August 27, 2010 01:42 AM UTC

Tancredo's Man in SD-16

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Just up from the Colorado Independent’s David O. Williams:

State Senate District 16 candidate Tim Leonard shocked the mainstream Republican Party and a lot of Democrats when he trounced moderate 5th Judicial District Attorney Mark Hurlbert at the GOP’s SD 16 assembly back in May…

While Leonard may present himself as a fiscal conservative fed up with runaway government and ballooning taxes, he helped found the ACP in Colorado the 1990s with other Republicans who were disenchanted with their party’s increasingly moderate stance on abortion issues.

“The pre-born child, whose life begins at conception, is from that moment fully a human being created in God’s image,” reads the ACP’s platform. “The first duty of the law is to prevent the taking of innocent human life. It is, therefore, the duty of all civil governments to secure and safeguard the lives of the pre-born.”

…Hurlbert, from Breckenridge, was considered a highly electable moderate Republican by most observers, and the district as a whole is considered key to the GOP regaining control of the state Senate.

But it wasn’t to be, as we noted back in May. Mark Hurlbert got the snot kicked out of him by “Tea Party”-backed upstart Tim Leonard at the assemblies, and then wasn’t even able to muster enough support to petition on to the ballot–though we’ve heard that after the assembly defeat, his heart wasn’t really in it. Either way, Hurlbert’s defeat was a harbinger of stridently conservative underdog primary wins to come (see: Buck, Ken).

This article presents a fascinating backstory for Tim Leonard, including his co-founding of the now-nationally known American Constitutional Party in Colorado, and membership of the board of the too-strident-for-Bob Schaffer Colorado Right to Life. Best of all, Williams attributes at least some of Leonard’s smashing success to a “big boost” at the state assembly provided impassionedly by none other than…Tom Tancredo. This was, naturally, before Tancredo decided the time was right to bring the Colorado GOP to its knees.

Which brings us to the moral of this story–Tim Leonard, we feel pretty confident telling you now, is going to lose. SD-16 will elect well-supported moderate Gilpin County commissioner Jeanne Nicholson over anyone who can be so easily tied to the fringe–Nicholson smartly directs the conversation in this story to her admiration for the style of much-loved GOP Sen. Al White, a far more ingratiating message than blathering on about “the separation of school and state.”

Hurlbert, the sad song will play here as it may elsewhere, might have been different.