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November 30, 2009 05:00 PM UTC

Penry Tries Rewriting History in Post Exit Q&A

  • 50 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

From Sunday’s Denver Post interview with Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, there’s so many softballs for us to swing at that we don’t know where to start:

Politicians dream of the kind of press that gubernatorial candidate Josh Penrygarnered in recent months.

Fox News reported Penry was ready to lead a national comeback of the Republican Party. The Washington Post surmised that the young state Senate minority leader might be the best hope to lay the new foundation for the GOP.

Then Penry dropped out, paving the way for his one-time boss, former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, to easily capture the GOP nomination…

…Q: Do you think Scott realizes the gift that was handed to him? The cliché lead here is “Christmas came early for Scott McInnis.”

A: He does. No question in my mind. Scott in these last two weeks has shown an openness and a genuine humility. Anyone at these meetings can tell you that.

The left-wing blogs and objective observers are saying the Republicans’ chances of taking back the governorship and regaining other ground we lost just increased by orders of magnitude.

Q: Orders of magnitude? O-r-d-e-r-s? What does that mean?

A: (Laughing) Say it increased by a lot.

Q: Those same left-wing bloggers keep reporting you were pushed out. There’s talk that some high-roller donor backing McInnis approached you or your people and threatened to spend a fortune attacking you.

A: Those bloggers are also sitting in their underwear in their grandmothers’ basements. They’re making stuff up out of thin air.

I wasn’t pushed out. No one approached me. I made a shrewd decision based on the realities around me.

Scott has some significant advantages that I recognize, financial and otherwise. He was in Congress for 12 years. He has a bunch of third-party money backing him. The Republican Party historically nominates people who have been down this road before. The insurgent newcomer rarely wins it. I’m not whining about it, but it’s a reality.

Enough of the spin and posturing. We’re not saying anything that isn’t completely obvious: Josh Penry is not running for Governor because he was the weaker candidate and was pushed out by a much stronger candidate. The idea that Penry just decided not to run because he is the “bigger man” is horseshit. Penry’s polling numbers were in the toilet, and he could only raise money from a small base located on the Western Slope. Democrats wanted Penry to be the GOP nominee for Governor because everybody knew that he was the weaker candidate.

Bottom line: If Penry really thought he could beat Scott McInnis, he would still be in the race. Period. Does anybody really think for a minute that Penry just got out of the race out of the kindness of his heart? He’s spinning as fast as he can here, and we understand the effort — but reality, uh, bites.

Penry actually looks pretty sad in this interview, claiming over and over that he is the bigger man for bowing out of the race.

At some point somebody’s got to be the adult and say, “I’m going to step back and do what’s right for the cause.” Ironically, it was the 33-year-old who made the decision.

Here’s a tip: If you have to tell everyone that you are the coolest guy in the room, then you’re not the coolest guy in the room. The more you try to spin your exit as though you did it because you are a leader, the more people see right through it. Penry would have been much better off sticking with “it wasn’t the right time for me, etc.” than this sour grapes silliness.

And as for the whole “bloggers sitting in their underwear in the basement” thing…really? That line is sooooo lame. Penry’s campaign blogged. Mainstream reporters blog. Everyone blogs. And it’s “sitting in their mother’s basements,” not their “grandmother’s.” If you’re going to spew cliches, at least get it right. (Not to mention the “527 that was set to go after Penry” was reported by MSNBC and the Denver Post before any ‘bloggers in their underwear’ said anything. Don’t get us wrong, we’re not offended, but that’s just incredibly stupid on several levels.)

Q: Speaking of retro, here we are talking about McInnis, Tancredo, Owens and Wadhams. It feels a little like 1998 here.

A: Look at our ticket and the vibrancy and the freshness. Look at Cory Gardner and Ryan Frazier for Congress and J.J. Ament for treasurer. We’re an alive and well and hip party. As I told Scott, you can’t be a 33-year-old candidate for governor, but you can embrace my supporters, the type of supporters who bring a new energy.

Vibrant? Fresh? Hip? Cory Gardner is running around CD-4 talking about Obama’s birth certificate and raising less and less money each month. Ryan Frazier got booted out of a Senate race that he can’t win so he could enter a Congressional race that he can’t win. And J.J. Ament? He’s not even going to win his own primary for Treasurer, and his background — check this out for “hip” — is as a banker. Yeah, that’ll sell real good.

Frankly, this entire interview sums up very well why Penry is no longer a candidate for Governor. Penry is little more than a walking talking point. He tried to play with the big boys, and he got rolled. The media made a mockery of Penry’s juvenile attempts to play “pass the blame,” and Penry damaged his own credibility by showing that he didn’t even really understand state budget or personnel issues. The “fresh faces” he mentions are cut from the same cloth and are offering absolutely nothing new other than the same failed talking points and cliches.

For all of his great press a few months ago, at the end of the day, we all learned that Penry is really just a younger version of the same failed Republican politician that has led to the Democrats’ revival in Colorado. The bright lights of the gubernatorial race showed the real Penry — the right-wing “ideologue” who will say and do anything if he thinks it will gain him political points. And what did it get him? A back seat.

More commentary from MADCO on another post.  

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50 thoughts on “Penry Tries Rewriting History in Post Exit Q&A”

        1. Like one of the Penry bloggers.  I don’t recall Scott trash talking Schaffer but then I was pretty busy with work that year. (I have heard it mentioned but not seen a direct quote.)

          In any event what I’ve said before is if I disagree with Scott McInnis I have always been able to tell him and he’s listened and never held it against me.  He’s been the adult throughout this Penry exit saga.

          1. is that he is notoriously thin-skinned and takes criticism as well as a rock floats in water.  (Other than pumice that is).

            Usually he gets red-faced and spews invectives.  I think it might be worth a wager on who will set Scooter off on a public tirade first–ProgressNow or the rabid tea partiers?

            Once, when he was my congresscritter (back in his Abramoff/DeLay, term-limit pledge violating, ‘pro-choice’ days),  he forbade his staff from taking any of my calls or talking to me because he was mad at my telling of the truth.    

            If he is elected, we can just be thankful that Colorado is not a nuclear state or Kansas might be in real trouble.

    2. Ink Withdrawal Syndrome

      It’s what happens to politicians who claim they’re walking away. Josh just cannot stand to be out of the limelight. So he had to get into print somehow and Bartels obliged. Harmon must’ve been busy, I guess.

      1. getting shoved out on my ass was entirely voluntary, and I did it for the good of the party !

        I can’t believe the Post bought this.  McInnis blindsided him, which was pretty crafty.  Evil, yes, but crafty.

  2. indicates he doesn’t believe Mr. McInnis is an adult or cares about the “cause” (whatever that is?). If anything, his comments indicate someone who was pushed out and is still bitter about it, while simultaneously he tries to rewrite history to make it look like he controlled his destiny. At this point he looks weak and not much of a prospective candidate for a future nomination to higher office.

  3. which I am loathe to do, but he does seem to acknowledge that he was the weaker candidate when he ways this:

    Scott has some significant advantages that I recognize, financial and otherwise. He was in Congress for 12 years. He has a bunch of third-party money backing him. The Republican Party historically nominates people who have been down this road before. The insurgent newcomer rarely wins it. I’m not whining about it, but it’s a reality.

    If Scott has advantages, then it sort of goes to figure Penry has disadvantages as the other candidate, and is weaker, right?

    Other than that, he can blow me with his crybaby bullshit about bloggers, particularly when half his lame ass staff appeared to be blogging here at one point.

    2. Is just being a big baby. He still wants the attention and this is his way of getting it. It’s not even about the Governors race for him anymore he just can’t stand being out of the limelight, that’s why he keeps talking to the press.  

  4. Q: When you say you’ll have another shot, that you can run again, well if Ritter were to win re-election your chance would come along four years sooner. There’d be an open governor’s race in 2014.

    A: You’re right. You don’t miss anything.

    Might Penry not exactly be working his little heart out for a McInnis win in 2010?

  6. However, I don’t think Penry thought he could beat McInnis. Or possibly, he thought it would be a very rough fight down to the wire and didn’t want that tough of a battle.

    As to his Q&A above? That’s Josh Penry looking out for Josh Penry – but that is pretty much SOP for a politician. He’s spinning each question as best he can. This isn’t much different from when McInnis said he could have beat Udall.

    1. If Penry could have beaten McInnis, his huge ego would have kept him in the race.  And even though Penry says he was not pushed out by the swinging dicks, he was.  When you have the R power brokers aligned against you, the only path you have is, out.  How humiliating would it have been to Penry’s me-me-me psyche to lose the primary?  

      I believe most know that Penry would have had no chance against Ritter.  Would have been Penry’s extremism vs. Ritter’s pragmatism.  And if he would have stayed till the end of the primary, it would have gone against Tim Foster’s master plan to keep Penry in the spotlight. If he had stayed in, he would not have been able to keep his senate seat.  By running away now and seeking his current post, he assures that we will hear 4 more years of his shallow, no plan, CSB, accomplish nothing, bitching.  Yet, there is still risk in that approach also.  It gives the people of Colorado more time to understand what a hollow shell of flimflamry Penry is.

      From talking to my Mesa County R friends, including one party insider who is being a bit tight lipped, I’m getting the indication that there is even more to this story than has been reported.  

      “Is anyone else here tired of the flimflam, mealy-mouthed Republican?”  –Josh Penry

      1. That there are considerations of future employment buried somewhere in the bowels of this story.

        I think Josh has misunderestimated the power brokers.  Dropping out is not enough to get you points.  Dropping out and keeping your mouth shut is what it takes.  Dropping out and whining just pisses them off.

      2. He’d still be in the race, no question. The bottom line was that he was going to get killed by McInnis, and McInnis’ people made that very clear. Pulling out of the race now is a good move for Penry, because losing a primary would be devastating to his political future.

          1. He wasn’t the favorite, but he could have won. He’s a far more dynamic personality than McInnis, and he will be dangerous in the future as a candidate for higher office.

          2. If the tea party branch of the GOP is as motivated and organized  by the primary as they have been some other places this year, they would probably be able to swing things.  But I don’t know if they will be.  It appears these are people who haven’t been politically active before.  They may get bored and wander off.

      1. It’s to ask the tough questions that don’t get asked of him anywhere else.

        Lynn Bartels loves Penry. I get that. She has her favorites, and she goes easy on them. It’s been done in journalism for years.

        But to not ask him whether or not he would be running for his State Senate seat again is just bad reporting.

      2. Three journalists I have talked/corresponded with since yesterday sure don’t agree with you.  And you want to interview McInnis? You have already drawn your conclusions.  

        1. It probably revealed more about the real Penry than he meant to expose, which is what sometimes happens when the subject feels at ease, whether by clever design on the part of the interviewer or not.

        2. I’m an ardent Democrat. Bill Ritter has my vote and support in the election. As does Michael Bennet in the Senate election.

          But that doesn’t mean I can’t do a fair interview (ask just about every major elected Republican in the state – as I’ve interviewed every one except Doug Lamborn).

          I don’t see it really as a big difference. Most reporters have a preference for a candidate, they just keep it quiet. I’m up front about it. Both approaches have their advantage.

          As to Penry vs McInnis, I would prefer McInnis as governor over Penry, but I think Penry would have won a contested primary. I’m afraid I don’t see how either of those opinions would make for a bad interview.

          1. No need to defend against haters

            I’m a Republican (read my sig line) that was interviewed by David and it was one of the most fair, intelligent, and well-balanced interviews I’ve ever engaged within

            David’s talent is like that of Tim Russert – he knows a fake when he sees it and he can call it out – politicians with conviction, regardless of Party, will do just fine in David’s interviews

            2. Just read what he wrote about Ali.

              “Even worse than the ego I think

              Is he comes across as a child. A rich spoiled child who wants a senate seat because it would be fun. But the biggest impression I was left with is he still emotionally is a child.”

              “The story doesn’t kill his chances, he kills them.”  

              2. I believe I wrote that about the Westword article about Ali. And I think that was a fair characterization of how he came across (in that article).

                But Ali recovered from that, apologized, and went on to run a strong campaign. I think it speaks well of him that he did learn from that and improved.

                Candidates who spring from the womb perfect are so boring.

      3. for the Post to show Penry in all his arrogance. Although the comments were edited to some extent, think about how much impact this interview would have lost if it had been filtered and rewritten as a standard news story.

        In the Q&A format, Penry’s personality shines through.

        Sure, the reporter could have asked other questions, but no story or interview covers every angle. In this case, the interview basically lets Penry speak for himself. And sometimes, that’s the most effective way for the media to report a story.

  8. Unless it’s a transvestite thing. They are more likely to sleep wearing street clothes and their own puke. The clothes are kept affordable by free trade and the American fighting men they spit on.

    3. just like you GOP ‘warrior’  

      Fake ‘heros’ need to stick together bro!  Launch another armchair missile!  Yeah, that’ll show them liberals!  

      But I am confused, I thought GOP ‘warriors’ preferred clothes made by slave labor in the Marinas.

      MAH-anyone who questions what you agree with is a ‘hater’?  Are you channeling the Manatee?

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