Voter outrage over unemployment, big-government mandates and more taxes is particularly visible these days in Colorado, a swing state where Republicans still outnumber Democrats virtually everywhere except in the three branches of government.
There it’s blue, bluer, bluest. Targeted spending by millionaire liberals in the last three elections managed to make it that way.
But more recently, things began to change. Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter opted not to seek a second term in the face of overwhelming odds against him among disgruntled voters.
Ritter’s bombshell announcement actually made things more challenging for Republican gubernatorial front-runner Scott McInnis, who went virtually overnight from a commanding lead in the polls to neck and neck with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democratic replacement without Ritter’s baggage.
Naturally, Hickenlooper, a businessman himself (brew pubs), is seeking to assure voters he’s really pro-business, unlike some of those other folks. McInnis, a veteran politician, points out that Ritter, too, came into office claiming to be pro-business, and look what happened.
McInnis points to the collapse of the oil and gas industry in Colorado and $1 billion worth of highly unpopular attempts to fix state budget shortfalls with new taxes masquerading as “fees” and exemption rollbacks. Those include a $250 million annual increase in vehicle registration fees and a $90 million jump in property taxes for seniors stripped of their long-standing homestead exemption.
Take Lisa Robbins. As a low-seniority employee at Ford Motor Credit Co., she became another unemployment statistic when the company decided to cut staff by 20 percent. She turned up at a March meet-and-greet for McInnis in Colorado Springs and raised her hand when the candidate started chanting his mantra of “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”
More baffling to her, she said, was what happened to her husband via a simple speeding ticket. When all was said and done, Robbins said, he’d paid not only for his traffic fine, but $95 in additional fees for mysterious items including “genetic testing.”
McInnis seized the moment. Your husband, he told Robbins, was victimized by a rapacious state government that “had him in a corner” and was simply exploiting the opportunity to line its own coffers.
He promised an end to all such travesties. “The veto pen will be full of ink, and I intend to use it,” McInnis vowed.
McInnis, 57, just might be able to deliver. Retired from public life for the past few years, he is a proven vote getter — a former five-term state representative (1983-1993) and six-term U.S. representative (1993-2005). He was majority leader in the Colorado House when Republicans controlled both state legislative chambers and the governor’s office.
About the worst detractors can say about him is that McInnis has done some lobbying and he was once investigated by the Federal Election Commission for alleged campaign irregularities (case dismissed).
In Congress, he served on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and established a solid reputation as a conservationist. McInnis claimed the congressional record until three years ago of placing the most acreage under wilderness protection — including two new national parks (Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Great Sand Dunes).
When it comes to natural resources and other Western issues, McInnis may have the upper hand. He charges the Democrats with the ruination of an entire industry in Colorado — oil and gas — through “punitive” regulation during the Ritter administration that he says has cost thousands of jobs.
McInnis says numerous companies have been driven into the arms of other states. “The best jobs program in the history of Pennsylvania is Colorado’s oil and gas regulations,” he said.
Democrats have tried to spin the problem as simply a downturn in commodity prices, rather than excessive regulation, that discouraged investment. But industry experts told The Examiner that regulations have literally doubled in volume, extending the time required to obtain a drilling permit to 100 to 120 days.
“We’ve lost more rigs on a pro rata or percentage basis than any other region of the country,” said John Harpole, president and founder of Mercator Energy, a Colorado natural gas brokerage company.
McInnis and his wife, Lori, are from pioneer Colorado stock going back generations on the Western Slope (i.e., basically everything west of the Rockies and the Continental Divide). Scott McInnis grew up in Glenwood Springs and makes his home way out west in Grand Junction.
“He’s a son of Colorado,” said state GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams, who added he expects a banner year for the state GOP. “Nothing is for sure, but this is the best opportunity we’ve had in about three election cycles to win these kinds of seats.”
One county campaign chairman, El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark, described McInnis as the hardest-working candidate she has ever seen with uncanny people skills. She assessed his chances to win as excellent.
“He is the whole package,” Clark said. “He is the one who can lead our state out of this mess.”
McInnis began his career as a Glenwood Springs policeman and volunteer firefighter. He still likes to ask audiences in Rotary Club stump speeches the two reasons rescue vehicles sound a siren en route to an accident. The first is obvious — clearing a path for the first responders.
The second? To let the victim know that help is on the way. The application today: “Unemployed people don’t feel that help is on the way.” McInnis says he wants to change that and restore a sense of economic hope.
First, he has a primary to win in August. The field was largely cleared months ago, when rivals state Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry and former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo closed ranks behind McInnis and the three issued a joint Platform for Prosperity, a conservative manifesto reminiscent of the Newt Gingrich 1994 Contract With America.
The remaining opponent, Dan Maes, is a political newcomer whose fiery conservative stump speeches have especially endeared him to Tea Party types. Maes’ relatively strong showing in the March state caucuses suggests he may make the primary ballot.
But McInnis, a longtime conservative with a record to show for it — consistently zero from the pro-abortion NARAL Pro-Choice America and A ratings from the National Rifle Association — says he’s not conceding a single conservative or Tea Party vote.
“I’ve got the experience,” McInnis told The Examiner. “I can get this train on the tracks.”
Steve Adams is a veteran freelance journalist living in Colorado Springs, Colo.
