A Candidate for Governor Has Both Parties on Alert

NY Times ^ | Jack Healy

[ObamahatesPACoal]

Tom Tancredo, the firebrand former congressman, Harley-Davidson biker and perennial headache for Colorado’s Republican leaders, was taking fire from all sides last week in the final days of his primary campaign for governor. His rivals were slamming him on the airwaves. Moderate Republicans were warning that Mr. Tancredo’s name on the ballot could doom their chances in crucial races across this swing state. (SNIP)

Last week, a radio commercial from a Massachusetts-based group attacked Mr. Tancredo as a “big-spending Republican in Washington” who frequently switched positions. The group, Colorado Campaign for Jobs and Opportunity, has ties to a consulting firm run by several people who worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns.

[LeeClementineKenny]

Tom Tancredo is the candidate to vote for in the primary and he has just as much of a chance at winning the general election as the rest of the candidates.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Actually, Secretary of State Scott Gessler is the one to vote for in the primary. He has won statewide, unlike retreads Tancredo (who lost in 2010 and couldn’t hold Hickenlooper to under 50%) or Beauprez (who was the 2006 candidate, losing in a landslide to Democrat Ritter).

[LeeClementineKenny]

I like Tancredo on most issues and have supported him for years. The 2010 election isn’t exactly a good indicator of how this race would look now. The Republican candidate Dan Maes had some scandals and lost most of his supporters and his poll numbers dropped very dramatically into single digits. We needed someone else in the race after that. So Tancredo got involved running as a third party candidate. If Tancredo had planned on running earlier on, and had won the Republican primary there was a very good chance of him beating Hickenlooper.

I expect Tancredo to win this primary today, and then I expect him to win the general election because of all the Conservatives who will be heading to the polls this year because they are sick of the immigration issue and gun control.

http://governortancredo.com/

[fieldmarshaldj]

I was trying to point out that when Tancredo entered the race as a 3rd party candidate when Maes refused to step aside, that the combined total of both candidates made no difference, because Hickenlooper still cleared 50%. That tells me that Tancredo would not have beaten him in a one-on-one race. They couldn’t even take down a nobody seatwarmer Democrat Senate appointee, either.

I hope Gessler wins, because he was one of the bright spots of a dismal 2010 cycle in Colorado. He’s already demonstrated he can win statewide. Tancredo and Beauprez proved they can’t.