December 19, 2009 03:48 AM UTC

McInnis Wishes He Was in Dixie?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis, in the midst of a heated disagreement with the “Tea Party” groups who feel he has tried to hypocritically co-opt them, is trying really hard to prove out his conservative bonafides. Earlier this week, McInnis was interviewed for former Sen. John Andrews’ Backbone Radio program–apparently, and we confess to being entirely ignorant of this, McInnis is ‘close friends’ with Texas Gov. Rick Perry:

Can’t see the audio player? Click here.

Approximate transcript of McInnis’ answer:

McInnis: Well, you’re probably referring to the Tenth Amendment.  It’s interesting…

KK: Well that and other things, yes.

McInnis: Um, a very close friend of mine actually was hunting on my wife’s–[garbled]-went hunting on my wife’s ranch before he went into elected office. It was Rick Perry–he’s the governor of the state of Texas. And when I announced that I was gonna run for governor of the state of Colorado, Rick called me right up and said, “Look, Scott, I’m not being presumptuous, but if you get elected, you’ve got to take some state rights back. And I want you join us–the state of Texas and several other states–that are deeply concerned. [Pols emphasis] Not fanatics. But deeply and sincerely concerned that the federal government is overreaching.”

Now the invokation of Gov. Perry along with this “Tenth Amendment” business goes back to the April 15th “Tea Parties” held around the country. You remember this because it was one of the crazier news stories from that day, but here’s what the AP reported:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax “tea party” Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states’ rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, “Secede!”

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall – one of three tea parties he was attending across the state – that officials in Washington have abandoned the country’s founding principles of limited government…

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

He said when Texas entered the union in 1845 it was with the understanding it could pull out. However, according to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Texas negotiated the power to divide into four additional states at some point if it wanted to but not the right to secede.

Texas did secede in 1861, but the North’s victory in the Civil War put an end to that…

So, several, um, questions naturally present themselves. How many states are we talking about that are, you know, “joining” with Texas? Do they all have cool imaginary deals giving them the right to secede–rights that survived the Civil War, the last time a bunch of states “joined together” against the federal government? Failing that, did Perry ever get around to describing any of those “scenarios” he referred to? If he didn’t, perhaps McInnis would care to?

Look, folks, you know this is a bunch of John Birch Society bug-eyed claptrap as well as we do, as well as McInnis does. We don’t think be believes it. But we have to say it’s getting really thick as McInnis tries to herd the “Tea Party” and “9/12” contingents into the fold–he has to be racing to the phone to reassure all of his sane donors every time he makes an appearance at this point. And when he finally gets to the general, who is this pandering to the fringe going to help?