January 29, 2010 12:56 AM UTC

McInnis Dumps Amateur Campaign Manager

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

A little more to this note from the Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels than meets the eye:

McInnis has brought on a new campaign manager, Nancy Hopper, who ran his first congressional campaign in 1992 and is the daughter of former lawmaker Sally Hopper.

Asked about the staffing changes, Hopper said, “We have had a really lean staff so we just needed to make sure that we’re out in the field earning every vote.”

Her hire raised political eyebrows because last year McInnis had announced he had hired former legislative staffer George Culpepper as his campaign manager.

Culpepper told The Denver Post a few weeks ago he has formed his own campaign consulting firm. Hopper started Jan. 4.

“I think Scott wanted some fresh eyes,” Hopper said. “I think he probably wanted to have a woman on the team, too.”

From what we understand, that last bit was euphemistic for “George Culpepper was totally out of his league.” Which doesn’t surprise us given McInnis’ remarkably lackluster campaigning last year–we’ve even heard that former Dave Schultheis aide Culpepper bears some responsibility for that disastrous interview with Neil Cavuto, also known as the straw that broke the “Tea Party’s” back. Either way, Culpepper’s resume is, by all descriptions, long on antics and short on substance.

You certainly don’t want to get into the habit of hitting the reset button on your campaign like this, but all things being equal, Democrats might have preferred Culpepper stay where he was. Nowhere to go but up is how optimists would characterize it–and with a much stronger general election opponent running, it’s well past time to get serious.

Starting with a dye job and shave? Timing’s about right, anyway…