Colorado Republicans have a minor problem.

October 5, 2010

Colorado's Governor's race may cost the Republican Party its major party status for 2012.

By Eileen McGuire-Mahony

Nationally, the Republicans are surging but apparently not high enough to touch Colorado's mile-high politics. In early 2006, with a well-liked outgoing two-term Republican in the Governor's Mansion and a one-time Congressman and state party chair running to replace him, the GOP was cruising to four more years helming the state.

Until...a bruising primary battle, an inability to keep intra-party friction off the front page, and a series of gaffes that just compounded handed victory to Democrat Bill Ritter. Ritter came from the Denver DA's office and was a political neophyte, which showed early on. He made his own share of missteps and was officially out of the running by January of 2010. That cleared the way for Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, highly popular in the state's capitol but vulnerable to charges of elitism and disdain for the huge rural swathes and mountain towns.

It seemed Colorado Republicans had gotten their chance to apply the lessons of 2006. Instead, they're learning all over again.

Dan Maes was a fresh face in politics and a Tea Party favorite in February when he won the caucuses, Colorado's first step in the nomination process. Yet, the state and national Republicans withheld support in favor of Scott McInnis, a former Congressman and a well-established party insider.

Once more, tension and name-calling spilled outside of the party ranks and the summer campaign season started off on the wrong foot. Then, in July, both Maes and McInnis were hit with scandals. McInnis went down in flames over charges of plagerism and academic fraud. Maes, embroiled in campaign finance inconsistencies, got a brief reprieve while his opponent was skewered. Soon, however, fresh allegations over his personal finances and his honesty about his own resume sent him on a downhill trajectory he's been unable to stop, or even control.

Maes won the August primary far more on McInnis' destroyed brand than on his own electoral savvy and his party gave, at best, a wan attempt to appear pleased with the result. It was truly only after he was the official Republican nominee that the wheels came off.

The Republican Governor's Association, which never had any real faith in Maes, pulled out of Colorado after McInnis' campaign stumbled and has consistently refused to get back into the race on Maes' behalf. Numerous Tea Party groups, once his strongest backers, have publicly called on Maes to leave the race. For the trifecta, firebrand Tom Tancredo, a Congressional veteran, jumped ship on the Republicans to re-register with the American Constitution Party and run as a third party candidate.

With barely a month before Election Day, all this has brought Colorado's Republicans somewhere it's doubtful they ever imagined - the brink of minor party status.

Under state law, if a major party's gubernatorial candidate fails to take at least 10% of the vote, his party is relegated to the second tier in the next election cycle. Looking at Maes' latest polling numbers, that's a distinct possibility. Since Tancredo got into the race, Maes has been losing support and he now hovers at about 15%.

If the Republicans lose their listing as a major party in Colorado, the amount of money they can legally raise in 2012 gets sliced in half. The reason is that major party candidates, even if they have no opposition in their own party, technically have a primary. With two elections to go through, they are allowed to accept donations up to the maxiumum twice - once for the primary and again for the general.

Minor parties don't have primaries unless challenged by a fellow party member and thus don't have the legal ability to raise primary funds. Colorado's Republican Chair, Dick Wadhams, held out the bleak hope that the legislature could change that law next year.

Tom Tancredo's new home, the Constitution Party, has headaches of its own. The candidate is polling around 34%, which is not enough to win but certainly enough to suggest he will land on the other side of the 10% vote share rule come November. If Tancredo does crest 10%, the Constitution Party becomes a major party for the 2012 cycle.

That would come with a raft of reporting and filing requirements the 2,000 strong party is ill-equipped to handle, let along afford. Colorado's major parties, among other things, must hold caucuses, an expensive proposition when one considers the organizing, filing, and notification regulations that go into such an offing.

Before Tancredo made his move, he publicly called on both McInnis and Maes to give up their bids. When his ultimatum went unheeded, he declared his own candidacy. Still, he called on Maes to accept devastating polls as a sign and throw in the towel. Now it seems that two stubborn men are each reaping bitter dividends for their parties.

And where's Hickenlooper in all this? He's leading in the polls at around 46% and enjoying a far less stressful October than many of his fellow Democratic aspirants for governorships. Yet he is unlikely to win with a majority and thus will begin his term lacking a clear mandate, something that could hobble any agenda he has planned and will certainly be fodder for his critics.

For the next four years, it seems Colorado's rank and file citizens will be paying the price for the bewildering intrigues of their candidates.

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