1 Why is Maes doing so poorly? The Senate candidate is up by 20 in CO, right?

2 “We have spent money in Colorado. Past tense,” Barbour said.

--Technically, it's present perfect tense. . . .

3 I guess Hickenlooper is so popular that he's a slam dunk?

4 Kinda hard to support GOP candidates and pay for Mr What-up?'s trip to the south seas at the same time, guys?

The more the Repub establishment plays games, the less likely it is that they'll ever get a check from me. If they try hard enough, might even cost 'em some votes.

5
the reason Tancredo was so adamant was because he knew the other Republicans were shitbags

6

the reason Tancredo was so adamant was because he knew the other Republicans were shitbags

As much as I would have preferred Tancredo, for him to act like Lisa Murkowski only from the Right is no better.

I wll support the real GOP candidate over the RINO in the primary. Yes Mike Castle, that means Not You. But once the primary is over....

7

I think Maes has some 'issues' that can't be overcome.   Tancredo offered to step down if Maes did, so the RGA could get someone in there that had a chance to win, but Maes refused.   If this race goes to the dims, you can blame Maes maybe even more than Tancredo.

 

8

Maes is already broke, and has zero fundraising ability on his own.  That's why he was such a bad pick, even though he was able to charm the voters in the primary. 

Maes should drop out now.  And no, the answer isn't Tancredo - Fuck Tancredo.  Replace him with Jane Norton, and she could probably win the whole shootin' match.

9 Taxenlooper is not popular.  Only getting 41% in the polls, but leading because the other 2 are splitting the vote.

Tancredo idiotically jumped in, guaranteeing a Taxenlooper the win.  Tancredo said he would get out if Maes dropped out then reneged.  Maes pulled stupid crap claiming military or police type service he didn't have, plus there was some controversy of $300 gift/loan/campaign contribution from so lady, that Maes gave back but by that time he was savaged in the press.

In short, its a cluster.

10 The Republicans are doing poorly because Tancredo entered the race and is splitting their vote.

Now we have Barbour telling him to get out. There is something going on there. And Barbour is not the typical GOP leadership squish either.

11 Something else of note in CO according to Ras, CO has the highest participation in the Tea Party of any State and they are not happy with either Party.

12 Maes is a fraud, he's Christine O'Donnell if Christine O'Donnell actually wins the DE-SEN nomination.  He's had major legal troubles recently -- paid a massive $15,000 fine to the FEC for campaign violations -- and he's been proven to be a serial fabricator about his supposed past as an "undercover police officer" in Kansas.  Maes is radioactive, and even though I think Tom Tancredo is a single-issue immigration kook he's actually the only one behaving honorably here, staying in the race in order to provide a semi-respectable haven for GOP protest voters.  Maes simply cannot be allowed to become governor, Republican/Tea Partier or not -- he's the nearest thing the GOP has this cycle to an out-and-out political grifter, next to Christine O'Donnell.

The question now becomes whether Hickenlooper's upcoming blowout is going to drag on Ken Buck in the Senate race, or keep Ed Perlmutter afloat in CO-7.

13
yeah, it's all Tancredo's fault the other guy is a shitbag.

Tancredo is sitting at home right now saying I toldya so.

14 Maes is an outsider. No one thought he would win the nomination. He is a businessman and inexperienced with politics. He made an error on campaign finance by taking a $300 donation and misclassifiying it. He was fined and he paid it back. Now some are claiming he lied on his resume. He claimed to have been an undercover informant for the Kansas Bureau of Investigations while he was a police officer in Liberal, Kansas almost 30 years ago. He claims he did not lie and said last Friday that he has requested his HR file. Some claim he said he worked for KBI but Maes never said that. He only said he was involved as an officer in Kansas. Most of us Coloradans are dumb-founded by the complete abandonment of Maes. Maes is a Tea-partier and not GOP. We don't quite see what the big deal is and why anything about him would deserve the treatment he is getting. I actually think he could win against Hick if Tancredo had not gotten in the race but with Tank in the race, NO GOP would win. So really, in alot of us humble Coloradans viewpoint, Tank is the problem, not Maes. Hickenlooper isn't popular state-wide and has destroyed the Denver job market. He is a likeable guy but I don't know anyone stating they will vote for him outside of Boulder. Tancredo is a joke. He voted for TARP, he basically voted present on the auto-bailouts, he loves his earmarks, but he is against illegal immigration. He is a social conservative but fiscal liberal, LOL. The exact opposite of Colorado. Plus, he is an egomaniac and setting a bad precident for GOP losers. He kicked the Constitutional candidate off the ticket and changed his party from GOP to Constitutional just so he could run. He should have entered the GOP primary but he knew he would lose. Yep, CO is a mess.

15 If that is the real reason, then it is pretty much the only sensible way to spend limited assets.  Sucks to be the guy getting told 'no' but that's the way it is.

16 I don't think the RGA is the same as the RNC, Mr.Scribbler.

17

After the primary, Tancredo was still willing to drop out, if Maes would, so the Repubs could appoint a viable candidate.   The only reason Tancredo got in was to try to force Maes out, because Maes flat out sucks.   Whether Tancredo gets out or not Maes cannot win.   If he actually gave a shit about winning the seat for the Repubs, he'd drop out and give them a chance to get someone that had a chance to win.

 

18 The reason why this is such a ball-buster in particular is because Colorado (as those morons who live there may well know) is pretty much Ground Zero for the post-2008 Tea Party backlash: historically Republican Colorado voters who had been gently coaxed over the years into voting Democrat and finally for Obama, now enraged at what they were getting.  Every forecast suggests that the state-level GOP is on path to wipe out all the steady gains Dems had made in the statehouse over the last decade in one fell swoop.  A massive GOP wave was building, and then...

...this.  This stupid clusterfuck at the top of the ticket.  I suspect it won't ultimately harm the CO-GOP that much: a lot of Republicans in Colorado are kinda-sorta okay with John Hickenlooper in the first place, as he's a remarkably likeable Democratic candidate even in this toxic environment, and I foresee a whole shitton of ticket-splitting. 

Nobody's talking about the state houses, by the way.  The Republicans are going to positively sodomize the Democrats on a local level this year, not just the gubernatorial races but the delegate/senate races...just in time for drawing up redistricting maps!

19 Wait a minute. The party is bailing on the guy who won the primary?  Remember when people freaked about the NRSC heading up to Alaska, and were told that they were paranoid? And might this be what is fueling Murkowski's bid to stay alive?

20 At least Haleys' got a pair. Obama would waffle on this for weeks.

21

Firelight, since you're in CO, you know better than we do, so I will shut up, now.   Maybe, they're trying to do to Maes what they're trying to do to other tea party candidates.   I don't know, so....well, I'll shut up.

 

22 yeah, it's all Tancredo's fault the other guy is a shitbag.

Not his fault, no, but Tancredo knows better to go third party.  Third parties are for losers.  It would be one thing 4 years ago, or 4 years from now, but in a redistricting year, absolutely stupid. This is about Tancredo's ego.  If Tancredo wanted to run, he could have done it in the primary and he probably would have won.  Now he is just grandstanding because he supported the other guy that got beat.

23 Wait a minute. The party is bailing on the guy who won the primary?  Remember when people freaked about the NRSC heading up to Alaska, and were told that they were paranoid? And might this be what is fueling Murkowski's bid to stay alive?

The NRSC and the RGA are very different beasts.  It really makes little sense to compare their policies.  And Maes is, quite literally, a shady drifter more than he is a serious candidate for Senate (this is Scott McInnis's fault for being a plagiarizing schmuck, FWIW...and Dick Wadhams for vetting these people).  The RGA wanted him to drop out to appoint a new candidate (Tancredo promised to drop out too in that situation).  Maes refused, so screw him.

24 Here's what happened.

Everybody was pretty psyched to have Josh Penry, our young senate minority leader, as our gubernatorial nominee.

The Party had other ideas, and had him step out of the race in favor of party insider Scott McInnis.

Maes came out of nowhere and was never a threat to win anything, until it turned out McInnis was a filthy plagiarist.

GOP voters had no one BUT Maes to vote for.

25 Wait a minute. The party is bailing on the guy who won the primary?  Remember when people freaked about the NRSC heading up to Alaska, and were told that they were paranoid? And might this be what is fueling Murkowski's bid to stay alive?

The NRSC and the RGA are very different beasts.  It really makes little sense to compare their policies.  And Maes is, quite literally, a shady drifter more than he is a serious candidate for Senate (this is Scott McInnis's fault for being a plagiarizing schmuck, FWIW...and Dick Wadhams for vetting these people).  The RGA wanted him to drop out to appoint a new candidate (Tancredo promised to drop out too in that situation).  Maes refused, so screw him.

Posted by: Jeff B.

I can certainly believe what you say about Maes. And I know that the two organizations are different. But do you think that this might possibly be an option playing out in Murkowski's mind? I have the incumbency, I have the seniority, and supposedly people are begging me to stay in. The RGA is basically cajoling CO to reshuffle the deck, and probably has good reasons to do so. But might not she be looking to force the same thing?

26 Here's what happened.

Everybody was pretty psyched to have Josh Penry, our young senate minority leader, as our gubernatorial nominee.

The Party had other ideas, and had him step out of the race in favor of party insider Scott McInnis.

Maes came out of nowhere and was never a threat to win anything, until it turned out McInnis was a filthy plagiarist.

GOP voters had no one BUT Maes to vote for.

Posted by: Hey.Wheres.Barry

 

Ah. The old party 'double shuffle' where you leave the joker in the deck. We're having a case of that here in Delaware.

27 It looks like CO is Exhibit A for how easily the GOP can step on its own nuts even when they're in an ideal situation.

28

It sounds to me, quite frankly, that Tancredo has some kind of hard-on for Maes.  Maes may not be the best candidate in the world, but it does not sound like he has done anything that outrageous that would be a bar to being elected.  If Tancredo were out of the race, then this would be an even race. 

So it sounds to me like the fault lies primarily with Tancredo.  I think the RGA should not give up so easily on this either.

29 Damn Colorado GOP, you guys really fucked this one up.

30

Tancredo only stepped in to force Maes to step down after getting the nomination.  Tom said if Maes' resigned the nomination, he would step out too.  He did this so a real viable candidate could step forward and take Maes' place. 

#24 does a good job of telling the sad tale of how we got here.  It is now known that Maes has ethics violations and embelished his record.  Adding to the pile on are some very prominent CO politicians withdrawing their endoresments.

As excited as I am for November, the above makes for a daily dose of depression coming out of the AM dial on the drive time home.  Everyday something worse about Maes is discovered. 

31 This could still be solved.  Maes would have to drop out, whereby the GOP could appoint someone, but he is in a mexican standoff with Tancredo, who has said he won't drop out now even if Maes leaves.  But if they both would drop out, and endorsed a new GOP pick, Taxenlooper would be toast.

And no, Taxenlooper will not be a DINO, he will be beholden to the public employees union like all the demorats.

32 Posted by: Monkeytoe at September 08, 2010 04:54 PM (sOx93)

--Okay, yours is the second post I've read today on AoS using "X has a hard-on for Y" in the opposite sense of the traditional meaning.

Did I miss the new AoS stylebook?

33 Maes was accused of puffing up his mileage reimbursements out of the campaign funds this summer. He opted to pay a 25K fine (comes out of campaign funds not his pocket, rather than fight, provide documentation that he had driven the miles for the campaign) I have honestly not heard a peep of campaigning from him, perhaps his campaign is broke after paying the FEC fines. I even heard on radio about a week ago that Maes had not even picked a campaign manager. IMO the RGA is smart to not spend on this race. In CO the state legislature has quite a lot of the power over budget etc anyway so if we get the legislative seats that is what will matter. Everyone expected McInnis to win the primary but he had some weird deal with taking a large sum of money from someone to write a report on water law issues and then that report did not properly credit sources and McInnis was accused of plagarism. Its a weird governors race here to be sure --the state GOP probably should have forced both Maes and McInnis out before the primary but since they did not I don't think there is much they can ethically, perhaps even legally do now.

34 Its a weird governors race here to be sure --the state GOP probably should have forced both Maes and McInnis out before the primary but since they did not I don't think there is much they can ethically, perhaps even legally do now.

Posted by: PaleRider

Sorry guys, but the SC governors race has this one beat. That one had alledged sex.

35 Whether Tancredo gets out or not Maes cannot win.   If he actually gave a shit about winning the seat for the Repubs, he'd drop out and give them a chance to get someone that had a chance to win.

I don't buy this at all.  And I'm not in Colorado, but I find this to be a classic case study in what Republicans should never do to one another, anywhere. 

I don't care what Maes' issues are; he's the nominee.  Colorado voters (don't know whether CO's primaries are open or closed) made their choice, and they chose him; there may have been no good options for them, but they chose Maes fair and square.  Flawed or not, he's the nominee; the polling has suggested he CAN win a two-man race; and there's no reason in the world for him to drop out.

It is NOT up to Tom Fucking Tancredo to come along and take it upon himself to "save the day" for the Republicans by concocting a egotistical shithead plan in which he serves as a one-man nominating committee, creating the conditions for a guaranteed Democrat win unless the Republicans throw out the voters' duly nominated candidate and substitute someone HE finds to be acceptable.

Tancredo is another Lisa Murkowski and should have the GOP door slammed shut in his face if he ever again tries to open it.

36 As big a clusterfuck as this is, it still pales in comparison to the fact that the Republicans couldn't mount a decent challenge to Kristen Gillibrand in New York. 

That was a seat that either Rudy, or Pateki could have had walking away this year.

37

But its too late for Maes to drop out now, the secretary of state certified the balllots and they have gone out for printing.  Dan Maes is basically Ted Haggard without the meth and gay masseuse problems. Meaning there is something shady and dishonest about him. He claimed to be a successful buisness owner when he was really a struggling salesman. He claimed to be an under cover sop when he was a beat cop in Liberal, Kansas, he took a $300 cash gift to pay his mortgage and got caught.

In a year that should be a slam dunk the Colorado GOP picked a terrible candidate for governor, and an even bigger idiot for senate, that is going to lose to an Obama rubber stamp appointment Michael Bennett.  Michale Bennet is 3 points ahead of Buck. WTF is wrong with you tea partiers? You've given us unelectable candidates when there were good mainstream conservatives like Jane Norton and Josh Penry that would have been shoe ins.

38 War - you nailed it.  Dems will rally around a candidate with bigger problems , yes they have help from the media, but the GOP should have stepped up to his defense.  They have completely abandoned him.

39 It's too bad Mike Castle isn't available.

40 when there were good mainstream conservatives like Jane Norton

She is in no way a good mainstream conservative.  And Buck will win.

41 Sorry guys, but the SC governors race has this one beat. That one had alledged sex.

That was the primary. The actual governor's race has dulled down to the standard Haley "here's my position" and the MFM and the Dem accusing her of all kinds of shit in the papers.

Haley will win easily.

42 There are a lot of kooky things about Maesm but the oddest was the 80 year old activist lady who he took down to the bank so she could withdraw what he claims was $300 in cash.  At the time she was a supporter, but she turned on him.  She will not say the exact amount, but implies it was a lot more than $300.  Maes never declared it, and after the scandal broke he tried slipping a strange looking unsigned check into her purse to "pay her back".  I mean this is truly kooky stuff.

Just go download some of the Caplis and Silverman podcasts off of Khow.com to get a feel for just how weird it is.  He is political poison now, and made a very stupid and self-serving decision to stay in.

Now HookaLipper, the guy who warned nobody when gangs were attacking whites because they were white last summer is going to win.

43

logprof,

The "hard on" as a term of antagonism toward someone is slightly more prevalent in the military.  Hence, this being a SMRT military blog, either use is acceptable.

44

PA politics is pretty whitebread in comparison. All we had was a hundred year Dem-Rep-Dem senator who got trounced by a carpetbagging Admiral who used our congressional district as the springboard for his Big Draw on the Taxpayer Tit effort.

 

45 logprof,

The "hard on" as a term of antagonism toward someone is slightly more prevalent in the military.  Hence, this being a SMRT military blog, either use is acceptable.

Posted by: s'moron at September 08, 2010 05:24 PM (UaxA0)

--Ah.  I can understand, but it's just weird that I had never seen that usage before today.

46 38 War - you nailed it.  Dems will rally around a candidate with bigger problems , yes they have help from the media, but the GOP should have stepped up to his defense.  They have completely abandoned him.

Richard "Iron Dick" Blumenthal lied about serving in Vietnam, for God's sake, a concoction that at least to my mind is, y'know, kinda MORE loathsome than Maes' secret-agent fantasies in Kansas.  But the Democrat Party rallied around him, there was never even a hint of Tancredo-style bullshit from any Concerned Democrat in Connecticut, and Iron Dick has led in every poll ever since.  That race has gotten closer but he's still the favorite.

They don't call us the Stupid Party for nothing.  And this right before redistricting, too.

47

Re: "X has a hardon for Y" - Basically mens that X wants to fuck Y

Now, that can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing.

48 means...it means X wants to fuck Y

49 If Maes drops out now, his name is still on the ballot. Tancredo got in the race because of his ego. He gave a high noon ultimatum to both Maes & McInnis to get out. Tank said he would not jump in if a polled showed one of the candidates beating Hick. Well, there was such a poll and Tank reneged. Then after Maes won, Tank said he would drop out if Maes did. Well, he announced the day before the deadline that even if Maes did drop out Tank was having too much fun and he would stay in. I'm sure Wadham's wasn't pleased. Ideally, Maes would have dropped out and Jane Norton would have been put in his place but that didn't happen. Having said all that, the state GOP could have embraced Maes, flaws and all, and simply promoted him as a regular Joe who is a small business owner and inexperienced in politics but a sharp guy. They could have embraced the Tea Party and help mold the message. They would have won but instead they did exactly what they should not have done. And Yes, I think Murkowski got her idea from Tank and Crist.

50 I don't know what's going on in Colorado, but I trust Barbour does, so I'll support whatever he's doing.

51

Dan Maes is in full meltdown. Not only does he continue to act dodgy about his tax returns it is now being claimed by a very credible lady, Freda Poundstone, that she gave Maes $3,000 in cash at Maes' request. Maes insists it was only $300 but the cash reporting limit in CO is $100. Maes never reported the contribution.

 

Worse still Mrs. Poundstone alleges the money was for personal expenses.

 

Mrs. Poundstone confronted Maes at a public forum and Maes left but not before he slipped her a check for $300 that was written out in 2 different color inks in 2 different hand-writings and the check wasn't even signed and no memo was filled-out.

 

But wait, it gets worse.

 

The name on the account is "Dan Maes for Governor" but that is not the name of Maes' campaign registered with the CO SoS. The registered committee is "Friends of Dan Maes for Governor." Maes has openly admitted to giving Mrs. Poundstone the check.

 

Speculation runs rampant as to whether Maes was trying to get Mrs. Poundstone to pass a bad check so as to discredit her.

 

Meanwhile, on the other side we learn Hickenlooper co-founded The Chinook Fund, a group that passes money to groups like ACORN, Recreate68, Transform Columbus Day, Cop Watch and other extreme leftists. The Denver mayor is already sensitive about his praise of Van Jones. Ad in FastTrack, a $50 million public transportation boondoggle that funneled contracts to Siemens after they donated $100k to the principles in exchange for winning contracts worth tens of millions to build rail cars.

 

I was against Tancredo for the same reason I'm against Murkowski going libertarian in AK: it splits the vote. But we are in bad shape here in CO and with the electoral climate being what it is there is no reason Maes can't be pushed down into irrelevance.

52

Barbour is right.  The Colorado GOP screwed the pooch on this big-time.  We could have retaken the Governorship.  The Dem candidate is Denver Mayor Hickenlooper, and he is not that strong of a state-wide candidate. 

But the primary race became a two-man show between former Rep. Scott McInnis and Dan Maes.  Then it came out that McInnis plagiarized large parts of a series of articles on water issues that he wrote for a charitable foundation, for which he received $300,000.  He blamed it on an 80 yera-old (now ex-) friend, and had is lawyers clumsily try to talk the guy into signing a statement taking responsibility.  Then the foundation turned on him and demanded its money back.  McInnis cratered and left the door open for Maes. 

Maes, however, is a walking disaster.  He is flat broke, was a poor businessman, fired from a police force, lied about working undercover, took $300 from a supporter to pay hi smortgage, then called it a campaign contribution, then returned it but failed to sign the check, and so on. 

Tancredo saw the clusterfuck looming on the horizon, so shortly before the Republican primary, he declared the race to be lost regardless of which of the two losers on the ticket was nominated, threatened to jump in as a third party candidate if they didn't both commit to drop out so the party could appoint a credible candidate.  Didn't happen. 

So....we nominated Maes at the primary.  Then more stuff came out about him, and every major endorsement he ever had said adios and called for him to drop out.  (One local columnist recently joked that Maes has to stay in the race as the best chance he has of earning a steady paycheck.  Ouch, but not far off the mark.)  Plus we have Tancredo in the race drawing off votes from Maes on the right.

Maes is toast.  Hickenlooper will win unless he gets caught in bed with a live boy and a dead girl.

Spending money on this race would be a waste. 

53
Well it's true.  for the most part, only democrats run ads in the state of CO.


There is no money here. ... and guess what - our shitty shitty shitty bullshit liar left-wing democrat candidates might actually win.  How sad is that?

54 Maes was talking on Denver's KHOW radio when Mrs Poundstone came on the phone and gave her side of the story of the $300+ personal gift for his mortgage. Maes insists it a political donation. She says it was for his house payment. He hung up abruptly since he was caught in his lie. He's an unsuccessful business owner who can't afford his $3,300 monthly mortgage payments, he's unemployed, can't run a political campaign, doesn't have a campaign manager, has zero money coming in, is a pariah among leading Colorado republican elites (Hank Brown, Wayne Allard, etc) and now, he won't talk to half the Denver media for fear they'll ask questions about his thin resume.

Denver Mayor Hickenpooper is to the LEFT of Barack Insane Obama and will try to make Colorado a sanctuary state. (A republican state house could stop that.) Hick's a self-made millionaire (a good thing), but he gives a lot of money to far left organizations.

Maes can't run Colorado's $17 billion state budget - he's a fraud.

Tancredo? He doesn't even WANT the governor's job and has said so.

Major cluster here in Colorado. Penry would have been a dream candidate.

55 Do not despair -- I think Ken Buck is going to take Mike Bennet like in a Deliverance out-take.

56
The Republicans in CO have no idea how to strategize.

McInnis should have never been in the race.
We should be looking at a Josh Penry or a Jane Norton for Governor.

57
60 bohemo -

I missed that on KHOW.  But you nailed it.

I did listen to some of the other stuff regarding Perlmutter's(D) standard left-wing bullshit admission that the government deserves everyone's money after they die.
How dare anyone successful have the ability to give it to the people they want.
Big daddy commie government knows best!  Screw you, America.  Screw you farmers and small business owners.  The government gets to steal from you when you die.
Perlmutter is a cookie cutter leftist ass.

(never mind that these people have paid taxes to the government all of their lives)

58

Dan Maes won the GOP nomination primarily because Scott McInnis screwed up with the plagairism thing, and he was the "grass roots" alternative. However, Maes is being cast as incompetent and that's probably true. No one knew a thing about him when he won. Hickenlooper is popular with Dems and Independents (the ultimate Mr. Nice Guy), but he's pulling only 41% on the strength that he's a Democrat in 2010 and Establishment. The campaigning has not begun in earnest yet, and he'll pull farther ahead once it does.

Tancredo decided to run as a write-in once he saw that Maes didn't have a chance of winning. Sure, he's splitting the vote, but Maes wouldn't win anyway. I predict he'll come in second, and Maes a distant third. The GOP is pissed with Tancredo, but it's their own damn fault for running two pathetic candidates in the primary, not leaving us with a good choice.

For the record, Tancredo, while controversial, is rather popular in Colorado, especially the densely populated 6th district. The vast majority of Americans agree with his stance on immigration, even if they won't admit it out loud. He's rough around the edges, but he always won his races for the House by huge margins. The Denver and Boulder districts are probably enough to keep him out, though. Besides, all the Dems will do is brand him as a racist and that could be enough.

59 I live in Colorado. The more you learn about Maes the worse he appears. He has issues with the truth, and a spotty background. The guy has no business being governor. Tancredo is splitting the vote and if they both stay in, Hickenlooper will be governor. That really is better than having a fraud like Maes as governor. This all might actually benefit the Colorado Republican party in the future in cleaning out the current leadership and requiring them to do a better vetting process for prospective candidates. Hickenlooper is a bit of a tool, and I doubt will be very successful as gov, further damaging the Dem brand in Colorado.

60 This shit ain't checkers - it's chess.

61 I do live in Colorado, and if I may I'd like to put my $.02 in. First, in the name of transparency, I supported Scott McInnis. This was because I have known him since before he first was elected to Congress. This does not mean I always agreed with him, and in fact we have had a few disagreements over policy; some loud and public. But while I did not always agree with him, I felt I knew the person he was and trusted him; especially knowing how he was as a Congress-critter. Incidentally #35 The War Between the Undead States: we do have closed primaries. That said, I was not heartbroken when Maes won. He is endorsed by the TEA Party, and I trust them far more than I do the Republican Party of Colorado. And I think the reaction of the Republican Party bears this out. The Institutional Republican Party, both the national and most especially the Colorado Republican Party are loyal primarily to themselves as part of Rasmussen's "Political Class" in alliance with the Democrats. They hate and fear their Conservative base, and now the TEA Party too whether Republican or not. We have seen Michael Steele do a credible imitation of a Bonobo monkey attempting a liason with a football every time he opens his mouth. We have seen both the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and the Republican Senate Campaign make the deliberate choices repeatedly to support RINO and DIABLO candidates during the primary processes and fight tooth and nail against candidates who have the support of the Base and the TEA Party. Now, we have the Republican Governors Assn. taking after a TEA Party candidate who won the Republican primary. Keep in mind that the Republican Party in Colorado really is not Republican and hates the Base. They have history of deliberately losing races to keep Conservatives out. Our last Republican governor was Bill Owens. He reached across the aisle so many times that his right arm is a foot and a half longer than his left. He deliberately appointed Democrats to the courts and to his cabinet. When the cabinet appointments left the cabinet to run in elections, he supported them over Republicans. He turned his back on the Second Amendment community, protected judges who protected cop killers [happened in my county to one of my brothers in a different shade of blue], backed every attempt by the Democrats to pass referenda to get around our Taxpayer Bill of Rights, and eventually helped the Democrats pass a "holiday" from our constitutional requirement that voters approve increases in taxes and spending. And boy have the taxes and fees gone up [while jobs have fled]. In March 2004 [just before precinct caucuses] US Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell announced that he had changed his mind and would not run for re-election. This was done as a deliberate blow to the Republicans, because he was a true RINO, changing party to Republican after the 1994 elections. This threw Colorado Republican politics into chaos, as it is the norm to be setting up at least a year before running. At that time, we had a number of Conservative Republican members of Congress and the Legislature. Governor Owens and the state Republican Party announced that if a Conservative won the nomination, the state party would neither work for nor fund their election campaign at all. After pulling up empty suit after empty suit, and having them all drop out; Governor Owens [and the Party leadership] finally accepted that former Congressman Dan Schaffer [a Conservative] would run. They scheduled a "Unity Rally" on the steps of the state Capitol; supposedly with the Governor, the Party Leadership, the Conservatives who led the legislature, and Dan Schaffer. When the rally was to start, there was no sign of Owens or any of the Party leadership. The Conservatives were left literally standing in the rain on the Capitol steps. One of them was the Speaker of the House who happened to be my Rep. Finally, a reporter told them that Owens was having a press conference across town announcing that overnight he had convinced Coors Brewery owner Pete Coors to run, and he was backing him. The Coors family is so hated by the labor movement that it is guaranteed to unite the entire Democrat party against any of them. Literally, his only signature issue was to lower the legal drinking age to 18. And, incidentally he was busted for DUI during the campaign. We have precinct caucuses, that choose delegates to higher assemblies, including eventually the state convention where statewide candidates get places on the primary ballot. Schaffer kicked butt and did not even bother with names. At the State Convention, it was a sea of Schaffer delegates. There were barely any Coors people visible. I normally go to State, but that year I had a family obligation that kept me from going, but I know many of those who went from my county. I trust their reports. Normally, it takes about 45 minutes to an hour and a half to count the ballots for each statewide office. I've been there, and watched it. It took that length of time for all of the statewide offices except for Senate, which was the last one on the agenda. That vote took over 8 hours to "count". There were irregularities as far as the number of hands each ballot had to go through. They sent people home [people had to leave to go home and take care of their kids anyway] before the ballot was announced. Miribile Dictu, the next day it was announced that by a few ballots, Coors had won a spot on the Primary ballot. The state party paid for a massive Primary campaign for Coors. He won. And got destroyed in the General. The Colorado Republican Party was willing to lose a US Senate seat to keep a Conservative Republican out of office. I suspect something similar is happening at the Governor's level. It is telling that the Party wants to substitute Gale Norton on the ticket. Gale Norton LOST the Senate primary against Ken Buck [a TEA Party candidate] not long ago. She was sponsored for her appointment as George Bush's Secretary of the Interior by .... Democrat Ken Salazar [Obama's current Secretary of the Interior and former Democrat Senator (who beat Coors)]. She was involved in the Jack Abramoff payoff scandals and investigated, although they never proved that the $225,000 contribution to her environmental PAC bought influence. The leadership of the National and Colorado Republican parties give every sign that they are willing to either elect a Democrat as Governor, or a tainted RINO party apparatchnik rather than a candidate chosen by Republican voters to stand up against the Political Class. So be it. If the country is to be saved, we have to use the Republican Party as the vehicle for the salvation this election. The question is, who is driving that vehicle? Patriots have always known that we are facing a two front war. No more money to the Republican Party, just to Patriot candidates; be they TEA Party or Conservative Republicans. There is a reason that the Republican party coffers are empty. They cannot declare war on the American people and expect them to keep paying the bills for the attacks. I apologize for the length of this. But most of the Morons don't have the context of what has been happening here in Colorado. Subotai Bahadur

62

Subotai, I agree with you, for the most part, about our state's Republicans.  They have shown a tremendous ability for one thing: running crappy gubernatorial candidates and being generally clueless, and testicle-less, in most other respects.

Oh, how I wish Josh Penry hadn't deferred to his former boss.  If he was in this race, I think he'd be a virtual lock.  But we're stuck with Maes - and stuck is the right word.  All the ineptitude and jackassedness of the state boys aside, Maes is a horrible candidate.  He's a liar and he doesn't inspire trust or confidence.  Had McInnis not been stupid enough to do what he did, and had the Hasan family not thrown their usual hissy fit when they don't get what they want (i.e., McInnis' endorsement of their court jester son as a state treasurer candidate) AND had the Denver Post not vomited the whole story just before the primary - such a coincidence! - Maes would be history.  But he isn't - Republican control of the governorship is. 

Tancredo may yet pull this off; I don't know.  At this point, my primary concern is getting conservatives elected to the state legislature so Hickenlooper, if he does manage to slide into office, has a brick wall facing him when he goes after us for tax increases.  Then the real conservatives need to wipe the slate clean and start finding REAL candidates, with a whole lot of input from the people they're supposed to represent.

63 Yeah, Maes lost me when he claimed to be a "workout" artist for stressed businesses.  Turns out he ran a two-bit "debt counseling" outfit and, in the process, starved because he could not make a go of it. He won't release his tax returns because it will probably expose the lie that his is a "successful businessman."  Every respectable Republican in the state has withdrawn his/her endorsement.  That includes Hank Brown, one of the most beloved politicians in Colorado history.  In my opinion he has proven to be dishonorable and should have been vetted more heavily before the convention.  He probably got a pass because he was not on anyone's radar, and the nomination was Scott McInnis' to lose.  Sad thing is most insiders knew of McInnis' vulnerabilities, but he was their guy, and party loyalty trumped smart politics. I cannot believe Republicans gave this one away. 

64 Tom Tancredo is polling in the double-digits as an independent, has pretty much universal name recognition, probably has significant tea party support, and has access to a national donor list.

Support Tancredo.  He sure as hell isn't a RINO.

65 According to HuffPo (I won't give them a link here), Tancredo is out-fundraising Maes four-to-one.

He can win, guys. It's a long shot, sure, but Maes is a sure loser.

66

Sounds like the best choice for gov. in Colorado is "no choice".

 

67 I know nothing of Maes, but I know that Haley Barbour used KELO against small private land owners in Miss, in behalf of big business, for the sake of greater tax revenues, after Katrina.

I don't suffer those who support Fiefdom.

I'll never vote for Haley Barbour for anything at all.

68
got a left-wing link, rose?

69 McInnis and Maes are Republican examples illustrating why Colorado voters "turned purple".

I'll be voting for one lonely "D" this year.
Hickenlooper is likeably slimy, but you can't prove he's a crook.

Ya gotta love having clear cut choices like that.

70

I don't have time to wade through all of these comments, but based on the first 30 or so it seems nobody has any idea what's going on in Colorado.  I live there, so let me put you some knowledge.

Back in 2009, there were three GOP candidates for governor.  Scott McInnis, a former congressman who had a reputation as a RINO but was backed by most of the state's Republican kingmakers; Josh Penry, a young guy (maybe 35?) who was state senate minority leader and had the backing of a lot of the state's conservatives; and some asshat named Dan Maes that no one had ever heard of but was billing himself as a successful businessman.

Penry unexpectedly dropped out some time around New Years or a little before, surprising a ton of folks and pretty much handing the nomination to McInnis.  The rumor was that the rich kingmaker types had a meeting with Penry where they vowed to fund 527s that would ruin him.  And, hey, Penry was young and charismatic and had a good future as a rising star of the party, so why not drop out now and wait his turn?  So he did.

Fast forward to spring/summer 2010.  In between retiring from congress (in '04 or '06 or whenever it was), McInnis had "earned" a fellowship from a foundation funded by a rich Republican family in the state (really, it was just part of the politician full employment act, so he wouldn't have to get a real job).  $300k to write a couple articles on water law.  Yeah, 300 THOUSAND DOLLARS.  The pay was certainly in the silly, borderline bribery range that pretty much every politician gets after leaving office, but it all seemed on the up and up other than that.  Then someone actually read the articles.  And portions of them were plagarized.  And not just from some joe on the street, but from a guy who is now a state supreme court justice.  Well, McInnis starts spinning, deflecting, doing everything he can to avoid admitting he has no character.  Even tries to blame it on a research assistant before finally admitting he's a plagarist.

Dan Maes at this point is having his own problems.  He's been cited and/or fined for campaign violations so many times it makes you wonder whether he can balance his own check book.  Also, "successful businessman Dan Maes" turns out to be not so successful after all, as his tax returns indicate the last time he made a profit was somewhere around never.  Plus, he does a bunch of interviews that make painfully clear he has no idea how state government works or the duties of the governor and probably hasn't even glanced at the Colorado constitution.

Unfortunately, this all comes to a head like 3 weeks before the primary.  So voters are left with the integrity-less McInnis or the man who's single qualification--business acumen--was b.s. (Maes).  Into this, steps Tancredo who gives an ultimaitum:  drop out or I'll run third party.  McInnis refuses because he's a dick that only cares about himself.  And Maes refuses because his only mealticket is the campaign.  Maes wins the primary--barely--but 5% of primary voters refuse to even vote on the governor line.  This was not a normal Tea Party upstart storyline.

So now Tancredo's running, and all the GOP muckety-mucks (who, mind you, were saying Maes was a no-talent assclown just days before) join with Maes' ragged band of former (and current) Paultards to say Tancredo's handing the governorship to the Dems.  But Maes is a lost cause with or without Tancredo in the race.  Hickenlooper is a popular, tough-to-beat Dem as it is; and Maes has run around lying about being an undercover cop and saying Denver's bike-sharing program is a U.N. plot.  Plus, the man is barely qualified to be mayor of his hometown, let alone Governor of the state.  He's a mini version of Obama on the experience front, maybe worse.

Anyway, Maes is going to be crushed.  Why waste RGA money?  Regardless, I think the villan in this thing who's mostly getting a free pass isn't Tancredo.  It isn't really Maes either.  It's McInnis.  When Hickenlooper wins the governorship, McInnis is the only person I will blame, and he rightfully should carry the lion's share of the vitriol and blame that's being passed around.  Guy deserves to be beat over the head with a bag of dicks.

71

BTW, #67, Gale Norton and Jane Norton are two different people.  A lot of your complaints about Jane Norton (frmr lieutenant governor and senate candidate that lost to Ken Buck) are actually complaints about Gale Norton (former attorney general, senate candidate that lost to Wayne Allard, and Bush administration Interior Secretary).

I was/am a Buck supporter, but you should at least get your criticisms right.

72 I was at a Republican Party building in a suburb of Denver on Thursday to pick up yard signs.

They had lots of yard signs, and a table covered with literature from state and national candidates.

And they had not one sticker, brochure or yard sign for Dan Maes.

If an official party office has no promotional literature for the highest office in the state, that's a good gauge of their support for the candidate.

73

This thread's comments are so worthy. But what can't be overlooked is the Tea Party kill before they got to the beach because Penry took a deal. Let me say that again, Penry took a deal. I would hope this will not be overlooked in future grass roots efforts and support.

Of course, let me add the "alledgedly" for legal purposes because no one knows exactly why Penry bailed. One has to wonder if there might be something embarassing or damaging in his past too.

74 If Barbour's saying that, I trust him. I don't know what the heck happened here or what it is that makes Maes so unlikely a winner (I know nothing of the race), but if Barbour says it, I guess that's a big thing.