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November 10, 2015 09:57 AM UTC

McInnis isn't thrilled with any of the current GOP senate candidates

  • 12 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Run, McPlagiarist, run! – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Scott McInnis.
Scott McInnis.

Former Congressman Scott McInnis told KNUS radio host Craig Silverman Saturday that he’s taking Spanish lessons and hasn’t ruled out a run for statewide office, despite the spectacular crash of his 2010 gubernatorial campaign after his “musings on water” articles proved to be plagiarized.

But he doesn’t see an opening for himself in the current Republican primary race to take on Democrat Michael Bennet, as he said the “alignment” isn’t right today.

McInnis, who’s now a Mesa County Commissioner, isn’t excited about any of the current GOP Senate candidates, saying he’dlike to see Rep. Scott Tipton run. And he said failed 2008 Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, also a former Congressman, would “win that race.”

McInnis gave no indication that his plagiarism scandal, which torpedoed his 2010 campaign, would hurt him in future statewide campaigns.

McInnis: As you know, following that BS, and that’s exactly what it was, I was caught totally off guard by those allegations. And to be  straight with you, before I ran for governor, we spent about $50,000 doing opposition research, and the opposition research was on me. And I wanted to know every hiccup somebody would bring up. Every vote we looked at. We looked at every possible thing. This never came up, because we never know about this. Well, after this broke, we didn’t have time to get ahead of it, Craig. ..those allegations that there was, not perjury, but–

Silverman: Plagiarism.

McInnis: Plagiarism. That shows you how much I was involved. But it worked. It was very effective. It destroyed our opportunity. …We suspected Hickenlooper would be their candidate and we ran consistently 12 points ahead of him.

He said the plagiarism accusation was based “false information,” pointing to his “complete exoneration” by the state’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. He was cleared of dishonest lawyer behavior but not slimy political behavior, including throwing his elderly research assistant under the bus. That’s what cost him.

Comments

12 thoughts on “McInnis isn’t thrilled with any of the current GOP senate candidates

  1. And, the moral of that story is: if you're campaign's gonna' toss out $50big on self-oppo, you might want to hire someone a little more objective about your wonderfulness than your wife??!??

  2. Poor Scooter. He's a county commish now, which means he has to do actual work. The county dog pound building, built at great expense, has cracks in the floors and walls. Commish have to actually balance budgets, so no congressional tricks. Washington must look attractive to him again.

  3. I looked at polls prior to the plagiarism scandal going back to March 2010 up until after the story broke in July. Mostly pretty small polls with highish margin of error. I found a double digit lead for Hick over McInnis in March, McInnis later catching up and one poll showing McCinnis with a brief 6 point lead. It was officially considered a toss up but few insiders thought Hick was really ever in trouble. If there are any polls out there showing a 12 point lead for McCinnis prior to the July melt down I can't find them. Maybe internals conducted by his self-oppo guy/wife?

    1. Then why did he repay the money Ali's parents paid to him for his "original" scholarship? Unless of course you're differentiating by Scooter's decision to outsource the plagiarism to that guy who worked for him and did the actual copying of Justice Hobbs' article.

      As for him bringing a slander suit, as a public figure, he'd have to establish actual malice meaning knowingly false or with reckless disregard for the truth. Finally, the GOP primary voters in Colorado issued a verdict on the issue of plagiarism when they selected Dan Maes, a wack job even by the loose standards in your party, as their gubernatorial nominee over Scooter.

      Yeah, he was cleared of plagiarism.

    2. Not exactly

      Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis will not face disciplinary action from the state's Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel after an investigation of a plagiarism complaint found insufficient evidence to establish ethics violations.

      Regulation Counsel John Gleason said new evidence and follow-up interviews with witnesses revealed no "clear and convincing evidence" that McInnis, a lawyer, violated disciplinary rules.

      McInnis lost the Republican primary in the 2010 governor's race after The Denver Post revealed the former congressman in 2005 and 2006 had presented several articles on water policy as his own work, though they were nearly identical to essays written by now-Supreme Court Justice Gregory J. Hobbs.

      McInnis was paid $300,000 by the Hasan Family Foundation for the articles and a series of speaking engagements. He has since repaid the foundation the full amount, McInnis and the foundation have said.

      At the time the allegations surfaced, McInnis blamed Glenwood Springs water engineer Roland Fischer, whom he said he hired to do research. Fischer, however, said McInnis was lying and had tried to get him to take the blame for something he hadn't done.

      http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18125524

      No clear and convincing evidence is a far cry from cleared. People don’t usually agree to pay back 30 K if they don’t suspect they might lose a suit brought which would require a preponderance of evidence and have to pay a lot more. Now get lost.

    3. McInnis was not cleared of plagiarism. I use Scott McInnis as the poster boy for my students: "Think you can get away with plagiarism? Talk with Governor Scott McInnis."

      Not being disciplined is not the same as being cleared.

      From 7 News, 7/13/2010

      The campaign for Scott McInnis has admitted that substantial sections of an article he wrote on water rights was copied from a previously published work, the CALL7 Investigators have learned.

      A spokesman for McInnis, a Republican candidate for governor, claimed a research advisor provided the content, but in the end, the work was submitted for publication under McInnis' name.

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