GOP= Lucy
Charlie=Conservatives
Posted on 08/02/2010 7:16:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the races for both governor and senator, the GOP is doing its best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
If Colorado is a bellwether of national political fortunes, as many believe, then Republicans will be . . . well, they’ll be screwed.
Unless some unlikely and unforeseen things happen, any chance of the GOP’s retaking the governor’s mansion in November was eradicated last Monday when erstwhile Republican Tom Tancredo announced that he would jump into the race on the Constitution party’s ticket. That party’s platform includes, among other, um, robust right-of-center positions, retaking the Panama Canal.
Tancredo had earlier issued an ultimatum to the ethically challenged Republican gubernatorial candidates, Dan Maes and Scott McInnis: If whichever of them won the August 10 primary was not, at that point, leading the Democratic candidate, Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, in the polls, he would step aside and let a GOP committee chose a stronger candidate. If the two did not accept Tancredo’s ultimatum —and they didn’t — then he would enter the race himself as a third-party candidate. Of course, by not waiting until the primary was decided to launch his own candidacy, Tancredo has, in all probability, ensured that no credible candidate would risk his or her reputation wading into a three-way race.
The road to Tancredo’s one-issue candidacy (the one issue being his ego) was paved by a tin-eared state GOP establishment that chose to bankroll a stale contender in a year begging for new faces and ideological earnestness. When one thinks of conservative renewal, one does not think of McInnis, a former six-term congressman whose lobbying, lawyering, and ethical tribulations (paying his wife for a campaign that did not exist, for instance) should have disqualified him long ago. Unsurprisingly, the most notable characteristic of McInnis’s candidacy has been his miraculous talent for generating absolutely no excitement among conservatives.
As if these inherent flaws weren’t enough, voters soon learned that McInnis had pocketed $300,000 for “musings” on water policy he had written for an ersatz think tank backed by Republican donors. By “written,” I mean plagiarized. And when McInnis attempted to shift culpability to an 82-year-old researcher — whom he hadn’t credited in the first place — it simply reinforced the perception that the Republican old guard was not only ideologically weak but corrupt as well.
Once the GOP establishment had scared off any inspiring contenders, the alternative came in the form of an unknown self-proclaimed business whiz named Dan Maes. Even before McInnis imploded, Maes had secured the top line on the primary ballot at the GOP assembly in May on the strength of the protest vote. But apparently, an unknown candidate isn’t by default a competent, chaste, or even conservative one. Maes is suspect on all three counts.
Though Maes’s pitch for office was rooted in his acumen on financial matters, it turns out he was pulling down less than the average journalist’s yearly pay — so, not good. Or put it this way: Through some dubious accounting (for which Maes paid the largest campaign-finance fine ever in Colorado), he put in for $42,000 in expenses, and that was his best payday in years.
Enter Tancredo. Exit Republican chances.
With a cache of impressive young conservative talent available in Colorado, it is difficult to comprehend how the GOP could have turned off the activist base so quickly. It takes a special kind of hubris to believe that everyone will always fall in line.
A similar dynamic seems to be at work in the Senate race. Many conservatives remain suspicious of Jane Norton — former lieutenant governor, supporter of the contentious Referendum C tax increase, and sister-in-law of super-lobbyist Charlie Black. But, unexpectedly, it is upstart candidate Ken Buck, supported by Jim DeMint and the tea party, who has really started to struggle.
Buck, the Weld County district attorney, has stumbled since becoming the frontrunner, facing his own ethics questions and making one unforced error after another. Earlier this summer, Buck let loose a clumsy joke about being a candidate without “high heels.” He was responding to Norton’s statement that he wasn’t “man enough” to do his own negative campaigning, relying instead on ads by independent groups. The innocuous jab was transformed by Norton into an effective — if unfair — campaign issue: “Ken Buck may think a woman’s place is in the house. We know a woman’s place is in the Senate.” (Oy vey.)
Then a tape emerged of Buck asking a Democratic operative if he could “tell those dumba**es at the tea party to stop asking questions about birth certificates [i.e., Obama’s] while I’m on the camera.” Right or wrong, the comment wasn’t helpful to Buck’s campaign.
Then again, despite perceptions, the Princeton-educated lawyer and former Justice Department prosecutor is often less reflexively tea party and more nuanced on issues than Norton. What he isn’t is hand-picked by the Republican establishment. That alone seems to be enough to hamstring a candidate in this state.
Either Norton or Buck still has a good shot at taking down whoever winds up being the Democratic candidate — the primary contest is down to mealy-mouthed incumbent senator Michael Bennet and progressive challenger Andrew Romanoff — but both have been needlessly battered.
The GOP started this election year with the clear upper hand in Colorado. But because of gratuitous infighting, dreadful party management, and incompetent candidates, it may end up losing two winnable races.
A bellwether? Probably not. A lesson? Yes: A dysfunctional relationship between grassroots conservatives and establishment Republicans can undo a sure thing in a hurry.
— David Harsanyi is a columnist for the Denver Post.
Who is this "Colorado God-squad"?
You’re an idiot.
I would venture to say that many in the Colorado GOP feel that they are entitled to their positions and entitled to hand out favors. I have experienced this personally. The party players expect the rest of the GOP voters to toe the line and pull the party lever no questions asked.
DeMint email today.
I have some very good news. A new Denver Post/9News poll shows Ken Buck leading Jane Norton 50 percent to 41 percent in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Colorado.
Mr. Buck did not look good on the FNC special on Sat.
Ms. Norton was very wooden and unappealing.
What is wrong with these people?
GOP= Lucy
Charlie=Conservatives
“The GOP started this election year with the clear upper hand in Colorado. But because of gratuitous infighting, dreadful party management, and incompetent candidates, it may end up losing two winnable races.”
Same thing happened in Illinois. Multiple conservative candidates running in the primaries, canceling each other out. Conservatives need to organize and get behind one candidate in the primary, where the ideological battles should be fought. Throwing third party candidates on the November ballot will only bring Dem victories.
LOL - perfect!
"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"
--Thomas Jefferson, The Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
Meet the New Boss, same as the Old Ba'al
--The Who?
"COMMERCE BETWEEN MASTER AND SLAVE IS DESPOTISM"
--(also) Thomas Jefferson
Dunno.
Seriously. I do not know.
McInnis stole 300,000 dollars by turning in someone else's written work as his own when the rules apparently clearly stated that the work was supposed to be that of the author.
When McInnis' lies were discovered, he chose to blame his 80+ year old research assistant (who had written the piece with the understanding that McInnis needed it for background research, not to get 300K) by sending the man an unsigned confession. The man was supposed to sign the confession and take the fall for McInnis.
Then it turns out that McInnis has plagiarized in the past, and has an excuse for everything, apologizing for nothing.
Maes portrays himself as a successful businessman when he may not be, and took 42K from his campaign as "reimbursement". He had to pay the largest campaign fine in state history.
Tom Tancredo is... Tom Tancredo. I doubt he could get himself elected, even if the other two dropped out today and John Hickenlooper started to self-destruct.
Speaking of John Hickenlooper... he's going to be a disaster if he's elected. He's a partisan hack who seems to think that there is no issue too big that better PR can't fix.
Hickenlooper is virulently anti-2A; he's a member of that idiot Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Hickenlooper presided over the city when the police department put politics above the welfare of citizens and decided against informing the public that the Gangster Disciples were specifically targeting white & Latino men downtown for violent attacks.
He used his pull as mayor to give the DNC host committee members tax-free gas at the 2008 Democratic Convention (held in Denver).
So, I can vote for McInnis, a thief and plagiarist who sees no problem whatsoever in stealing 300K and can't even be bothered to pretend to be embarrassed when he's caught. He doesn't even have an issue with blaming an elderly friend for his own bad deeds.
I can vote for Maes, who seems to see his campaign fund as an excuse not to get a job.
I've always been taught and taught my own children that stealing, mistreating the elderly and refusing to accept blame for your own misdeeds are sins. In Colorado, the GOP seems to see no problem with any of it.
I can vote for Tom Tancredo who has not a chance of winning and can't even be bothered to say why he'd like to be elected except that he's not either one of the first two. No sense in asking, either, because Tancredo can't hear your questions over the sound of how awesome he is.
Or I can sit back and do nothing and watch Hickenlooper get himself elected.
Suggestions are welcome.
Possibly.
I don't know if it helps or hurts that many of those folks are involved in their own little mini-dramas at the moment. Focus on the Family laid off a bunch of people last week. Since Dobson left, FotF is either supposed to be much more socially conservative or much less, depending on the day of the week or something.
Ted Haggard has organized a new church, which will surely make a lot of people uncomfortable...
Hard to say how all this will play out.
Should they, and their supporters, be prevented from voting?
Maes can't even run a minuscule business. Put him up against “businessman extrodinaire” and there is no comparison on the competence issue. McInnis.. ugh. But this is the vote we have to make....
As for Buck v. Norton. I'm afraid that Buck makes too many statements that he feels the need to back off of once the press gets a hold of it. I don't admire that. If you think Social Security is unconstitutional and you say so, don't back down when someone calls you on it. I predict he will end up being a Lindsey Graham type, always trying to please the libs to look like a nice guy.
Terrible choices, but choices we must make to the best of our ability.
Don’t know what to tell you. I won’t always vote for the Republican but I can’t think of a single race in the last 15 years or so where I would have been more happy with the Democrat. Voting third party would have been more about just making myself feel good rather than moving the country in a general “direction” and for me voting has to be a little more than just making me feel good about me.
Wow. Listen to yourself. We are now in the minority to the Leftists who make up only 20% of the US population BECAUSE THEY did the big tent thing and duped the independents into thinking they were mainstream. So you're pure in your little tent, so what - that's all about YOUR feelings. But nobody cares about your feelings because you are now controlled by Leftists who make up only 20% of the US population. I'd suggest going back in history a little further than just the last 20 years or so and think about a longer march rather than waiting for the Great Pumpkin conservative to rise from the pumpkin patch and lead you to the promised land.
That may be true. It only matters with respect to numbers and controlling an agenda. In a way I wonder if it would be better if the GOP did NOT control the House after 2010. Then the Dems won't have anybody to blame (the way Clinton did)... of course things will get plenty worse than ObamaCare and Government motors before it gets better if the GOP doesn't take control in 2010.
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