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April 07, 2022 11:00 AM UTC

Colorado's Worst Campaigns: The "F***ed Four"

  • 6 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

After three iterations of our bracket featuring the worst campaigns in Colorado this century, we’ve reached the “biggest loser” stage that we’re calling the “F***ed Four.”

Click here to catch up. Continue below to read our breakdown of how we got to the “F***ed Four” and cast your vote for the finals!

 

 

The “F***ed Four”

Bob Beauprez ‘06 (Governor) vs. Tim Neville ’16 (Senate)

Bob Beauprez’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign was always going to be tough to out-awful. Beauprez has the worst TV ad of the last 22 years in his infamous “horse’s ass” spot, and then there’s the raw number factor: He went from being the favorite in the 2006 race for Governor to losing to little-known former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter by 17 points! We haven’t seen a major statewide campaign decided by such a large margin ever since.

 

Dan Maes ’10 (Governor) vs. Hiedi Heidi Ganahl ’22 (Governor)

It’s just too soon to declare Ganahl’s campaign as one of the four worst of this century, but she’s absolutely making a run for the title. In the meantime, it’s hard to do much worse than Maes’s General Election finish in 2010, when he captured all of 11% of the vote in a three-way race with Democrat John Hickenlooper and American Constitution Party nominee Tom Tancredo. It’s a safe bet that we won’t soon see a major party candidate in Colorado performing this poorly in a General Election. 

 

Walker Stapleton ’18 (Governor) vs. George Brauchler ’18 (Governor)

Brauchler pulled off the upset in an earlier round by knocking out Darryl Glenn’s sad 2016 campaign for U.S. Senate. Stapleton’s gubernatorial campaign was definitely not good, but at least he won the Republican nomination and made it all the way to the General Election. Brauchler’s gubernatorial campaign was so bad that he dropped out after about six months — and just weeks after his supporters were claiming he had all the “momentum” in the race. Brauchler went on to run for Attorney General in 2018, a race he lost handily to Democrat Phil Weiser.

Jon Keyser ’16 (Senate) vs. Scott McInnis ’10 (Governor)

This was the closest theoretical battle in the entire bracket. McInnis’s campaign was so bad that he LOST to Dan Maes in the 2010 Republican Primary. But Keyser ultimately advances because his brief campaign for U.S. Senate was epic in its awfulness. His infamous meltdown in front of then-Denver7 reporter Marshall Zelinger inspired a series of inside jokes that politicos still use to this day. Keyser was so humiliated by his performance that he moved out of Colorado altogether just a few months after the Republican Primary Election in June 2016.

 

So, which of the “F***ed Four” is the worst of the worst? Cast your vote below:

Which Campaign is the Most "F***ed" of the 21st Century?

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Comments

6 thoughts on “Colorado’s Worst Campaigns: The “F***ed Four”

  1. I still have issues with this…

    How Scott McInnis avoided getting to the final four, I will never understand. It was a wave-election cycle which washed out Betsy Markey and John Salazar, brought in the slimy Cory Gardner and the nearly invisible Scott Tipton. All three under-ticket candidates went on to win the statewide races in November. And, of course, Cowboy Boots Buck came with a hair of taking down Thurston Howell. McInnis was a shoo-in to win the general election had he not screwed the pooch with the Musings on Water stuff.

    The fact that Don Maes got as far as he did is truly astonishing. He won the GOP primary. (I actually know of one Republican who has admitted having voted for him.) This guy was a nobody who ran an incompetent campaign, triggered the establishment GOP to migrate en masse to the ACP and Tommy Tancredo, and hit up Freida Poundstone for money to make his mortgage payments. Chutzpah is the only word for this guy.

    Both Ways lost a race that was probably hopeless to begin with. It was another wave-election cycle, he faced an intra-party challenge from someone questioning his conservative bona fides, and he was running against a moderate Democrat who was perceived as being a middle-aged Boy Scout. 

    Brauchler, too, lost a race which was probably unwinnable, especially after Judge Samour (now Justice Samour) chewed him out for tweeting in the middle of James Holmes trial. While Brauchler ran a basically ineffective campaign, it wasn't like he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory like McInnis did.

  2. Why is Maes on this list? Dude absolutely exceeded all expectations from the start, and then kept the GOP above the 20% threshold, despite Tank’s entry. He also refused to be muscled-out and stood his ground, when the “party elders” carped. He also galvanized the tea party vote and followed through on energizing them. When you consider the plate he started with, Maes did a great job and maintained integrity to the causes he championed. 

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