the crap out of the employers that would make their paycheck is a tough hole to dig yourself out of.

            2. I have an OPINION, not a FACT!  Opinions are not wrong, facts are!  The reason I left the democrat party was because a-holes like you could not STAND opinions!  

              Besides, you  wrote “whatever that means” as if to say you don’t understand what I wrote.  If you DON’T understand it, DON’T comment on it!!!!

      2.    Plus there is a default mechanism which kicks in if the governor and both houses of the legislature are not all of the same party.  A judge can decide on new boundaries.  (Too bad John Coughlin retired from Denver District Court.  He did an excellent job in ’01.)

          The budget trainwreck, on other hand, has no backup mechanism.

    2. “signing for their supper”.  Singing would be an altogether different story though.

      The budget is and will be the biggest issue in Colorado for the next few years at least.  It is why you do not see McInnis or any uberCon coming out with a plan to balance any budget. R’s have decided to run on the do nothing platform in Colorado.  Sadly, for all of us, when the opposition party refuses to provide ideas and confirm that they will just piss and moan, we all suffer.  And no gerrymandering will solve the budget problems when we still have constitutional mandates and crumbling infrastructure.  

      1. Plans to drill in everyone’s backyard while ignoring the need to move to a post hydrocarbon age will just make the transition more difficult.  With “we can drill our way out” solutions and the legislative control to stop government support for new fledgling industries, the Republicans could crater the economy again and lower our standard of living for a long time.  Permanent unemployment for a significant percentage of the population might become the standard in towns across the West and not just in urban ghettos.

  3. Because it appears that the Republican platform is now based on magic. With a wave of his wand the budget will be fixed AND taxes will be lowered!

    Merlin’s beard, that’s some great thinking there.

  4. Because if you did you’d know that this story is way in the back on page A15, not front page news.  And everyone knows that, left alone, the Republican State Assembly process hasn’t served up a winner in more than a decade.  

          1. And to imply that this story was one that the preemminant financial newspaper in the country deemed important enough for its front page is just wrong.  They could have just said “in the government section” or “found on their website.”

  5. pejorative like liberal was in the 90’s.  Dems. should use “tea bagger” to refer to Republican candidates as product branding.  The term can be used as synonymous with a crazy irrational person who follows celebrity politicians like Palin and are cult worshippers of Limbaugh and Beck.

    It is still an appeal to those who already vote for them.  It doesn’t expand the tent and the real hope is that they sow enough dissension and doubt within Democratic demographics to suppress Democratic turnout.  It is the only way they can win with extreme and vacuous solutions.

    Brand them as tea baggers and let them see how many independents want crazies running things.

    1. I love libs and watching this site, too see what moronic things you all spout off everyday. Teabaggers, I always think that’s funny that the party of acceptance would be so homophobic. Awesome guys

      2. Normally this would be an n/t comment, but “too see what moronic things” is ever so slightly ironic, isn’t it?

        “Teabaggers” isn’t homophobic; pretty much the only equipment you need for it is a set of testicles and a partner with a face, so nothing stops heterosexuals from doing it. We just use it to annoy you. Always glad to see it working.

      3. Fox News and the Tea Party folks originally came up with the term “Teabaggers” before they realized the double entendre. We didn’t invent the term.

      5. the Noun “teabagger” is an ignorant, whacked out, Bigoted, conservative republican.

        using the term interchangeably is the idea here. as to get “tea bagged” would then imply roughly something like; receiving additional pleasure in fellatio/propaganda, however no real out come other than meaninglessly blowing ones wad, or not.

        OR possibly even; foreplay, leading to mental masturbation with conservative “values”. no real intent to actually follow through.

        conservatives labeled themselves in the first place anyway. Ignorantly dismissing “Tea-bagging’s” widely, socially accepted true meaning.

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