Time to go – Dan Maes must quit Colorado gubernatorial race immediately
September 2nd, 2010
As yet another torpedo is shot into the Maes campaign, it is time for him to call it quits.
What should have been a success story for citizens in action against the establishment and our government has gone horribly wrong. Supported by the Tea Party and 9/12’ers, Dan Maes was on the fast track to the state capitol but that train had slowed to a crawl in recent weeks and new revelations have derailed it entirely.
The governor’s race in Colorado was seen as one of the most winnable for Republicans. Democrat Bill Ritter’s complete and utter failure leading the state opened the doors to a landslide victory for the right, even with Teflon John Hickenlooper taking up the left’s mantle.
Maes won the Republican primary fair and square but the number and depth of his follies have grown. The latest revelation that he willfully exaggerated his experience as a police officer in Kansas is a torpedo in the sinking ship that was his campaign. The fact is that Maes’s problems are too numerous to overcome and serve to ensure failure in November.
Well-respected blogger Ross Kaminsky submitted a letter to Maes urging him to get out of the race. He wrote to Maes saying, “While I believe your pro-liberty instincts are genuine, your candidacy is hopelessly damaged by one mini-scandal or gaffe after another.”
The Republican Governors Association has refused to help him and potential donors are keeping their wallets shut. Now former U.S. senator and former University of Colorado president Hank Brown has announced he is withdrawing his endorsement of Maes. Putting it politely, Brown said, “I’m beginning to find that his explanations are not adequate.”
It is likely only a matter of days before others like Wayne Allard, Bill Armstrong and Pete Coors yank their endorsements as well.
Former congressman Bob Beauprez told the Denver Post, “If Dan really is committed to the best for Colorado, as well as to the GOP, he ought to take serious inventory and see if this isn’t the time to do the noble thing.”
Like Beauprez, Brown and Kamisky, I implore Maes to get out of the race immediately – it is time to go. If he does, there is still a chance Republicans can get someone on the ballot that actually has a chance to stop Hickenlooper.
Update, 9/2/10, 4:10am - The Hill is reporting Pete Coors has withdrawn his endorsement of Maes. ”[I]t would be in the Republican party’s and Colorado’s best interest if Dan would step down so that a more competitive situation with a new, unifying candidate could be put forward,” Coors is quoted as saying.
Other’s have jumped ship in the last 24 hours including State Senator John Andrews, RedState.com’s Erick Erickson and Tea Party organizer and Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland.
Update, 9/3/10, 8:47am – The editorial boards of the Denver Post and the Colorado Springs Gazette are urging Maes to get out of the race:
Get out now, Dan, before you lose what little credibity you have left. It is time to put the needs of Colorado above yourself.
Tancredo entered the race when Maes was on top. All candidates will get challenged as the race goes along. But all Tancredo did was tear Maes down. Tancredo’s guess was wrong. He forgot that this is a year of Republican successes. And according to Dick Morris who this past week that Republicans get a 18% bump. Add that to the polling number for Maes of 16% and you get 34%. Take Tancredo out and you almost assure a win for the GOP candidate Dan Maes. Because with Tancredo out of the picture you could realistically give Maes a 15% further bump making it around 49%. That would defeat Hickenlooper because Hickenlooper has peaked. I heard that Karl Rove said that even Tancredo has peaked. And if the effort was on Hickenloopers record instead of Maes’ past. We would have a Conservative governor.
I don’t trust the polls as they may have been taken in the strengths of Tancredo and Hickenlooper in or around Denver. The rest of the state is much stronger for Maes. Maes has a strong grassroots support.
All this is a straw-man’s attempt to thwart the votes of 196,560 voters who wanted Maes to win in November by exaggerating Maes’s statements and positions. First Tancredo and his supporters defame Maes and they do this on radio, TV, and online and in newspapers. So since when is it okay to weaken your enemy and then demand he withdraw? You guys don’t do that with Hickenlooper. You do it with Maes because you’ve thought you could be successful in this power play. Second, they start making appeals for Maes, the duly elected front runner for the GOP to resign. How incredibly bizarre.
So far Hugh Hewitt said don’t vote for Tancredo. Michael Medved, Tancredo, Al Maurer and Sen. Schultheis all wrote articles that said a third party vote is in essence political suicide. So what is going on here guys? Who is backing Tancredo behind the scenes? Are they the same group of men Tancredo supported a while back? What backdoor dealings have been going on and who has been awarded what? We know that Kent Lambert was awarded a committee position.
No, Dan Maes is going to stay in the race. He won, he can win, and Tancredo is the spoiler who can’t.
*”A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “attack a straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.” Wikipedia
Maxine,
You presume that the 35% of the electorate that backs Tancredo would back Maes if Tancredo were not in the race. That simply is not the case. Maes is simply not a man people want in office– that is why he is polling so low. Many Tancredo voters would simply not vote if left with the choices of Maes or Hickenlooper.
No one has exaggerated Maes’s statements – he has done that himself. From overstating his success in private industry (which was virtually nil) to exaggerating his experience as a police officer he has shown an inability to accurately state his own qualifications. That likely is because he really has none.
No one has hurt Dan Maes’s candidacy other than Dan Maes.