Posted on 09/15/2010 12:10:40 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial candidate keeps stumbling, and the short-term winner is GOP-turned-American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo.
A new Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday shows Tancredo, the bombastic former congressman known for his anti-immigration crusades, leading GOP nominee Dan Maes for the first time, 25 percent to 21 percent.
It’s a dramatic switch from late August, when the firm’s poll showed Maes leading Tancredo 24 percent to 14 percent.
But the long-term winner is the same: the Democratic nominee, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who earned 46 percent support. That’s up from 36 percent in late August.
The Maes-Tancredo reversal comes in the wake of revelations that Maes didn’t actually serve as an undercover cop in Kansas in the 1980s, as he had claimed on his website. The news, first reported in a Denver Post story, eventually prompted the paper’s editorial board to call on Maes to drop out of the race.
Tancredo quotes the paper in a hard-hitting ad out Tuesday featuring 83-year-old Freda Poundstone, a longtime Colorado political presence who in August claimed she gave Maes $300 in cash to help him pay his mortgage. Maes insists it was a campaign contribution.
Poundstone, billed in the ad as a former Maes supporter, sits in her living room and excoriates Maes for lying to her.
“Dan Maes not only conned me out of my money, he lied to me about his background, and he deceived my friends and myself about his conservative principles,” she says in the ad. “I’ve had so many people call me and ask, ‘What kind of a man would do that to an 83-year-old lady?’ and I don’t want that to happen to the voters of this state.”
Poundstone’s comments follow a stark black-and-white rendering of the Post’s judgment: “Dan Maes needs to drop out now.”
It’s a quick reversal of fortune for a candidate who won the primary in part because his rival, former Rep. Scott McInnis, also faced a late-breaking scandal: He plagiarized large swaths of material as a fellow for the Hasan Family Foundation and had to repay the $300,000 he took home as compensation.
Still, Maes has never been the GOP’s ideal candidate: He drew ridicule for comments equating Denver’s bike-sharing program to a socialist United Nations scheme.
Both candidates’ stumbles prompted Tancredo to jump into the race after neither Maes nor McInnis heeded his calls to drop out. “The two candidates vying for the Republican nomination have, in my opinion, lost any hope of carrying out a successful campaign,” he said in a July statement.
Colorado’s GOP establishment condemned Tancredo’s move, arguing it would cede the advantage to Hickenlooper.
Now if Maes would just drop and endorse Tancredo, we’d have a shot here. Difficult, but better than if they both keep in the race and let the worst option happen.
Someone better drop out or they’ll be stuck with a real nutjob.
Hickenlooper. If that’s not the name of a moonbat, I don’t know what is.
I’ve met Tom a couple of times, great guy hope he wins.
Please drop out Maes...
Tancredo is not pure as the snow either but who is...and better Maes than Tancredo dropping. Wish Tancredo had run in the primary (!!!???)
Highly doubtful.
Oh, how I wish the Colorado GOP could get its act together. In terms of finding good candidates, they've got a hideous track record over at least the last 10 years.
I was upset earlier as I saw Tancredo as a spoiler in an important race. (I have never been a big Tom Tancredo fan.)
The lies that Maes has been caught in reverses my opinion.
Maes needs to drop out of this race. His honesty and integrity has been called into question in a very real and very important way. I do not believe that he has enough time to correct this flaw in his character before the election, and I now believe that he can not break even a 25% mark once news of this embarassing lie sinks into the collective understanding of the electorate.
A simple withdrawl from the race and endorsement of Tom Tancredo will be enough, at this hour, to keep Hickenlooper from the Governor’s mansion.
They BOTH need to drop out.
I would expect that at some point Tancredo will be polling sufficiently higher than Maes that an avalance of Tancredo supporters who are currently being pressured to participate in the circling-of-wagons around Maes will come out of the closet.
I voted for Maes over McInnis in the primary, and was angry about it. I really wished I'd had a "none of the above" choice. Both are lying cheats, but Maes seemed marginally better. Or not. Maybe. Who knows? How do you define better when it comes to such things?
When Maes won, the state GOP enraged a lot of people (me included) when they immediately began facilitating meetings where Tancredo begged Maes to drop out of the race. The party elite can't be bothered to groom candidates who aren't huge public embarrassments, and then can't be bothered to abide by the decision of voters when things don't go their way.
Now there are ads all over TV paid for by Tancredo showing Maes stealing money from an elderly lady. We don't have cable and watch TV rarely, but I've seen this ad twice now in the last 2 days while making dinner.
Meanwhile, Hickenlooper is running cheerful, upbeat ads talking about how he isn't going to go negative, and about how he saved money as a business owner. He doesn't have to go negative. Tancredo and Maes are doing it for him. Hickenlooper can run ridiculously content-free ads because he isn't being challenged on anything.
Here is Tancredo's ad against Maes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgRw1276sqI
Here is Hickenlooper's ad about saving money: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4cObRqvcbU
Here is Hickenlooper's ad about running a clean campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yv_g7ZyADM
If Dan Maes is running ads, I haven't seen them.
I'd like Maes to drop out of his own accord, but don't see it happening. I'd like someone to start attacking Hickenlooper, but don't see that happening, either.
All I see happening is the state party taking a race they could have handily won and driving it into the ground.
Tancredo will not win...even is Maes drops out. All he does is help the Democrats.
Make that ‘no use crying over spilt milk’.
We're very pleased with Buck. He's run a great campaign so far. He seems to be making a favorable impression on a lot of people. My neighbors (who are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats) are voting for him! How neat is that?
So there are plenty of races featuring dedicated conservative Republicans. I urge you to donate you energy, time, and money to those candidates.
Excellent advice. We stopped donating to the GOP at all levels a while back, and now donate to candidates individually. We've donated to Buck and others and will do so again this month.
Bombastic!? Why, this must be a Politico article!
You can forget CO. It even reelected Gary Hartpence when Reagan won in 1980.
Voting in the primary was a real mess, wasn’t it? I actually voted for McInnis, not because I thought he was anything great or even good. I hoped that if he won, having been a “party man” the party would have enough sway on him to drop out, which would have gotten Tancredo out. I knew with Maes, he had nothing to lose and would never drop out. What a mess.
And, now to face the prospect of the Republican party being relegated to a 3rd party on all state races for the next several elections - just gives the dems a real advantage.
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