July 13, 2009 08:52 PM UTC

Jindal, Palin, Sanford...Penry?

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• by: Colorado Pols

From the Colorado Independent:

State Sen. Penry announced his candidacy to absolutely no one’s surprise Saturday. His campaign website is now live and includes video clips among the material that will help readers “learn more about Josh.” The campaign could have simply posted a tape of Penry declaring his candidacy. It chose instead to feature an interview he gave in March to 9News, in which the candidate talks about issues. That’s good. But did Penry really say that as governor he would have adopted the off-his-nut Mark Sanford approach and refused federal stimulus money for Colorado?

In the clip, then-senator now-candidate Penry admits he would have joined the ridiculous ranks of governors like Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Sarah Palin of Alaska who, like Sanford, acted to please Rush Limbaugh instead of their constituents when it came to the stimulus and were pilloried as hypocrites and fools when the realities of governance and recession economics exposed them as blinkered ideologists. Maybe worse than the fact of this admission is the fact that Penry is spotlighting it on his campaign-launch website…

How does he feel now about Gov. Ritter’s decision to accept the stimulus money? How does Penry feel about it today, as state fiscal stability hearings spiral into headscratching absurdities and hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars are the only thing keeping Colorado teachers, transportation workers, university faculty and staff and thousand[s] of others in their jobs…

It’s where the “Tea Party” rhetoric meets reality, folks. Josh Penry certainly wouldn’t be the only Republican to express misgivings about the stimulus bill, but to actually refuse the money outright as Governor would grant him membership in, well, a very small club.