Hopefully after November, I may need to speak with you about this.
For those keeping score at home, the Tea Party supported candidates won the governor (Maes) and Senate (Buck) primaries, both close. There’s still speculation that the establishment will try to push Maes out and replace him. I don’t see that happening.
Bennet beat Romanoff handily for the Dem Senate nod.
These will be two of the more interesting elections come November.
A last-second blitz to push out Maes before the ballot certification deadline yesterday failed. Developments this week included the revelation that the already bruised and battered Maes had “embellished” his year-and-a-half long career as a police officer in Kansas.
That caused his last few establishment endorsements to throw up their hands and give up. He lost endorsements from Hank Brown, Ken Buck, Mike Coffman, and John Andrews, all major figures in the Colorado Republican party. Even some Tea Party groups have renounced him.
Here’s what the state GOP chairman had to say:
Tom Tancredo also stayed in the race. I expect Hickenlooper to drop by the Governor’s Mansion this weekend and start measuring for curtains.
It’ll be interesting to see if this affects down-ballot candidates. The Republicans have a reasonable shot at taking Bennet’s Senate seat, and a less reasonable shot at taking back the State House. This incredibly amusing circular firing squad can’t be doing them any good.
I think Hickenlooper is one smart cookie for taking the higher road with his ads, and unless something godawful secret comes slithering out from under a rock about him, he’ll win handily.
The senator race is another matter, it’s staying ugly. But every time I see one of those commercials from Crossroad Grassroots Policy Strategies,(backed by our smarmy buddy Karl Rove)that encourage voters to call Michael Bennett’s office and tell him what a rotten job he’s doing, I pick up the phone and call. I tell them not to bow down to Rove and his poli-thugs and that he has my vote.
I’ve made so many calls that the operators are getting to recognize my voice.
That sounds hilarious. Provide linky?
[quote=“Honesty, post:45, topic:547684”]
http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2010/07/15/mcinnis-campaign-ad-scheduled-to-debut-wednesday/11889/ Yep, and if you read the article, it touches on the plagiarism dust up. But it’s a non-issue now, he’s out of the race. Hallelujah!
Frankly, I think the Hickenlooper commercials are boring and a bit…I don’t know what the word is. Parochial? Focused on minutiae? The one I’ve seen the most is him wandering through city hall with pitchers of water talking about how he saved money doing away with things like bottled water at city meetings and other random cost-saving measures.
I mean, he’s not going to lose (unless, as they say, he’s caught with a dead girl or a live boy), but still, they don’t wow me with a feeling that he’s focused on things outside of Denver.
But at least I can relax a little about my job still being around in four years 
I think the word you’re looking for is “picayune.”
In the fourth district, it’s a 4-way race between the incumbent Betsy Markey (D), Doug Aden (ACP), Gardner (R) and Ken “Wasko” Waszkiewicz (Indep). Markey advocates a 4 way debate, but the anti-Tea Party media is insisting that candidates reach a 10% threshold in the polls before appearing on TeeVee. Wasko asks, “Is this a debate or an infomerical for the 2 parties?”
Wasko has an interesting website, mostly made up YouTube clips of him proffering solutions to unemployment, Colorado energy, illegal immigration, flat taxes, the national debt, social security, health care, the war on terror and other issues of the day. I think the race between Wasko and Doug Aden could be very close.
This is turning out to be closer than expected.
Maes support is dropping like a rock. He’s now polling at about 12%, and is raising fears that he will cost the Republican Party its major party status (and thus automatic ballot placement) for next election. (He needs 10% of the vote to maintain that.)
The latest bombshell is that he declared bankruptcy in 1989. This news is peeling off a few more of his supporters. (Denver Post)
This is nothing but good news for Tancredo. I still don’t think he’ll win; I think he’s too extreme for Colorado as a whole, and even if Maes drops out he’ll still be on the ballot and will garner some votes. But it’s going to be a tighter race than I ever would have imagined a month or two ago.
Rasmussen has Tancredo only four points behind Hickenlooper. I find that appalling.
Tea Party favorite Maes is running so far behind that the Colorado GOP fears he will poll less than 10%, losing its fundraising advantages (as a major party) for the 2012 presidential election.
Another consequence described by a GOP memo:
Perhaps they’ll try to form a coalition with the Greens. 
Or Greene, depending on the state.
Or maybe the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. 
The fundraising rule is negligible; the Republican Party will certainly be running sufficient primary elections in 2012 to qualify. Might hurt 'em a little bit, here and there, but overall I would expect sacrificial lambs to leap to the challenge.
What worries them more is losing the automatic placement on the ballot on one of the top two lines. Wadhams appears to be sanguine that the law will be changed next year.
Heh.
I can only assume that he expects Republicans to capture a veto-proof majority in the state legislature, or to capture the majority in both houses and the governorship. I don’t see that happening.
Or the Democrats to change the ballot anyway.