July 31, 2009 10:07 PM UTC

Penry Brushes Off "Candidate Pledge"

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• by: Colorado Pols

Something like that, as the Denver Post reports:

In 2006, then-state Rep. Josh Penry signed a pledge offered up by his Democratic state Senate opponent vowing not to seek higher office while holding the seat. Or perhaps it was a pledge to serve out his four-year term.

The pledge, signed during a Club 20 debate in Grand Junction, returned to the political discussion this month, as Sen. Penry, R-Grand Junction, launched his campaign for governor.

Trouble is, no one knows for sure what it said.

Penry said he pledged to serve out his four-year Senate term, and he’s doing exactly that.

He said the word on the campaign trail back then was that he wanted to use the seat as a springboard to challenge U.S. Rep. John Salazar for the 3rd Congressional District seat in 2008, and that’s why the pledge came up.

Penry said it is now being misconstrued to indicate that he vowed never to run for another office while in the Senate.

The pledge story resurfaced this week on the ColoradoPols and Colorado Independent blogs.

“This is total fiction from the same left-wing blogs that accused me of colluding with George W. Bush to cause this recession,” Penry said. “They make it up as they go.”

The Colorado Independent doesn’t know what he’s talking about:

In the latest twist, the Denver Post weighs in with an actual return call from Penry, who dubs us a “left-wing blog” producing “total fiction” like a story accusing him of conspiring with George Bush to cause the recession.

Don’t recall that piece … must have been on ColoradoPols.

Not that we’ve found. In fact we’re not really sure where Josh Penry got this idea at all–we’ve been praising his acknowledgement lately of GOP failures in the last few years, which would presumably include George W. Bush’s presidency, and noting the effective potential of that line of attack against his primary opponent Scott McInnis. We’re not at all sure how that translates into accusing Penry of “colluding with George W. Bush to cause this recession,” though honestly we don’t think bringing that up as laughable is really a good idea for any Republican–refutable or not.

To the original subject of all this, that hard-to-pin-down “candidate pledge” Penry was said to have committed to, the exact wording of which remains elusive–the Independent continues:

The source of the pledge offered at the Club 20 debate, Penry’s Democratic opponent Dana Barker, said he’s still trying to hunt down the original signed document. As he recalls, the wording may have been more about fulfilling the full four-year term, which Penry has said he will do even as he seeks the governor’s office in 2010. The intent of the pledge, though, according to Barker, was to elicit a promise from Penry not to run for a higher office and to give constituents in SD7 his undivided attention. [Pols emphasis]

To which the Post adds, just in case you were wondering how seriously Penry took any of this,

Penry said Wednesday he thinks he wrote a note on the pledge to the effect of “great prop” or “great gimmick.”

Note to future opponents: check what Penry writes on your debate pledge. Can you imagine what Barker could have done if he had just turned that pledge around to the audience and read aloud the words “nice gimmick?” That would have painted Penry as a smarmy little punk in 2006, and we’re not sure it looks much better for him in 2009 either. Wasn’t it enough to simply disagree on the unverifiable facts and move on? Why volunteer how you were a jerk about it too?