Posted on 02/10/2007 8:08:36 AM PST by Clintonfatigued
A spokeswoman for presumed 2008 U.S. Senate candidate Scott McInnis said Tuesday the former congressman hopes to avoid a messy, divisive primary in the vein of 2006’s primary battle between Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Bob Beauprez and Marc Holtzman.
Susan Smith, a spokeswoman for the former Grand Junction congressman, said McInnis was hoping the party will unite behind his candidacy.
“The concern is that it would cause further damage to the party,” Smith said of a primary. “We want to learn from the past couple election cycles.”
McInnis, who has all but formally announced his candidacy, could find himself pitted against former Front Range Congressman Bob Schaffer, who told the Fort Collins Coloradoan last month that he has not ruled out a run for retiring Sen. Wayne Allard’s seat.
Schaffer, who ran for retiring Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s seat in 2004, lost to beer magnate Pete Coors in the Republican primary.
Smith said the McInnis camp is “working with party activists” to ensure that there will not be a divisive primary for Republicans while the Democratic candidate, presumably Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., sits on the sidelines unscathed like Gov. Bill Ritter did last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at gjsentinel.com ...
Sorry to butt in but I agree with you. The sad aspect of all this is McInnis screwed the pooch when he screwed party activists. The question is whether or not he can overcome that. To be honest, I would like a better candidate, but this is not the time to choose sides.
Thank you. I admit I have not been following the Democrat bench to know. I'll get back in the game.
Sorry, but no. Scott McInnis abandoned the party and he lost his appeal. Just my opinion.
Your comment is accurate. Thanks for saying it. The solution of new leadership may be accomplished IF Dick Wadhams becomes the new state chairman.
My perspective is Colorado Republicans are not well organized and not galvanized to do what has to be done. The sad truth is, if we do not get our act together to do this, Colorado will go Democrat by default.
As I write, I hope you and others will get more active so we can take back the party and make our opinions known and more accepted.
Most of what you wrote I agree with.
Pete Coors is a great guy and conservative. The problem is he is not the best spokesman or politician to have won the race he was in. We can chalk it up to poor expectations on his part but I would include poor advisers in the mix.
I repeat, you and others need to jump in and help us overcome this RINO mentality that is not helping us win.
CO GOP is working on this. Yes, we are late to the party but at least this is now in the works.
Agreed. Holtzman ended up worse than a Democrat. The Democrats dedicated a lot of website space parroting all the Holtzman attacks on Beauprez.
I agree with your opinion.
Scott abandoned the party and his own 20 years of service.
He did not help the republicans who tried to follow in his state seats ( the rippy's ) nor in his federal seat.
All of us were upset.
We agree that Pete Coors is a great guy and conservative...but he should have met with Campbell early on to do some photo-ops and brief commercials. Even Ben complained that Ben was not even consulted.
Not just this, but Pete did not help himself in other ways.
Pete would have been a good senator and we tried to support him.
Agreed.
McInnis may be making a run for the office but others are trying to get a handle on a more long term solution for CO problems, and wishing for a better candidate now.
A Democrat Lite candidate cannot win versus a real Democrat and this is, sadly, the persona McInnis projects now.
Not to get into the finer points but a couple of comments.
Ben Campbell is not a good source for helping. Yes, he could have helped and Coors should have done that. Still, Ben Campbell is not and will not be a source for generating grassroots support.
Pete was unable to generate better grassroots support. But, the real problem is Pete did not motivate independent voters who decided the election. Personal opinion is the Coors advisors did a poor job and the Coors staff failed to recognize or motivate voters.
My guess is that Scott will not run for the senate in 2008.
Hopefully he will get involved in supporting other republicans forcefully ( not just a brother-in-law ). He still has some campaign money and other assets.
We will still be active. My bigger worry is for the next generation.
Ben is all about Ben. I always took a large box of salt when I listened to him. What he said about this may not be accurate, but we never saw any photos nor ads.
I agree that Ben is not about our future grassroot growth.
One area that Scott can help if he is willing is to push better staff people forward. Not to beat on Beauprez or Pete even more, but did they did not seem to be able to find better staff on their own.
We're right on the same wavelength. I have a lot of regard for Dick Wadhams and nobody knows Colorado politics better.
We have to hold at least one Senate seat, so if Scott's the guy I'll definitely support him. And, just on name recognition alone, I think he'd be stronger than Shaffer. But for the reasons discussed on this thread, I think Scott will have a harder time motivating the base than he realizes.
I wish somebody would stake Holtzman to an anthill for what he did to the Colorado Republican Party. (Figuratively, of course.)
Rumors that Scott is not running in 2008 for Senate.
Attorney General John Suthers being pushed forward ?
WTF?? After all this buildup, Scott's NOT going to pull the trigger?? What's going on?
There is this long struggle. Scott does not want to live in DC nor deal with all the phoney people in DC...
yet he does not want Colorado to drift even further left.
Second, if Attorney General John Suthers runs for the US Senate, Scott is worried about us losing this state wide position to another dem appointment by the governor.
And more...
I have no doubt that would happen. And Suthers is a good man, but I'm not sure he's built enough of a statewide base yet to be able to beat Udall. It makes a lot of sense for Scott to run.
Shaffer has been very quiet. No rumors that I can see.
If Shaffer ran, then we would keep Attorney General John Suthers and block the governor's possible dem appointment to AG.
I agree that Suthers would have a tough job statewide for the US Senate seat.
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