A Lesson For Colorado Tea Parties:  Be Careful What You Wish For

This is a tale of a love affair gone bad.  Just a few months ago Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes was the darling of the Colorado tee pees.  Tall, dark and handsome and self-billed as a successful entrepreneur disillusioned with politics as usual; willing to slash state jobs and spending as well as take on de-regulation of the oil & gas industry, he was a tee pees dream candidate.  And that love was requited.  Yes, the coalition of Maes and the tee pees resulted in Maes being catapulted to the top spot on the primary ballot at the state assembly over the formidable Scott McInnis.

It wasn’t too long after that some with a more jaded viewpoint would have said that Maes wasn’t all that he seemed.  For one thing there were all those pesky issues of filing taxes and FEC reports late.  For another, it seemed that he was not, ah, such a successful businessman as he had claimed to be, seeing as how his income had been, well, below the poverty level for several years.  But the tee pees knew that others were just jealous of their man and they believed his assurances that things were not what they seemed and he was truly all they were looking for.

Even when it was revealed that he’d had to pay an annoying $17,500 fine for campaign finance violations (and WHAT a big deal they made out of the fact that he had simply reimbursed himself over $40,000 for mileage, I mean, he DRIVES, right?) and just because the fine was a record amount for the state was no reason to get our panties in a bunch and start doubting the guy.  No the tee pees’ love was true and when you love someone you accept his little, uh, faults and stuff.

And besides, his rival, Scott McInnis, had his own blemishes.  Turns out he’d accepted $300,000 from a local foundation to write a few articles about water in the west.*  Never mind that $300k seems like an astronomical sum for writing a few articles, the real issue is that he didn’t actually, uh, write the articles.  Himself, you know.  He took information provided to him by a research assistant and posted it whole.  Without any attribution or stuff to the original writer.  A sitting CO Supreme Court justice, as it happened.  And then he tried to blame the whole thing on the researcher.  None of which went down well with anyone and vindicated the belief of the tee pees that their swain was truly the dream candidate.

Now, most candidates for elected office, when seeing their rival engaging in massive self destruction without any help from you would probably refrain from controversial statements until after the election.  But Maes is not most candidates.  He is the darling of the tee pees so his next move was to opine that the city of Denver’s bike sharing program is, in true, actual fact, a nefarious plot by the U.N. to take over our cities and our personal liberties.  Well, OK, that didn’t go over well with actual, thinking, voters.  But since the tee pees probably agreed with him on this, it only made them love him all the more. 

But other Republicans were not feeling the same love about this guy as their candidate.  Or about Scott McInnis, for that matter.  Tom Tancredo (yes, that Tom Tancredo) put on his Mighty Mouse cape and flew in to save the day (in his mind, or whatever passes in his head for a mind, anyway) and declared that unless both Maes and McInnis agreed to step aside after the primary if neither of them was leading the Dem candidate in the polls at that point, why he would be forced to enter the race as a third party candidate.  Which Maes and McInnis didn’t so Tancredo did.

Now the tee pees loved Maes even more for standing up to the evil Tancredo (although in normal circumstances you’d kind of expect them to like Tancredo too but love is blind as we know) and, in a wave of jubilant support , carried Maes to victory in the primary.

Sadly other Republicans did not like Maes so much and at first nobody wanted to endorse him.  This process was not helped by the revelation that Maes had recently met a former supporter of his at her ATM machine where she withdrew $300 and gave it to him to help him pay his mortgage.  Well, that wasn’t what Maes said about it!  He said it was a campaign contribution and the tee pees believed him!  Except that Colorado doesn’t allow campaign contributions greater than $100 to be made in, well, cash, and, um, Maes didn’t list this particular contribution anywhere on any of his financial filings.  But this made no difference!  Anyone can make a bookkeeping error and gawd knows Maes seemed to make a lot of them, he was so cute!

Now it is a true thing that all love affairs begin as infatuations and eventually the rose colored glasses begin to lose their glaze.  In some relationships the love remains after the infatuation is gone.  In others – not so much.  Our tale takes the latter course.  Maes finally made a fatal mistake – one that could not be forgiven.  He was unfaithful!!  He chose a moderate Republican  for his running mate!!  One who believed that abortion could be acceptable in some situations and who didn’t think all taxes should be slashed and thousands of state employees fired.  And even though Maes tried to convince them that she might have believed that stuff before, she really, really didn’t believe any of that stuff NOW, now that she was with HIM, the tee pees were betrayed.  Once a moderate, always a moderate.  The she-leopard would not change her spots.

And the blows kept coming.  Maes validated his ex-supporter’s tale of the $300 financial assistance by slipping a $300 check into her purse at a campaign event (unsigned, of course, tee hee, he’s still cute!)  Not only that but the manly, hunky background on his website about he used to be an undercover agent (thrills!) turned out to be, well, kind of, you know, made up.  Like, not true.

And now it’s over.  The tee pees have withdrawn their support.  Along with most of the Repubs who had held their noses and decided to go ahead endorse him after the primary.  And now they all want him to step down and step down quick so they can get someone else in there before the mail-in ballots get printed.  But so far Maes will not step down.  (Well, let’s face it – he really can’t afford to, can he?)  And Tancredo’s says he’s in it to win it too.

So the tee pees are thinking they dodged a bullet with that one.  What now?  Will they fall for Tom Tancredo on the rebound?  Stay tooned!

*Some of you in the East might wonder why anyone would pay anybody anything to write articles about water but here in the arid west water rights are more valuable than gold, diamonds, oil and uranium combined.  Battles over water rights are truly vicious.  Water is big stuff here.

Posted by marindenver on 09/03/10 at 06:30 PM • Permalink

The GOP should just change their mascot from an elephant to these.

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