September 30, 2010 05:53 PM UTC

Tancredo Intoxication Gains Steam--Where Does This End?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports, (technically) third-party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo is reading the polls and feeling mighty confident:

On a Denver radio talk show earlier this month, Maes said that if there were a standard for who should be invited to debates, he’s set that level at candidates who are polling at 20 percent or higher.

But since then, a new poll showed Maes well below that level.

“Dan Maes said he’d end his sideshow if he dropped below 20 percent,” Tancredo campaign manager Bay Buchanan said in a statement.

“We’ll see if he lives up to it, or if this turns out to be just another one of Dan’s tall tales or serial exaggerations.”

Campaign spokesman Nate Strauch said Maes won’t be dropping out of any of the remaining six debates…

Meanwhile, Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams is still out there damning his party’s nominee Dan Maes with faint praise, as the Pueblo Chieftain’s Patrick Malone reports:

Dick Wadhams, state chairman of the Republican Party, said he believes Maes made the right move by releasing the file, but isn’t certain whether it will win back any of the support that he lost. [Pols emphasis]

Wadhams said he’s behind Maes, which at times had been in question because of earlier remarks Wadhams made about his disappointment that Maes would not step aside as the Republican nominee.

“Dan Maes is the Republican nominee. I support him,” Wadhams said…

As you know, Maes released portions of his personnel record this week from the Liberal, Kansas police department, where he worked briefly in the 1980s. The records don’t completely exonerate Maes, but they do prove one of his principal contentions–that he was indeed in contact with Kansas Bureau of Investigations agents working on a gambling case. You’ll recall that this was disputed in the press, and the unresolved questions used as leverage to try to force Maes out of the race just before the ballot for November was finalized. And it was this story that prompted Wadhams to issue his now-infamous September 3rd press release, where it was announced that the state party would not support the winner of its gubernatorial primary.

Today, many high-profile Colorado Republicans are publicly backing Tancredo over Maes. Wadhams’ assurance that he supports Maes flies in the face of everything else he has said about this race, and is totally worthless given Wadhams’ repeated attempts to undermine and/or force Maes out. All of this is taking place against the backdrop of a gubernatorial campaign with an assured outcome if nothing changes: the election of John Hickenlooper.

Now, for those of you out there who are trying to envision Tancredo actually winning, and hoping that Maes might withdraw to make that “easier,” let us explain to you how that would go down. The moment that Maes pulled out, leaving the field open for Tancredo, every eye-poppingly nutty, or race-baiting, or xenophobic, or extremist on foreign policy–everything the man has ever said that made him a pariah among his fellow Republicans, would be immediately front-and-center.

Colorado Republicans backing Tancredo have done a remarkable job putting his calls to bomb Mecca, or laughably calling Sonia Sotomayor a “racist” after singing ‘Dixie’ with neoconfederates, out of their minds while they try to rehabilitate him into an electable figure. And Democrats have been perfectly happy to pay that rope out while it serves their purposes.

We assure you, the moment Tancredo represents anything close to a credible threat, the attacks on his long record and immoderate past statements will not be pretty–and will make Republicans dearly regret ever getting behind him. There was, before things went to hell last July, a very good reason this man was persona non grata to every Republican who prefers to win.