TEA PARTY MASSACRE
How the Colorado GOP Killed Its Best Shot at Governor
Scott McInnis had experience, charisma and a winning message. He seemed like a natural choice for governor. Then, everything changed.By David Frey, 8-30-10
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When Scott McInnis announced his plans to run as a Republican for governor of Colorado in his hometown of Glenwood Springs, he got a hero’s welcome. He looked unstoppable, beaming beside his wife Lori as he called out names of old friends who had turned out to see him in a warehouse on the edge of town decked with campaign signs.
He sported cowboy boots and jeans and he glowed as country singer Michael Martin Murphy turned “Home on the Range” into a political anthem. As he criticized Democrats and made a plea for “jobs, jobs, jobs,” McInnis seemed to be the right man with the right message for Republicans hoping to make the most of discontent with Democrats and the Obama administration.
McInnis was a natural GOP choice for governor. A former Congressman turned lobbyist, he had name recognition and charisma. He had a successful political track record, and a not-too-far-to-the-right reputation that seemed like an easy sell in a middle-of-the-road state at a time when Democrats were losing their luster.
His Democratic opponent at the time seemed certain to be Gov. Bill Ritter, a one-term governor whose popularity was flagging.
Then everything changed.
On the Democratic side, Ritter stepped aside and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper jumped in. Hickenlooper, a geologist turned businessman turned politician, brought star power. He’s a tremendously popular mayor whose business background an collaborative approach has given him crossover appeal.
But Hickenlooper never had time to try to vie with McInnis. The Republicans devoured him themselves.
The Tea Party movement was gaining steam, so to speak, back when McInnis was announcing his candidacy. He was in a three-way race for the GOP nomination back then. His former protégé, Josh Penry, a firebrand legislator from conservative Grand Junction, seemed like his toughest challenger. Penry had won over a cadre of followers, but he dutifully towed the party line and stepped aside to help McInnis.
McInnis was also facing a challenger from Dan Maes, a businessman from Evergreen who was otherwise unknown. Maes didn’t step aside.
Once upon a time, a race between a power player like McInnis and a political nobody like Maes would have been a certainty. But with the Tea Party movement’s anger at anybody who smelled like an insider, the unexpected happened. McInnis lost his mojo, and Maes found his.
McInnis tried to float above the fray, even avoiding the GOP state convention. But that pretension only dragged him into the morass.
Then a flap about plagiarism exploded and McInnis’ campaign imploded. He was accused of ripping off other people’s words information about water law for a high-paid foundation job.
The scandal didn’t help, but McInnis was already on the way down.
“Scott has the knowledge, the looks, the charisma to be a tremendous governor,” Don Vanderhoof said as he introduced McInnis to the crowd back in October. “He can win this thing. He’s a great campaigner.”
McInnis had served 10 years in the state legislature and 10 years in Congress. It used to be, those were the kind of credentials you needed to be a candidate. Now, in the GOP, it’s a resume that can get you the boot – in this case, the cowboy boot.
Vanderhoof knows a bit about McInnis the candidate. He was his campaign manager when McInnis was running for the state house, all five times. That first time, Vanderhoof said, McInnis earned himself a nickname: “Landslide McInnis.” The name was a joke. He beat his Democratic opponent then by just 13 votes.
Then, McInnis became a juggernaut. Democrats couldn’t find a candidate who could beat him. But what Democrats couldn’t do, Republicans could, with a candidate whose claim to fame was having no claim to fame.
Now Maes may face a similar fate. As Tom Tancredo, the hero of the anti-immigrant right, steps in as a third-party candidate, he threatens to divide conservatives again.
David Frey writes in Glenwood Springs. Read him at www.davidmfrey.com and follow him on Twitter.
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Comments
The plagarism thing alone (and Scott could have avoided it all with simple attribution) destroyed his campaign. Maes would have lost the primary without it. Furthermore, Tancredo would not have entered the race at all but with two badly-damaged candidates....
The bigger shame here is that McInnis' loss denied Jane Norton a "second chance" to be appointed in a withdrawn McInnis's stead. I mean, she was nowhere close to Scott, and I'm happy Ken Buck is the standard-bearer. But Norton is an order of magnitude more stellar than Maes, and multiple orders better than the Looper.
So, here's hoping the angry right decides to fix the legislature...that they can still do.
The plagiarism happened in 150 pages of issue papers he wrote on water topics for a foundation, and an assistant did much of the work. The foundation paid him a ridiculous amount of money -- $300,000 -- and when the plagiarism charge came out the foundation demanded its money back.
We know the GOP and/or the Tea Party didn't shoot down McInnis because his precipitous drop in the polls came after the plagiarism controversy erupted.
In other words, the author of this author seems to be grasping for some way to do a typical slime job on the GOP and/or the Tea Party, but he widely misses the mark.
Penry's next move was to take over as Campaign Manager for U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton, another Grand Junction republican, one of Sarah's "Mama Grizzlies," the strong favorite in the race and clear GOP establishment choice. It was Josh and Jane's race to lose. Despite some entertaining trash-talking from Penry early on, they pulled it off with aplomb. Josh can commiserate with failed Dem Senate contender Andy Romanoff (another one-time rising star in his party) on what could have been, if only he had entered the right race at the right time, or stick with it, or something like that. . .
Back to Scooter McInnis, if anything else, we should learn why its bad policy to name geographic places after living people, politicians or otherwise (McInnis Canyons National Recreation Area, a favorite target of local graffiti artists). Some might ascribe that to preoccupation with self, others might call it the sin of pride. In any case, a warning sign that went unheeded. Turns out Scott wasn't all that, more of a blustery former cop who turned out to be an empty suit who would throw his closest associates under the bus in his quest for higher office and say anything to get elected.
Scooter wasn't "accused" of plagiarism: he finally admitted it but not until there was no denying. It went far deeper than stealing someone's work (the document with his name on it cut and pasted long passages from Colorado Supreme Court rulings; either he wasn't familiar with them or never actually read his own "treatise" before submitting the invoice) and claiming it as his own for a fat paycheck.
The entire arrangement for his "Musings on Water" was little more than an under the table payoff from some wealthy GOP wannabe powerbrokers who hoped to curry favor with McInnis but that went south when Scott declined to endorse their son we he ran for statewide office. No half-serious water scholar or policy professional would recognize Scooter as an expert. As Ed Quillen pointed out -- before the scandal broke -- Scooter's "treatise" omitted one of the state's major water basins, an error than a college freshman could have avoided by consulting Wikipedia. Basic stuff, like footnoting citations.
http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_15516949
McInnis' campaign was one mis-step after another. Turns out he wasn't who he claimed to be and had fatal character flaws. He boasted about being one of the most generous men in Colorado, but it turns out his charitable "donations" were non-charitable contributions to the Republican National Committee, as opposed to down-on-their-luck fellow citizens or other worthy causes as he tried to lead us to believe until pressed for actual specifics -- when his memory went dim.
Vanderhoof was kidding himself: Scooter didn't have either the knowledge or the charisma. Somewhere along the way, he lost his integrity -- maybe when he offered it for sale to the highest bidder. He's now a has-been lawyer lobbyist who used to be in Congress, but would have a tough time getting elected dog-catcher in his home town.
Sad ending for him, but good for Colorado. We're looking at a Governor who envisions a positive future where a vibrant new energy economy brings prosperity to today's work force and tomorrow's workers, including an educational system capable of teaching the skills to compete in the global economy. A vision that doesn't sacrifice our quality of life or world-class landscapes to the highest bidder in the pursuit of short-term profits. In other words, a leader with the foresight to remember which goose lays the golden eggs. Or why we live in God's country.
Anyhow, Scott can always visit his namesake canyons if he needs an ego boost and a place to ponder what could have been, if only . . .
Neither plagiarism nor Hickenlooper are the reason the party gave its nomination to Maes, either.
The plagiarism scandal caused the McInnis campaign to implode publicly, the Denver Post to write him off formally and emphatically (now that we're a one newspaper town the Post ed board seems to think they run the state), staff to jump like rats from a sinking ship, and donations to dry up. Otherwise he might have salvaged a narrow win (money still matters and Maes didn't have any) and the honor of getting whipped by Hickenlooper instead of watching from the sidelines.
But yeah, it wasn't just one thing, but a combination establishing pattern and practice of conduct unbecoming a would-be governor. Plagiarism put lingering doubts to rest about whether this candidate was who he claimed to be. The botched cover-up and failure to accept responsibility for a mistake, as the case often is, was worse than the original offense.