Since this possibility has been raised, I think maybe some ideas from outside might be helpful to avoid groupthink.

In my opinion, this move carries significant political risk, and will not likely achieve its intended objective.

Josh Penry as Lt. Gov won’t placate the Tea Party people. It may well infuriate them even more. It won’t raise McInnis’s standing any, and they might well label Penry as a sell-out, based on a fairly pedestrian career move.  He’ll be passing up staying in the state Senate where he could have held McInnis to his promises, for an opportunity to run interference for him. And it will totally freeze out Dan Maes, who at this point is their only opportunity cast a vote before everything’s decided.

Ironically, Jane Norton’s candidacy probably hurts this decision’s effectiveness, as one of her main liabilities is her tie to Referendum C & D. If she had no choice but to support them, then Penry will have no choice but to support McInnis, who hasn’t yet proven anything about himself to the Tea Partiers.

From Penry’s point of view (and the party’s, I think) it’s a waste of his talents. Go back and look at a list of lieutenant governors. Yes, Gail Schoettler came within a thousand votes or so of making something from the office. But other than that, you have to go back to McNichols and 1956, 52 years, to find anyone who got elected to high office from being #2. McInnis ought to know that better than anyone, since Mike Callihan failed against him for Congress after being Lt. Governor.

In fact, Lt. Governor has been pretty much an unmitigated stepping-stone to obscurity.  Nancy Dick lost to Bill Armstrong for Senate.  Mike Callihan lost to McInnis.  Schoettler lost to Bill Owens, and Joe Rogers placed out of the money in the Republican primary in the 7th Congressional District’s inaugural run. So if Penry just sacrificed a gubernatorial run in order to preserve that bright career, he may be on the verge of tossing that away, too.

I realize it’s easy to carp from the outside.  But it’s also sometimes easier to see that what looks like a really good idea based on traditional politics probably isn’t as hot as it sounds.

Earlier this week, I sat down with the Sean Duffy, the Communications Director for the Scott McInnis for Governor campaign. We discussed a number of issues, from state budget issues and small business, to his sometimes contentious relationship with the Tea Party movement.

I post the interview here, without my own editorial comment, but soliciting your own.

Introduction
Platform for Prosperity
Fox News & the Tea Parties
Outreach to the Tea Parties
Impressions of the Tea Parties
Federal Encroachment
Stimulus Money
State Revenues
The Car Tax
Small Business
Health Insurance
Comprehensive Budget Plan

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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.