Quite good, actually. The platform is a smart one. Sticks to fiscal issues and personal liberty, in an election where those issues will come to the fore. It’s a platform that I can endorse wholeheartedly and without reservation.
Still, there’s the issue of the messenger:
But Nikki Mata, a conservative activist in suburban Denver, said that such a strategy misses the point of the tea-party movement. Endorsements and platforms matter less to her and her fellow activists, she said, than their gut feelings about whether a candidate would shake things up — or would cave in to the establishment.
Ben and Michael have already hit this, but there’s more to be said here.
I like Nikki a lot; she and Lori Horn hatched the R Block Party in the wake of last year’s debacle, and it’s one of the highest-profile, best-attended activist groups in the area.
McInnis needs not to underestimate the amount of work he has to do here. Republicans have not forgotten the damage done to the party’s core values by Bill Owens’s support for Referendum C. McInnis already finds himself defending his “clarifications” on the massively unpopular FASTER car tax. Asking Republicans to push those doubts aside in the name of “unity” is likely to ring hollow. That McInnis currently holds no office works against him with this group in two ways: first, he has no chance to demonstrate his credibility now, and second, he held office during that period when Republicans lost their way. He’ll have to show that he wasn’t part of that herd.
If not persuaded – and it behooves them to be persuadable – , Sondermann is half-right. They have no place to go, but home.
I hope that McInnis realizes that simply putting out a platform – under pressure from wanting Josh Penry’s endorsement and the threat of a Tom Tancredo candidacy – isn’t by itself going to satisfy those who are looking for someone who truly believes. So far, I haven’t seen much evidence of this, but it’s possible that with the nomination apparently in hand, McInnis can now turn his hardball tactics towards Ritter, and genuinely reach out to the activists.
