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May 14, 2014 01:46 PM UTC

What To Do When Your "Frontrunner" Is Poison? (But You Have No Antidote)

  • 17 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Via Jason Salzman, Tom Tancredo responds on talk radio today:

“You know, and I told [Beauprez] at the time, ‘Look,’ – because he was saying, ‘You get out of the race. I’ll get in.’ And I said, ‘Bob, I have 7,000 contributors.’ You know what, Peter? It’s now over 10,000 individual contributors to my campaign. [Do] you know what the average is? Sixty-seven dollars. God love these people. I’ll take their endorsement any day over Mitt Romney’s. I’ll tell you that right now.”

“And I said, ‘I’m not going to – you can’t expect me to get out of this race, because – just because — why? We had coffee? Just get in!’ I told him. ‘Get in! Run! You might be the guy that knocks us all off of the block and you make it, and God bless you, and if you can beat Hickenlooper, hey, I’m with you, buddy! But I don’t think you can. I don’t think any of these other guys can either. I’m closer to Hickenlooper in the polls than any of them.”

And that's that, folks.

—–

Tom Tancredo.
Tom Tancredo.

The Denver Post's Lynn Bartels reports on behalf of institutional Republicans growing nervous about Tom Tancredo's ongoing success in the GOP gubernatorial primary:

Some of the same people who want to recast the Grand Old Party as the Great Opportunity Party — in an effort to attract minorities and young voters — believe Tancredo spells disaster in a year that is supposed to be rough for Democrats. For weeks, behind-the-scene movers and shakers in the Republican Party have tried to talk Tancredo into dropping out of the June 24 gubernatorial primary.

They haven't gotten anywhere.

"If you want a traditional candidate and a traditional campaign you will get the traditional outcome: the Republican loses," Tancredo said. "I'm not a traditional candidate. I pride myself on that."

It's not hard to understand why Republican strategists desperately want Tom Tancredo out of the GOP gubernatorial primary, all the more so every time something happens that suggests he might actually win the nomination. Tancredo's plethora of extreme statements and policy positions from his long career in politics are a severe liability in a statewide election, far more so than Tancredo's built-in base of support can boost him. The problem is that Tancredo's support is much more heavily concentrated in a Republican primary, and Tancredo may well be able to win the primary using the very same issues that poison him, and potentially the entire GOP ticket, in the general election.

At stake: the governorship of Colorado, control of the state Senate where Democrats now have only a one-seat lead and a ferocious battle for the U.S. Senate between Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Cory Gardner.

Tancredo was incredulous that Republicans are holding him responsible for Gardner's fate.

"They're beating the living crap out of Cory right now," Tancredo said of attacks from the left. "I have nothing to do with that." [Pols emphasis]

To be perfectly frank, Tancredo is right that he's not responsible for the withering fire Cory Gardner is taking in the U.S. Senate race. And if the best Republicans hoping to stop Tancredo can field as alternatives are Bob Beauprez and Scott Gessler, who are seriously compromised by endless gaffes and ethical problems respectively…who the hell is there to tell Tancredo what he can and can't do?

Answer, like it or not: maybe no one.

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17 thoughts on “What To Do When Your “Frontrunner” Is Poison? (But You Have No Antidote)”

  2. This post is largely correct about Tancredo and Beauprez. But the Democrat dominated IEC doesn't hurt Gessler, everybody knows that was a criminally nonbinding partisan witch hunt. Gessler's due process rights have been violated, but that doesn't make him guilty of anything in a court of law – that's all voters care about.

    Scott Gessler is still the only Republican who can win in June AND in November.

    2. If Gessler does win the governorship, will the salary be enough to keep him in the style he's accustomed to, or will he keep his day job?

      1. He'll quit the next day, breaking Sarah Palin's record.

        That is if [i]God forbid[/i] Gessler wins.

        Fat chance Gessler's not going to win the primaries. 

    4. The fact that you think Gessler had a shot in the first place is funny. 

      Hick can go the whole time without mentioning the ethics charge, he just has to bring up Gessler's windmill tilting jihad on non-existant voter fraud. 

  4. You're probably right that the ethics stuff is no big deal to the general public, most of whom couldn't name the SOS, much less know anything much about his record or past dust ups.  But likeability is a huge factor in gubernatorial and presidential elections. Those contest are way more about personal appeal than policy with more apolitical people voting, the kind who pay little attention if a president or governor isn't being elected. 

    Gessler has no chance against Hick. But it's kind of academic since the others in the primary don't either. He'd probably be less damaging than Tanc to the rest of the ticket simply because he has less name rec while Tanc is a d-list wacko celeb.  So Dems don't need to be all that concerned about which clown wins the primary. That's your problem. 

    1. I'm sure Bernie Buescher said the same about Scott. Hick is failing. Neither Democrats nor Republicans like him. The ethics commission crap is a nonstarter, and Scott's campaign to make voting easy but cheating hard is to his credit. I'm backing Scott Gessler because Tancredo and Beauprez are yesterday's GOP. Scott is young and smart, and represents the party's future.

      3. If you're so sure why don't you show us some examples of Buescher or his supporters making such comments about Gessler. Or "Scott" as you like to call your buddy who is going to lose, if not the primary, then to Hick. Or is it just another one of those things you pull out of your ass about what "they" say, do, believe, whatever?

  5. Among other problems with Tanc is that he's so boring with his slurs. He just does a search and replace on what Real Americans said about Italian immigrants.

  6. Tanc is a loose cannonball, currently smashing the fragile wooden decks of the GOP's dingy.

    He doesn't really seem to care about winning.  It's just about the running.  And thow much money he can take from saps to measure his ego.  If by some disaster he were elected, he'd just quit to run for president, again leveraging his newest claim to fame.

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