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May 20, 2009 06:00 PM UTC

Penry's First Direct Attack On McInnis

  • 15 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

If you were wondering when all-but-declared GOP gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry was going to stop letting surrogates do the dirty work and take on primary opponent Scott McInnis directly, you can stop wondering.



Can’t see the audio player? Click here.

This audio clip, forwarded to us, is from Penry’s remarks last Thursday at the Colorado Union of Taxpayers’ legislative wrapup session. It’s a little muffled, so here’s a transcription:

…It’s also not going to happen quickly. If you look at the numbers they are dramatic, what’s happened in the last two cycles. We’ve dug ourselves a deep hole, and the reality is on a national level it’s probably going to be a couple of cycles before we can dig out.

The final thing I would say though, is with that, there was a lot of–it forced people to do some soul searching, and to acknowledge the error of our ways. I saw a–somebody sent me an email where, it’s like, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous, we have to admit we made errors over the span of the last decade–not only admit it to ourselves but to come clean with the public. You know the fact that in 1992 there was 4,000 earmarks and then by, you know, 2004 the Republicans in Congress passed a budget with 15,000 earmarks? We need to say that was a mistake. [Pols emphasis]

Yes we don’t like Obama’s trillions of dollars in deficits but ours were just as wrong. Now going forward, here’s where we want to go. Um, but that’s going to take time because the brand isn’t, isn’t fixed quickly.

The key thing to note here are the dates Penry refers to–1992 and 2004, and the enormous growth in earmarks that occured during this period. Passed, as Penry is clear to say, by “the Republicans in Congress.”

Scott McInnis was elected to Congress in 1992 and retired in 2004.

This isn’t the first time Penry has at least obliquely attacked McInnis–our readers will recall in early April when Penry laid into Democrats for legislative maneuvers “reminiscent of what the Republicans did in Washington…Tom DeLay tactics.”

But this is the first time we know of that Penry has invoked circumstances that can only apply to McInnis. If he was merely talking about the ‘Republicans in Congress,’ he would have mentioned that they didn’t take power until 1994. This is Penry very intelligently turning his inexperience into an asset, divorcing himself (rhetorically anyway) from the GOP’s unseemly past–and it’s a narrative that could seriously hurt McInnis with the disaffected Republican base.

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15 thoughts on “Penry’s First Direct Attack On McInnis”

  1. Wow, Pols.  Talk about free advertising for Penry.  Listening to his comments should fire up any member of the GOP to get on his team.  To me it looks like this audio clip leaves a lot of explaining to be done by McInnis.   On top of explaining why he sat by as the Republicans in Congress grew government and pioneered the earmark process, perhaps he could explain why his disorganized, law breaking excuse of a campaign FILED PAPERWORK TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR without any sort of announcement, e-mail to supporters, statewide tour, etc.  

    Do a little checking, Pols.  You’ll find that the Congressman was forced to file his papers by Ethics Watch — and now they’re so disorganized and confused that they don’t know how to roll it out.  

    1. Did he really file paperwork? I can’t believe the good Congressman would allow swirling allegations of mismanagement, breaking finance laws, etc. to bully him in to filing so early.  

      If there’s one thing a candidate can EVER control it’s how they file and announce their candidacy.  If McInnis really has filed his paperwork it’s yet another example of his inept, antiquated campaign (that doesn’t exist).  

    2. Did he really file paperwork!?  How could he let the swirling allegations of mismanagement, ineptness and breaking finance laws force him to file his paperwork so early?  

      If McInnis really filed paperwork without any sort of formal announcement it looks like yet another example of how out of touch he is with what it takes to run a campaign in the new millenium.  

      what a disorganized cluster fuck, Congressman.  You continue to embarass yourself and your party…

        1. I got an error message so I thought my post disappeared.  

          Bernie is telling anyone who’ll listen that Scott filed his papers.

  2. Pols, you’ve got to be doing a lot of yoga to be able to try and twist reality like this.  You spend thousands of column inches talking about how the GOP found itself in its current predicament.  Now when Penry acknowledges some of the same failings you try and spin it as some backhanded verbal assault on McInnis.  Re-read your own transcript.  Nowhere is Scott McInnis mentioned.  Nowhere is he even alluded to with a nod and a wink.

    Hell Penry even passed on the opportunity to score a cheap partisan attack on Ed Perlmutter for his $361,686,451 in 33 earmarks this year, or John Salazar for his 72 earmarks.  Nor did he point out that this year Colorado’s democratic congressional delegation requested $972,948,470 in earmarks, as opposed to republicans who requested $72,500,000.

    God bless him for it.  The tortured logic you used to try and turn this into some sort of personal conflict between McInnis and Penry is both weak and transparent.  You’ll have to work harder than that.

    1. The allusion could not be clearer–the dates of McInnis’ service are a dead giveaway. And Penry’s failure to point out all the stuff you mentioned only makes it stand out all the more–isn’t that obvious?

      McInnis will be toast very soon, and Penry has ruthlessly, and I might add with a grudging compliment pretty skillfully, shoved his old boss out of the way.

      1. That Penry is smart and knows how to hit where it hurts? Why, I bet he says thank you! You’re paying him a compliment.

        The difference is you hope that some Republicans will be demoralized if one candidate doesn’t make it, and this isn’t going to happen. We are through being divided.

          1. Internet nickname or otherwise, is not exactly the way to win friends and influence people.

            The Dems ought to thank their lucky stars that the ‘Pubs have guys like GOPChickenhawkWarrior out in front.

    2. Penry passed up all that partisan red meat about Democrat earmarks, but not the chance to go after ‘Republicans in Congress,’ like his likely primary opponent who just happened to serve exactly between the start and end dates he specified?

      You do realize you are proving our point, don’t you?

  3. Wasn’t Penry WORKING FOR MCINNIS IN CONGRESS during this time ?  If so, I would have thought someone so earnestly concerned about earmarks, like Penry, would’ve resigned immediately.

  4. What are you going to do now that your old school attacks won’t stick? You can’t call Penry a Beltway crony, can you?

    You guys are digging your own graves and you don’t even see it. I love this.

    1. then you have some serious masochistic tendencies.  This is petty sniping and fingerpointing by members of your party about who shit the bed, in order to find out who gets to lose to Ritter.  Ritter ain’t no rock star, but your party is so completely in the shitter it dosen’t even matter.

      Wake up and smell the coffee.

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