October 05, 2010 06:50 PM UTC

The Ten Percent Solution - Is There One?

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• by: Half Glass Full

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Republicans and American Constitution Party members are finally beginning to realize that if Tom Tancredo succeeds in drawing away massive numbers of Republican votes from official GOP nominee Dan Maes, the results could be devastating to the entire Republican Party for the next four years and could be very costly for the ACP – due to Colorado’s unique law pegging major and minor party status exclusively to the percentage vote for a party’s gubernatorial nominee.

If Maes falls below 10% of the vote, the GOP will be relegated to minor party status, which will cut in half the amount each of its nominees FOR ALL POSITIONS can receive in individual contributions, AND which will relegate the party to far down the ballot list among the fringe also-rans like the Green Party, Libertarians, etc.

Politicians claw and scrape for first-line position on the ballot, so this can’t be good news. Tancredo may end up screwing all Republicans in all positions, across the state.

So what can be done? The options are slim:

 

1. Change the law? Good luck with that. First the Republicans will have to get majorities in both houses, and that’s far from assured given the recent news in the Denver Post and here about all the Republican attempted murderers, deadbeats, etc. running for the General Assembly. Plus, assuming there’s a Governor Hickenlooper, it wouldn’t be surprising if he were to veto such a law.

2. Get Tancredo to drop out of the race and ask his supporters to vote for Maes, with the understanding that after the election Maes will withdraw from office and somehow Tancredo will be slotted into the post. However, this may not be legal in the first place, and would require a promise by Maes to leave office: a promise he might very well decide not to keep (just like Tancredo found an excuse to break his own term limits pledge). Plus, it would be thoroughly confusing to potential voters.

What other solutions might be out there? Does anyone have any suggestions as to how the Colorado GOP can both get out of the 10% danger AND get Tancredo elected as governor? What do the BJs, Libertads and H-Mans out there think is a realistic scenario for Tancredo to win the governorship AND for the GOP to avoid being relegated to minor-party status?