December 28, 2009 01:39 AM UTC

Penry Rules Self Out of Lt. Gov. Pack

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Curiouser and curiouser, as the Grand Junction Sentinel reports:

State Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, said he isn’t interested in joining the ticket of his onetime rival, Scott McInnis, as the candidate for lieutenant governor.

“If I were hell-bent on being on the ticket, I’d still be in the race,” Penry said last week when asked about reports that he might be interested in the lieutenant governor slot.

Penry, however, didn’t tip his hand on a question that has five Republicans watching closely – his decision whether to run for a second term in the state Senate…

McInnis has “no list of any kind” for lieutenant-governor candidates, according to his campaign spokesman, Sean Duffy.

State Rep. Steve King, R-Grand Junction, an announced candidate for Penry’s Senate seat, has said he won’t run for the post if Penry opts to seek a second Senate term.

Four Republicans – David Cox, Robert Hislop, Duncan McArthur and Ray Scott – are vying for the nomination to run for King’s House District 54 seat, which includes parts of Mesa and Delta counties.

Folks, we don’t claim to have all the inner-working details of what is happening with the GOP field–not for Governor, and not for Josh Penry’s SD-7 seat, or for that matter Rep. Steve King’s HD-54 seat. Obviously, only a select few are privy to those decisions, and even accurate scuttlebutt is subject to change. What we do know is that there most certainly is a ‘list’ of potential GOP candidates for Lt. Governor, which includes several (mostly female) state legislators and county commissioners as readers have outlined–and, as made the rumor circuit pretty heavily last week, McInnis’ ex-rival Sen. Penry as well.

So here are a few questions we’ll crowdsource to our astute readers:

1. Why is Penry undecided, after so many months, on whether or not to run for re-election in SD-7? Unanswered questions here feed more questions, well, everywhere one can imagine Penry hanging a shingle. What’s up with this?

2. Why did Penry’s name suddenly float up in this discussion of potential Lt. Gov. nominees only to get shut down by Penry himself? People love to blame us for inventing these things but we certainly didn’t in this case: a lot of people heard the same rumor. In our experience, that seldom happens without a reason–who promulgated it? Who benefited?

3. Who will get the nod to run alongside Scott McInnis, and why will that person be chosen?