Pledging to not run for office after a certain time period certainly doesn’t guarantee anything (ask Rep. Tom Tancredo, who broke his term-limits pledge a few years ago), so the significance of Republican state Rep. John Penry pledging not to run for office again if he wins the seat in SD-7 is hard to contemplate. But if nothing else, Democrat Dana Barker has given future Penry opponents some ammunition.
Penry, who is likely to win the SD-7 seat, is a rising star in the Republican party who is a likely challenger to Democratic Rep. John Salazar at some point. But Penry apparently signed a pledge to not run for another office during the four-year state senate term that begins in January. If he holds to it, Penry couldn’t run for congress for awhile.
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Can any one tell me whether Rep. Penry would fall in the circle of statesmanship or within the circle of responders on this site that were so extreme? I’m not from that district, but it appears to me that gray hair just trumped youth. It reminds of the Reagan line, “I won’t hold your inexperice against you”.
Hey, Tancredo not only made a term limits pledge – and reiterated it lots and lots of times – he was the HEAD of Colorado’s term limits movement and made it the centerpiece of his first campaign for Congress. And even Tancredo, that sleazeball, managed to escape breaking his pledge.
What Tancredo did was to use the religion card: claim that God had spoken to him and told him that he needed to break his pledge so that the U.S.A. wouldn’t fall prey to the “barbarians at the gate” (Tancredo’s term for Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal).
Penry was stupid, though: Why didn’t he just say, “I never sign anything until I’ve had a chance to read it over,” or “I need to check with my wife first” or something. Then he could have just conveniently not gotten around to signing it.
I’m not sure how I feel about foisting some tripe-ish “pledge” on a candidate during a public event. If it comes to this down the road, I highly doubt the populace will know/remember/care about a campaing gimmick of this nature.
Besides that’s only a four year “pledge” so all could possibly do is preclude Penry from running against Salazar in 08.
Josh said several times during the primary against Matt Smith that he would serve his full 4 year term in the Senate. Matt tried the same gotcha move, and Josh always shrugged it off and made a rock solid committment — if you
elect me, you get 4 years. He did the same thing at Club 20. There was no
pause or hesitation, contrary to what Colorado Confidential tries to
portray. Josh was actually laughing out loud as Dana read the pledge, and
Josh followed Dana’s stunt up with a self depricating joke or two and a quip that brought down the House: “During my FOUR years as your State Senator…”, and then Penry recited his to-do list. The place errupted in laughter, and all Dana could do was blush as Penry turned his stunt right
around on him. Dana’s pledge became a concession of defeat. But we
already knew that.
All this is very good news for John Salazar, of course, because Penry would beat him like a drum this cycle or next. Penry has other plans apparently.
This is worthy of a post? HA! This doesn’t even touch Penry. If Penry wanted to run against Salazar in ’08 this wouldn’t stop him. And in ’08, nobody would care even if John pulled out the little wad of paper with Penry’s signature on it from his sorry lint filled jacket pocket.
leave his jacket pocket out of this.
Politicians who make promises, like Penry and Tancredo, to not make a further run should not be believed under any circumstances. When they do it they should be made to sign a legal contract saying that they would give 95 percent of their personal income to charity for the next 20 years if they break their promise. Then I might believe them.
My husband and I visited family, friends and festivals in Grand Junction last week. Almost everyone we talked to were either republicans or independents and let me tell you, there are a lot of people there who do not like Penry. I will not repeat everything I heard about him because I do not know how to verify it. But they were saying that his top concern appears to be furthering his own political career. I don’t care if it is a republican, democrat, independent or whig, those are the kind of politicians I have the most disdain for. Tancredo and Penry would never get my vote if they lived in my district. Eww, looking at those pictures, I now see why people call Penry Lurch.