Wednesday, September 8, 2010

When the insiders blow it, part II

If you care about parties, you should be following the Colorado gubernatorial race right now.  Last month, I explained some of the background of how Republican insiders tried to clear the field for Scott McInnis prior to the primary.  This, of course, turned out to be a colossal mistake, as McInnis had a scandal that was about to emerge, which, along with some other weird trends this year, resulted in Dan Maes winning the primary.  And, of course, Tom Tancredo decided to jump in as a third party candidate, which managed to make an unlikely Republican victory essentially impossible.

Late last week, leaders of the state Republican executive committee met with Maes to try to convince him to drop out of the race.  Just to be clear, yes, leaders of the formal Republican Party are begging their own gubernatorial nominee to drop out.  Maes, who saw no love from the party establishment prior to the primary, now sees no need to acquiesce to their wishes, so he's staying in.

I find this all pretty astounding.  I can't recall a similar instance of a party's leaders trying to undermine their nominee for a top-ballot race.

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