December 16, 2009 05:53 PM UTC

Latinos Lash Tancredo to McInnis

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• by: Colorado Pols

We told you the chickens from gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis’ “Contract for Colorado” “Platform for Prosperity,” publicly sponsored and co-authored by hard-line former Rep. Tom Tancredo, would come home to roost. And today, the Denver Post reports:

A year after angering some Colorado Latinos, Gov. Bill Ritter on Tuesday stood shoulder to shoulder with dozens of Latino leaders endorsing him for a second term.

Speaking at the Auraria campus in downtown Denver, Ritter, a Democrat, said he and the Latino community have had disagreements but still share common goals…

Paul Sandoval also noted the occasional discord between Ritter and Latinos but said, “I would rather have a somebody there with me 90 percent of the time who is a Democrat than a Republican who is 100 percent against me.”

And what would those common goals be? Well, it’s safe to say that once McInnis took the stage holding hands with Tom Tancredo, they became much easier to understand.

Baca said Latinos have an easy choice between Ritter and his presumptive Republican opponent, former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis.

“Even though there is some concern with Gov. Ritter, given the alternative, certainly Gov. Ritter is better,” she said.

She said Latino leaders don’t like the “appearance of Scott McInnis making a deal with (former GOP congressman) Tom Tancredo.”

And just so there’s no understating what’s in play here:

Latinos accounted for about 13 percent of Colorado voters in the 2008 presidential election, according to exit polling from Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. That was up from about 8 percent of the total voters in 2004.

In a way, what’s happening here is similar to criticism we’ve directed at Bill Ritter for trying too hard–at the expense of good relations with his base–to appease the chimeral “business community,” which to the extent it can be discussed as a singular entity (not really) can never be counted on to support Democrats, and whose support is of questionable value with economically disaffected voters anyway.

What we have here is similar tactically, but with potentially much worse consequences: McInnis trying to appease a small number of vocal hardliners on his right (who are disinclined to support him), in the process alienating the fastest-growing bloc of swing voters in the country. What do you think is more likely: a Latino holding their nose to vote for “McInnis/Tancredo Unity,” or a union member deciding the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good in the case of Bill Ritter?