PPP is the latest pollster to find that the obnoxious Tom Tancredo has a fairly good chance of victory in the CO-Gov race. Looking in detail at their latest poll things look even better for him - the undecideds are a lot more friendly to him than to Hickenlooper. Inexplicably to me, Tancredo's favorable numbers have risen over the past couple of months. I'm sure Hickenlooper is wishing he'd have run some negative ads, but it's now really too late for that. But I see an upside here, and not the one most people expect. Let me explain.
First of all, there's no upside for the people of Colorado that I see - this guy is a total creep and I don't understand how he can be elected. But I'm not a fool and too many polls are showing him with a good chance to believe otherwise. There has been talk of the GOP becoming a Minor party in CO and the headaches this will cause them; I don't buy it. It's an easy legislative fix; they'll have to give the state Dems something they want in return, but the same way Manchin got what he (unwisely, it turns out) wanted so he could run this year and the GOP got something in return, the CO GOP will be a major party in 2012. I've little doubt of that. So what do we hope to gain from the fool winning if he does?
Here's the thing, Tancredo is not running as an independent. He's running as the candidate of the American Constitution Party. This is a genuine third party with branches in many states. And they are a party that will only take votes from the GOP. Whereas the Democratic party often loses a couple of votes to the Green Party, they have never succeeded in electing anybody to any major office. It's true that Bernie Saunders won in VT as a socialist, but that party has no national infrastructure. But the Constitution party would be able to hold up Tancredo as a genuine example of how they can win big races. Might that no encourage other people on the far right to run in races when they think the GOP candidate is too moderate? Especially if the Tea Party types don't get what they want out of the next congress (and they won't.) Think of the fun of Mitch McConnell facing a Constitution Party candidate in KY!
Independents can win in Gov races a lot more than in national ones, I know, but people like Angus King, Jessie Ventura and Lowell Weicker - none of them tapped into a minor party with serious infrastructure and a consistent ideology. Tancredo is actually a perfect fit for what the Constitution party pushes and he can show a path for victory that can be followed. What if he decided to run for president on that ticket if he doesn't like whoever the GOP puts up? He's have to be taken seriously by the press and could well draw off GOP votes.
I don't wish Tancredo on the people of Colorado. I hope he goes down to defeat. But if he wins, I'm going to be laughing at the poisoned chalice that the GOP will be handing themselves.