May 02, 2009 05:45 PM UTC

Confirmed: McInnis Fragged By Penry Supporters

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• by: Colorado Pols

Didn’t take long for the Grand Junction Sentinel to put it all together:

A voice-mail message left by Scott McInnis to someone he hoped would support his bid for governor was posted on a Web site operated by two Front Range residents who are supporting McInnis’ likely intraparty rival, Josh Penry.

McInnis and Penry, both Grand Junction Republicans, have voiced interest in running against Democrat incumbent Gov. Bill Ritter.

A Front Range political watchdog group, Colorado Ethics Watch, said it was investigating the voice mail as a possible violation of campaign laws.

The Web site on which the voice mail was posted, CompleteColorado.com, is owned by Todd Shepherd and Justin Longo, both of whom are listed on a Facebook page, “Draft Josh Penry for Colorado Governor.” [Pols emphasis]

Penry, a state senator from Grand Junction, is the minority leader in the party and previously worked for McInnis in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

Shepherd said he “absolutely cannot” discuss how he obtained the voice-mail message.

CompleteColorado.com has nothing to do with the Golden-based Independence Institute, where he is employed to research government misdeeds, [Pols emphasis] Shepherd said…

We’re not trying to excuse Scott McInnis’ stupidity (or culpability) in leaving the phone message in question. And it’s not much of a surprise to learn that the “leaking” was perpetrated by supporters of aspiring gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry. The source of the recording, as well as its nature, clearly signaled that this was a red-on-red hit–and Penry is the sole beneficiary. Still, we’re surprised at how quickly this got traced unmistakably back not just to Penry, but to the same brand of right-wing ideologues who helped shove McInnis out of Bob Schaffer’s way two years ago.

Think about that for a moment. We have been telling you for years how a ruthless and ideologically-driven faction of the Republican Party took power in Colorado, as it did nationally at around the same time, and ran that power straight into the ground over years of dominance. We’ve had a state government increasingly dominated by Democrats since 2004 as a direct result. When we say the reason Democrats have power today is their move to the pragmatic center while Republicans have run to the fringe right, abandoning the majority of voters to please an increasingly narrow base, we have years of history to point to.

And we have a solution for Republicans, for all the accusations made against us of being a partisan mouthpiece: stop electing boorish extremists. Start electing more Al Whites and Don Marosticas. For all of his ethics baggage, not to mention the amateurish mistakes that opened the door to the Penry camp’s attack this week, McInnis is another such moderate Republican–strictly on the issues, a much more electable candidate than Penry, like he was to Schaffer.

And look, folks. Look what they’re doing to him.