November 02, 2010 03:24 AM UTC

Unforced Errors: why did the GOP recruit Kathleen Conti?

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• by: JeffcoBlue

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

The Dead Governors have spent quality time this fall focusing on the massive vetting errors for the Republican legislative slate, perhaps explained by the moral elasticity of Rep. Frank McNulty.

But the other side of that coin is the utter lack of seriousness of the Republican Party in recruiting just plain credible candidates down ballot. The best example on this score is Kathleen Conti, who may be Colorado’s version of Christine O’Donnell, running to unseat incumbent Joe Rice in the south Denver suburbs.

House District 38 is the old stomping ground of Joe Stengel before his fall from grace. It’s a very Republican area that Rice won in 2006 because he’s probably one of the strongest Democrats you could run in that district: moderate, pro-business, with a stellar military record, including four tours in Iraq.

However, in an alleged “wave” year like 2010, if we believe half the hype, this district should’ve been an easy pick-up for the Republicans: provided, of course, they ran a semi-credible candidate.

But who did they get?

Conti famously posted on her website that she believes the “priority #1” of CBI should be to track down the invisible terrorist training camps lurking in Colorado’s mountains. She was a virtual nobody hanging out in the local Tea Party circuit, and judging from her spelling error-ridden website, wasn’t a very polished candidate.

And even weirder: Conti campaigns as a self-proclaimed small business owner, but she only registered her business with the state this October. So she was evidently lying about her “business,” as part of a bid to knock off the chair of the House Business Affairs Committee! Perhaps you’ve heard Conti tell her weird “small business” story about “chicken” she found on the side of the road and tried to sell to the Department of Corrections. I could have some details wrong, it was really hard to follow.

Were there really no legit small business owners living in Littleton? Any city council members? County party officers? Anybody? What the hell happened here?

Republicans will no doubt tell you that none of this matters, just like none of the criminal revelations about the rest of their slate matters in a wave year. GOPwarrior, a Republican commenter on this blog, likes to say that the GOP ‘could nominate Mickey Mouse and we would get Rep. Mouse.’

But if Republicans wake up Wednesday realizing they blew their races down the ticket as spectacularly as they did the top, they only have themselves to blame.