If there's any indication that Colorado's Republican party is on the rails, it's that Tom Tancredo is positioning himself as the voice of reason with the Tea Party. It's not working.
Tom Tancredo used to be something of a tea party hero. But not anymore, at least in Colorado. The ex-Congressman's foray into the state's gubernatorial race has essentially scuttled Republicans' chances in the contest -- and provoked outrage from local tea party members who feel betrayed after once counting Tancredo among their leaders....
Last December, Tancredo wrote an open letter to Colorado's 9-12 activists and tea party members, urging them to "think strategically" and arguing that forming a third party in the state was "suicidal and would only result in splitting the conservative vote and guaranteeing the re-election of liberals and socialists."
So tea partiers worked with Republicans, from the precinct caucuses to the county assemblies to the state convention and finally the primary earlier this month. The movement ended up helping a tea party candidate, Dan Maes, win the Republican gubernatorial nomination. (A plagiarism scandal that hit the frontrunner, Scott McInnis, didn't hurt). But before tea partiers could savor Maes' victory -- in fact, before Maes even won -- Tancredo declared himself unsatisfied with both Maes and McInnis, demanded they drop out after the primary so that the Republican party could pick a better nominee, and then decided to enter the race himself, under the Constitution Party banner. As a result, Tancredo and Maes are now splitting the Republican vote -- all but assuring a victory for Democrat John Hickenlooper. The TPM Poll Average shows Hickenlooper leading Maes and Tancredo 44.8%-26.3%-22%. And tea partiers are dismayed....
"He's totally, I hate to use the word, but he's ruined [the gubernatorial race]," Lana Fore, the publisher of The Constitutionalist Today, a tea party-friendly monthly newspaper in Colorado, told TPM. Fore said she believed ego was driving Tancredo's run, but that now "he won't even get elected as a Wal-Mart door greeter, that's how many people he's alienated."
Tancredo first alienated the teabaggers by supporting the more establishment choice of McInnis, in recognition of the very slim chances of Maes. Maes' chances outside of Tancredo's involvement were always questionable. He's a newbie to politics and until McInnis completely imploded under the weight of the plagiarism scandal, was running double digits behind McInnis. The Dem Hickenlooper is well-liked around the state, with high name recognition and favorables (the beer probably helped with that). Colorado's electorate is divided roughly into thirds between Dems, GOP, and unaffiliated, and it's those unaffiliated voters that keep the state unpredicatble. For the last few cycles, they've trended Dem, and the likelihood that they be swayed by an unknown with a nutter UN conspiracy theorist bent, well, it's pretty much non-existent.
It's a cold welcome to the world of politics for Colorado's teabaggers.