President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Kamala Harris

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

(R) V. Archuleta

98%

2%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

(R) Marshall Dawson

95%

5%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

50%

50%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(D) Trisha Calvarese

90%

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Crank

(D) River Gassen

80%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

(R) John Fabbricatore

90%

10%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) B. Pettersen

(R) Sergei Matveyuk

90%

10%

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

70%↑

30%

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
October 30, 2008 05:40 PM UTC

Owens Turns On Fellow "RINO" McInnis

  • 12 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: From the Las Vegas Sun, a story about Bob Schaffer’s former roommate Sen. John Ensign, McInnis, and Ensign’s costly picks (like Schaffer) for Senate races all over the country:

Ensign took over as head of the election effort in late 2006. His trouble began as he failed to recruit top-tier candidates to challenge the 11 incumbent Democrats up for reelection. In Arkansas, for example, where a first-term Democratic senator is seeking reelection, Republicans have no candidate.

Ensign has said it was difficult to persuade candidates to run because Republicans are so unpopular…

But Ensign played an uneven role in pushing candidates forward – or, more important, stopping those such as New Mexico Rep. Steve Pearce, who now is seen as too conservative to win statewide.

Former Rep. Scott McInnis, who stepped aside in Colorado so candidate Bob Schaffer could run for the open Republican seat, now says Ensign forced him out of the race in favor of the more conservative candidate, who is trailing in the polls.

“John made it very clear up front that their pick was Bob Schaffer,” McInnis told the Denver Post…

After the election, Ensign is expected to seek his party’s No. 4 job in the Senate, as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

Former Senate candidate Scott McInnis’ dramatic pronouncements on the state of the Colorado GOP two days ago–and his assertion that he “would have beat” Democrat Mark Udall–are casting a very long shadow, which we’ll be talking about up to and well beyond next Tuesday. His clearly-stated opinion that the GOP has recruited candidates that are too far right to win, and that the GOP has disastrously neglected the state legislature because of an undue focus on Bob Schaffer’s flagging Senate race, are provoking bitter arguments between the moderate and Jon Caldara wings of the party.

Sources tell us an emerging consensus view in the upper ranks of the Republican Party acknowledges that McInnis is largely correct–that GOP chairman/Schaffer campaign manager Dick Wadhams tried to take on too much personal responsibility, resulting in failures at both of his primary jobs, and that the staunch conservative candidates the base loves are losing traction with the broader electorate in fundamental, irreversible ways.

The problem is not what McInnis said, but when he said it–from the point of view of GOP footsoldiers trying to salvage what they can from an increasingly desperate situation, what McInnis said only increases the likelihood of the ‘bloodbath’ he predicted. It’s therefore almost universally viewed as treasonable, even though objectively he didn’t really make the GOP’s plight any worse. More like pointing out the obvious.

Now, if there’s anybody in Colorado who knows a thing or two about “treason,” it’s former Governor Bill “Referendum C” Owens. But as much as Owens may sympathize with McInnis on principle, the Denver Post reports:

In an e-mail to McInnis obtained by The Denver Post, Owens said McInnis’ comments “are distracting our party during an already difficult year.”

The party’s choice, Bob Schaffer, is trailing Democrat Mark Udall in polls for the seat occupied by Republican Wayne Allard, who did not seek re-election.

McInnis told The Post that he seriously considered a run but Republican leaders in Washington were behind Schaffer.

He said party leaders erred by fielding a staunch conservative when the mood of voters this year appears to favor moderates, such as him.

Owens called McInnis out in the e-mail. The former governor reminded the Western Slope politician of his early support for McInnis’ candidacy and that it was McInnis who “pulled the rug out from under us and our Party, paving the way for an unopposed Schaffer candidacy.”

Note Owens’ choice of words: he’s essentially conceding that the “unopposed Schaffer candidacy” is what McInnis says it is, and only takes issue with the reasons McInnis gave for withdrawing. And, of course, the goddamn horrible timing.

You can see pretty clearly where Owens would like to end up in what’s being forecast by Republicans we know as a “post-bloodbath bloodbath.” He would like to trump McInnis by calling out his “unhelpfulness” when politically expedient to do so now, but ultimately we predict Owens will be arguing McInnis’ centrist case next year.

The real loser in all of this, as will be glaringly obvious to all observers next Wednesday, is Dick Wadhams. It’s evident now that longtime friend Wadhams was pushing for Bob Schaffer behind the scenes all along, a violation of the trust placed in him as party chairman. It was Wadhams who doubled down and assured everyone he could handle both of critical jobs of chairman and Schaffer campaign manager by sheer force of will or a devastating wrestling move or whatever. Now he faces the downside of double-or-nothing. Unless there’s some kind of dramatic gain for the GOP in the Assembly that is not at this point expected, it’s going to be awfully tough to justify his big-ticket salary going into ’09.

Tweet
Share

Comments

12 thoughts on “Owens Turns On Fellow “RINO” McInnis”

  1. ….the best thing he can do is chase DickWad Hams out of town next Tuesday morning, and take over as head of the State GOP. His first act after that is to tell the National GOP clones to stay the hell out of his State, and let the Party rebuild with local politicos.

    As a Dem, I’m happy to let this GOP cannibalism continue in the press, but I’m also not a fan of one-party rule. Competent legislators on both sides of the aisle make Colorado better.

        1. and really mocking Libertad is a requirement for just about everyone.  That or wishing him run off the road, for the more aggressive in the group.

  2. Hey Bill.  I’m just laughing and laughing about this.  You, even more so that John Andrews were one of the first idiots (right from the ’78 Armstrong campaign who brought the nuts into the party.  What?  Are they too radical for you now?  Sorry, again, you reap what you sow.  You can deal with these idiots now.  We all tried to warn you many, many times.  But you thought this was just fine.  Problem is that you just didn’t believe that these folks were for real and could take over the party.  Well, now us Country Club Republicans are gone, for good.  You can continue to pal around with your corporatists and wring your hands and throw your money away, but it’s over.  Go back to Texas,  we never needed your kind here.

    1. If Bill Owens can help the GOP cast out the carzies and find it’s way again, more power to him. No one’s perfect and yes he helped cause the problem – but if he’ll now help clean it up, that’s great.

      Keep in mind that FDR made Joe Kennedy the first chair of the SEC – and he did a great job because he knew what all the slimeballs were doing.

      1. Owens isn’t in any danger of cleaning up the mess, he’s just invoking the Eleventh Commandment.

        Owens has no interest in casting out the … er, the carzies. He just wants the Party Elders to sort out the blame in private, maybe at some fancy conference in Virginia, after the election. That’s all.

    2. and both of us tried to warn the party leaders that the social/religious conservatives would drag the party down and they have.  Owens will not be able to solve this problem for the simple reason he is no longer considered a bona fide conservative because he supported Referendum C in 2005.  When your dealing with the right-wing fanatics you must always remember that you are required to pass every litmus test with a 100% score. Any deviation whatsoever means your a RINO and cannot be trusted.

      The fanatics who now run the Colorado Republican party live in a cloistered environment where they only talk to themselves and extrapolate from that, that a vast majority of Coloradoans agree with their positions and philosophy. They refuse to admit that the last three elections have in any way diminished the voters support of the Republican Party in this state.

      Even more egregious is their contempt for any government at all. They believe the government should not exist.  Their basic philosphy can be summed up like this:  If its a public institution, it is evil, it must be destroyed. Of course, by taking on this philosphy the Republican Party refused to govern when it was still in the majority in the state House and Senate and thus lost their majorities.

      Two weeks ago State Senator Steve Ward (R-Littleton) spoke at a transportation seminar that dealt with a report from the federal Transportation Department concenring the need for the federal and state governments to invest in highway infrastructure in the United States. When Steve spoke he point blank told everyone that they should not waste their time coming to either the Republican state House or Senate caucuses for support for more money for highways and bridges. He said, and I quote: “The Republican caucuses are basically anarchists.”  They do not believe the government has any legitimate function beyond fire and police protection.  And please keep in mind the Republican Senate caucus will only be more conservative after next Tuesday.  Moderate Republicans are not allowed to run for office in this state.

      Everyone should remember that when Referendum C was on the ballot in 2005, the likes of Jon Caldara and John Andrews stated when confronted with the facts that if “C” didn’t pass college tuition at our state colleges and universities would rise to the level of private universities in five years, they said they didn’t care. It simply did not matter to them that Colorado students wouldn’t be able to afford a college education.  When confronted with the fact the transportation system had suffered a 40% cut since 2001, thanks to TABOR and Repbulican legislative neglect, they said they didn’t care. It simply doesn’t matter to the present leaders of the Republican Party that our infrastructure needs repair.

      While these same leaders were taking those positions and simultaneously ignored these issues in the legislature, they instead dealt with the really pressing issues before Colorado like attempting to impeach a Denver district court judge because he entered an order governing the relationship between two lesbians and the child one of them adopted. The final order said that the adoptive parent could not teach the child homophobic beliefs (the adoptive parent had renounced lesbianism).  That hairbrained charge was led by none other than Rep. Brophy who is now one of the primary spokesmen for the Republicans in the legislature and who may try and run for the 4th CD next time if Musgrave looses. I will be blunt.  Brophy lied to his colleagues in the House about Judge Coughlin.  The verbatim transcript of the court hearing showed the two women jointly requested Judge Coughlin put the anti-homophobic provision in the order. In other words, the Judge didn’t impose it on either one of the women.  They jointly requested it be included. And yet Brophy went forward knowing he was lying to his colleagues about what had happened. The Republican fanatics who run our party have no respect for honesty. They believe they have the right to lie to get their way.  Their behavior like Brophy’s is dishonest and dispicable.

      During this same period of time (2004), rather than deal with the real problems confronting higher education, which had also had its budget cut by 40%, Senate President Andrews launched an all out attack on higher education by asserting Colorado universities and colleges discriminated against students who held conservative views. In a pre-session hearing on his bill, only one student, of the tens of thousands who attend our colleges, testified that he had been discriminated against for his conservative views and as expected, that professor had already been disciplined for his acts of discrimination.  In short, while Andrews and the other fanatics starved our institutions of higher learning of funding, they then attempted to undermine public suipport for higher education by asserting it didn’t respect free speech even though they knew they didn’t have one shred of evidence to support that aasertion.  Andrews and his supporters were really trying to undermine support for those institutions so they could cut the funding even more.  Their goal is to destroy them.  Let me be blunt, this kind of philosphy and action is not responsible public policy, it is economic, social and, in the end, from a naitonal security perspective, insanity.

      These people do not have any vision for our state or our nation.  They are focused on one goal – dismantling public institutions regardless of the consequences to our social and economic well being or our naitonal security.

      They are fools but they run the Republican Party.  Republicans who have responsible views about our state and society have been shoved out of the room and our only choice is to join with the Democrats and form a governing coalition that will responsibly govern our state and our nation.        

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

67 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!