(Cross-Posted to DemNotes at: www.DemNotes.com)

Scott McInnis was my Congressman for a while when I first moved back to Colorado. In the 1990s, Fremont County was split nearly evenly between the 3rd CD (McInnis) and the 5th CD (Hefley). Hefley had less than a half-dozen counties in his district. McInnis had about half of Colorado’s counties in his district — over 30, if I recall correctly. Yet, McInnis visited Fremont County easily three times as often as Joel Hefley.

Often overlooked by the Denver crowd is the fact that Scott McInnis is a powerful politician — perhaps the best Republican “politician” in the State of Colorado. He understands how to appeal to moderate voters, and he’s a personable guy. If you lived in the Third CD - the Western Slope or Pueblo — during McInnis’ tenure, you know what I mean. Just ask Mary Beth Corsentino, the long-time Chair of the 3rd CD Democrats. She’ll tell you how tough it was to challenge McInnis electorally.

To be sure, McInnis has a lot of problems — mostly surrounding his ethics, his close ties with Tom DeLay, his employing his wife to run a campaign that didn’t exist, etc. He’s now a lobbyist — and a very successful one at that. As Democrats, we were prepared to take on “McLobbyist” with zeal, exposing what a McInnis senate seat might look like and comparing that to what a Udall senate seat will look like. But I’ll be honest — from my perspective, Scott McInnis was the best candidate (for the GOP) the GOP could run against us in the open U.S. Senate race in 2008.

But he’s not running.

That’s the news today. I’m sure you’ve heard it from several sources by now. Scott McInnis has announced that he won’t run for the U.S. Senate in Colorado in 2008. Why? Well, to put it simply, the Republican faithful haven’t deemed him “right-wing” enough. They wouldn’t support him. They labeled him as a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only), even though he was as conservative as it comes on a lot of issues, including environmental protection on the Western Slope.

The Republican nomination is now up in the air. Over the next year and a half, they’ll figure it out, and we’ll be ready for them when they do. But today is definitely a VERY good day for Colorado Democrats.

We’ll have to keep our noses to the grindstone. We’ll have to keep working hard. But in the end, if we do all that, Coloradans will help Democrats expand their majority in the US Senate by picking up a second Senate seat in Colorado!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Elected. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.