Interview: Tom Tancredo says GOP county chairs should be asking Scott McInnis to quit

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo said in a phone interview today that the six Front Range GOP county chairmen who’ve called on him to not run should be focusing instead on getting rid of Scott McInnis and Dan Maes so he won’t have to run.

Since yesterday, a campaign spokeswoman who is monitoring Tancredo’s emails said, 65% of the some 1,000 emails he’s received are encouraging him to run. Since Arapahoe County Chairman David Kerber issued an email this afternoon calling on Republicans to email Tancredo and demand that he not run, about 85% of the 20 received after about an hour were negative to Tancredo. She did not know whether other county chairs are issuing the same email. The email appears to be the work of the McInnis campaign or the state GOP.

Speaking about disgraced GOP gubernatorial candidates Scott McInnis and Dan Maes, Tancredo told me, “I wish they would use their energy to state that if they win and are trailing (John Hickenlooper) in the polls, they will step down. That’s where their energies should be. I would be the happiest guy in the world if I do not have to run and if folks would do the right thing.”

Tancredo said he’s talked to Colorado State GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams quite a bit about whether McInnis can recover from his scandal. “I do not believe he (Wadhams) feels that way,” (that McInnis can recover) Tancredo said. 

If the GOP can’t launch a successful campaign, Tancredo predicted, “They’ll blame it on me.” He noted that “two weeks ago Saturday, I was stumping for Scott McInnis. I have done everything that that campaign asked. What are my options? I hope that on Sunday or Monday I can announce that these guys (McInnis and Maes) are doing the right thing, and I will not run.”

And, if McInnis or Maes resigns after winning the primary and a vacancy committee announces a replacement, “It will not be me” he predicted with a chuckle.

Tancredo said it would not be legal for the GOP vacancy committee to pick him as a gubernatorial candidate if he were already a candidate of the American Constitution Party, which may make him his candidate. What the GOP could do “if I’m in and running well” is just not name a replacement who would be put on the ballot, he said. Then Republicans would vote for Tancredo versus Hickenlooper.

Tancredo confirmed that if he is named to run for the American Constitution Party, individual contributors would be able to give his campaign up to $550 each. This limit is well below what individuals can contribute to Maes or McInnis. It would make fundraising even more difficult for him.

Tancredo said that if he’s in the race against John Hickenlooper on the American Constitution Party ticket, he doesn’t think Bruce Benson would jump in as the appointed GOP candidate. And he doesn’t believe  Benson is interested in a two-way race against Hickenlooper. “Been there and done that,” Tancredo said, referring to Benson’s ill-fated 1994 gubernatorial candidacy.

Tancredo said he thinks that McInnis is out of money and won’t get any more from contributors. Maes doesn’t have any money and won’t get many new contributions, he predicted.

Asked whether he thinks voters will listen to the Wadhams and the county chairs who are trying to stop him, Tancredo replied,  “I never have.”

Tancredo’s phone died before I could ask a couple of more questions.

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