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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
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(D) Alexis King
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CO-01 (Denver)
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December 31, 2009 08:20 PM UTC
51 Comments
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n/t
Welcome back to the Mavericks, Josh!
good riddance.
Apparently one right wing idiot former state senator spewing vitriol isn’t enough.
…he was far from being the worst right wing idiot state senator.
Renfroe, Schultheis, Lundberg, Cadman, and Brophy easily beat Penry for that title. In fact, they make him look pretty vanilla.
on my side of the hills.
This probably means the end of Sen. Penry’s political career. The nature of politics is such that in two years no one will remember him.
It will be interesting to see how he handles his last session in the state senate. Will he be reasonable or politically silly?
Josh will never stop running for office. He is young, energetic, ambitious, and like it or not, his rhetoric reflects the beliefs of a significant number of Coloradans. He isn’t done. He’ll be back, tanned, rested, and ready …
but it sure seems like something happened, that none of us knows about, that knocked Sen. Penry not only out of the governors race but out of politics altogether. I suspect he may not have had the backing of his family which always puts a handicap on any politician. In that kind of situation, politicians have to make very difficult choices between ambition and what those closet to them want in life. Again, this is pure speculation on my part. I certainly don’t have any inside information.
Freudian slip?
There is always a place for young, smart hard working people in politics. When peoople say the GOP does not have a bench I dont get it. A bench is a bench–even if youk dont agree with it.
He’ll never allow himself to be out of the limelight. Look at how he’s dominated the press since dropping out of the governor’s race.
In chess, a “gambit” is an opening in which a player sacrifices one or more minor pieces in order to win something else of greater value.
If you don’t think this is a gambit, you don’t know Penry.
although I take R36’s to also mean that there may be something less noble than family pulling him out (which could be Mesa State patronage position as some have suggested) or the gambit that Ralphie proposes.
In either case I suppose R36 is right as far as the reason Sen. Penry will give, and he’ll need to say something soon.
just wasn’t supportive of his political career. In the past I worked on one campaign where the candidate should have easily won the general election but didn’t because his spouse never wanted a political life and was against his bid for elected office. If a candidate’s family is not suportive, the candidate almost always looses. But, again, I don’t have any inside information. I’ve never met Sen. and Mrs. Penry and don’t have any idea how she felt about his political career.
In general, this situation really is odd. He was a politician experiencing a meteoric rise in Republican politics and within the short span of less than two months he has terminated his political future (or so it seems to me). In those circumstances his public explanations just don’t ring true.
Consider that Roy Romer lost and came back, that Ed Perlmutter was out for a few years and seems to have done all right…that sort of list could go on and on. McInnis wins and Josh has a cabinet post. If not, he makes some money and picks another battleground down the road.
Penry is young and has many opportunities ahead of him. The Perlmutter example is a very good one.
What in the world is going on here?
one way or the other, we have not heard the last of this (or Penry).
but Twitty’s been saying it for awhile–that something is seriously off here. I wonder if we’ll ever get the whole story.
I can not confirm anything enough to repeat, but the pattern fits.
I suspect he is out of electoral politics, though he will remain in the political world.
It must be one word: Baaaaaaa (sponsored by Woolite).
I told you there were no deals for Josh getting out of the race for Gov. or for Lt. Gov.
Let’s see who steps up to hire him.
I was talking strictly about the McInnis campaign.
If he isn’t going to Mesa is there a COGA job here or something akin to that?
n/t
He’s still minority leader until 2011, so let’s celebrate then.
the minority leader job?
That remains to be seen. I would think they would keep him, just because whatever prep they’ve been putting in for the next session was through him as minority leader.
However, it would be within the rights of the GOP caucus to remove him, though I don’t know what the procedure for that would be. I think if he didn’t want to resign from the leadership positions he holds, he wouldn’t have to.
It shows you what a gelding the Mesa County Democratic Party is. They haven’t yet fielded a candidate for Senate. If they had fielded a strong candidate, there would be a reason for Penry to step down, let a vacancy committee appoint King to fill Penry’s term, and let King run as an incumbent Senator.
But as usual, the Mesa County Dems put no pressure whatsoever on their opponents.
And Josh will stay on in leadership where he can spend the term being a splinter under Ritter’s fingernail.
Opportunity lost.
Sarah Palin resigned part way into her first term, wrote a book and made a fortune and has had all the press and political attention she could ask for.
Senator Penry is just earlier and faster than she was.
Penry’s probably tired of being poor. Work for an oil-and-gas company for a couple of years (like McDrill) and wait for John Salazar to retire.
made a comfortable living working for the oil and gas industry while he was in the legislature. Why can’t Penry do the same? There’s more to his withdrawals than this.
The odds on him working for oil are pretty solid. I’d give it 2:1 right now.
He’s still young with a new family and has time to make some coin and jump back into the political game with good name recognition. This is a smart move on his part – a little better than getting spanked in a republican primary and retiring off into the unknown.
Mr. Penry wins this round for sure. Congrats.
suicidal teabaggers out there tonight. Me, I’ll be celebrating with a big smile! Maybe free drinks all night for anyone who could make it here before midnight. My D friends are estatic!
If your going out to celebrate – stay safe. I wouldn’t want any harm to come to my worthy (and not so worthy) adversaries.
We hope you stay engaged in our good Party
Forgot he said he wanted to
when he pulled the plug on Lt Gov rumors.
Maybe he’s a McInnis staffer at heart …
No way, no how.
He’s in it for Josh.
But how’s he supposed to “shape and execute an agenda” in 2011 if he’s given up his Senate seat?
Three possibilities:
1. Oil and gas lobbyist (or trade assn. chief or whatever)
2. State party chairman (Wadhams has got to retire sometime)
3. The things Penry says about why he’s doing what he’s doing aren’t true
If he winds up at Mesa State, he won’t be shaping and executing an agenda for the next governor.
is that he knows he is screwed as a Republican because Ritter is going to rally and win a second term and the Democrats are going to hold onto the legislature so he is destined to continue to be an irrelevant ranter. Why spend the next four years making 40-50 thousand as a legislator when you aren’t going to be able to push the culture wars back to the top of the state government agenda. How boring it must be Penry to actually have to grapple with economic issues instead of gay marriage. If he was in control then by golly the gays would be put on notice. As it is his culture war rantings are the stuff of amusement. This theory holds that he is astute enough to see the writing on the wall and know that he would still be a back bencher after the elections in 2010.
I think the Gov. is the most vulnerable of Dem. politicians in CO this cycle.
Bennet would be, but I think the GOP primary will take care of that.
I think McInnis does better against the Gov than Penry would have, but doesn’t excite the Tea Baggin’ base. On the other hand, the Dem base is not too excited about the Gov right now either, although depending how McInnis courts the Tea Party fringe, and how the 527s/c4s play, that could change.
How aggressively the GOP goes after the O&G regulations and other Ritter initiatives in the state house, ballot measures, and the like can all influence this dynamic too.
I think that something lurks which has given Penry serious cold feet about running for anything.
Ritter continues to look like a pragmatic adult compared to the adolescent behavior of the Republicans. He might have all the charisma of stale donuts but my impression is that he diligently works on the issues and isn’t afraid to step on partisan toes, Republican or Democrat, to get things done.
I read somewhere that a big oil company is getting ready to put a bunch of rigs on the western slope. An improving economy, higher prices for oil which would stimulate more exploration would absolutely shell Republican negative ads claiming that Ritter policies are anti-business.
He is holding his own against these crazy extremists while working to ramp up green industries and McLobbyist is going to look more sleazy as the race heats up. I wouldn’t count Ritter out at all and I’m guessing Penry knows it too. The guy bailed before Custer rides out for the Little Big Horn. There is an age old saying regarding software project management to reward the uninvolved. Penry is expecting to be around to pick up the pieces when everything goes south for the Republicans in 2010. Such great expectations dashed by a stale donut. Who would of thunk it.
but I wouldn’t count him in yet either.
The long term (through 2010) price of natgas (what they drill for on the Western Slope) doesn’t look that high although activity is picking up some.
Still most companies that are planning projects are proceeding fairly moderately, even those that are ramping back up a little.
With the Denver Post and Dean Singleton still hating Ritter for allowing state employees the right to collective bargaining, I expect to see a lot of stories about how bad things are in the state. McInnis will get kid glove treatment and there is always Karen Crummy to do Singleton’s dirty work with some hit pieces.
I just wanted to throw out an alternative universe theory and the possibility that it isn’t inevitable that McInnis will be the ONE the Republicans are looking for (tip of the hat to the Matrix movies).