August 26, 2012 11:20 PM UTC

While Laura Bradford Laughs Hysterically (Jared Wright Update)

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Grand Junction Sentinel’s Gary Harmon continues the story of embattled GOP HD-54 candidate Jared Wright, and the increasingly desperate Mesa County Republicans trying to nudge him out of a race he is virtually certain to win:

With the Mesa County Republican Party leadership paralyzed by the candidacy of Jared Wright, party members have embarked on a frenzied, but so far unsuccessful, search for an alternative to his candidacy.

One Republican even considered dropping out of the GOP, joining a minor party and mounting a ballot challenge that way.

“Everybody’s trying to figure out some way to get him out of the race,” said Kathy Hall, a former Mesa County commissioner and longtime party activist, “so we can have a candidate who lives up to the basic principles of our party: personal responsibility and integrity.” [Pols emphasis]

…Wright’s path to the Legislature seemed clear until revelations about his departure from the Fruita Police Department and then about his 2011 bankruptcy raised questions in the GOP.

Mesa County Commissioner Steve Acquafresca called the series of events “an oddball deal” that could have legislative implications.

“All that any legislator has to sell over there (in the capitol) is his credibility,” said Acquafresca, who served in the Legislature representing parts of Delta County. “I’m not saying this in judgment of Jared Wright, but credibility is all important. You can gain the confidence of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and that’s especially important for the West Slope counties.”

As Harmon reports, and we’ve known from the moment Wright’s controversies surfaced in local press, it’s too late–for Democrats to field a candidate in a race they couldn’t win other than in a situation like this one, and also for Republicans to replace Wright with either another Republican or a “third party” Tom Tancredo-style alternative. All of the applicable deadlines had already passed when the story of Wright’s departure from the Fruita Police Department, then his questionable personal bankruptcy a year prior, damaged his candidacy to the point that prominent local Republicans began funding a campaign to get him out of the race.

We can’t predict how things will end here–we’ve still heard nothing from former boss and Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, Wright’s mentor under whom he served as a legislative aide. Will Wright be able to outlast the red-on-red campaign to get rid of him? Will Wright emerge from this battle for his political future as a pariah, or a “rehabilitated” comeback kid?

Like Todd Akin can tell you, sometimes stubborn is just as good as “rehabilitated.”