April 04, 2014 01:31 PM UTC

Former CD-4 Candidate With Prophetic Words for Cory Gardner's U.S. Senate Bid

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Independent published a story this week about Republican Cory Gardner's bid for the U.S. Senate and his highly-publicized Personhood flip-flop. The story includes some interesting quotes from Doug Aden, the American Constitution Party candidate in CD-4 in 2010 (the year Gardner was first elected to Congress). As Tessa Cheek reports:

In Weld Country, the conservative heart of Gardner’s congressional district, Doug Aden is less sure that Gardner’s flip will win him the votes he needs to defeat Udall. Aden ran against Gardner in the Tea Party wave-year 2010 as the libertarian American Constitution Party candidate. He said he first heard of the flop when Weld County voters started badgering him to hop into the Senate race.

“It’s not whether this is a smart move to appear more moderate in his position; obviously that’s what Gardner is counting on. Unfortunately, you really want to count on your base,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know many strong pro-life folks would feel comfortable voting for a candidate they see as soft on personhood.

“A lot of these people will still say in the polls that he’s their choice or whatever, but when it comes down to actually voting, a lot will under-vote or else not go to the polls at all,” he predicted.

Even so, Aden said he has no plans to jump into the race to capture the pro-personhood voting bloc.

“I wouldn’t try to run a statewide race, because I don’t think I reflect the views of the whole state of Colorado,” Aden said. His answer raises the question at the heart of the flop: Will enough people across the state look past Gardner’s voting record to feel his views reflect their own? [Pols emphasis]

As far as political strategists go, nobody is going to confuse Doug Aden with Karl Rove anytime soon. But Aden's words may prove prophetic when it comes to the difficulty of moving from the far-right in CD-4 to a much more moderate group of statewide voters. We've pondered this question ever since Gardner first announced his intentions to run for Senate: How do you convince voters statewide that you are not the same person who is also the 10th most conservative member of Congress?