No Colorado Republican candidate who has read The Blueprint or lived through a recent losing legislative campaign will set themselves up to be smeared by Democrats as “Dan Maes Republicans.”

That is, no Republican candidate in this state will endorse or even speak well of the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate, Dan Maes, if they know what’s good for them. They need to remember that the Democrats have trackers with video cameras recording everything they say in the hope that they will say something stupid or radical.

An endorsement of Dan Maes will get a GOP candidate on YouTube, and it won’t be pretty.

Dick Wadhams, the chairman of the state GOP, has called Maes a “joke,” according to his friends, Peter Boyles and Tom Tancredo. Since they exposed his opinion of Maes and since the primary, Wadhams hasn’t ventured a kind, supportive word about Maes. He’s just said he supports the party’s candidates. The GOP’s candidate for the U.S. Senate, Ken Buck, already is distancing himself from Maes.

Impact graphs from a Allison Sherry story today:

Buck said he isn’t fretting about appearing too conservative or too close to GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes, who made headlines for comments about Denver’s bike-sharing program being part of a United Nations effort that threatens freedom.

“I don’t have to distance myself from anything,” Buck said. “I am who I am. I haven’t said those things. Those radical statements aren’t attributed to me.”

There are a lot of reasons that smart, ambitious Republicans are staying away from Maes.

A “Dan Maes Republican”:

• Puts the GOP ahead of Colorado.
• Doesn’t know right from wrong.
• Endorses Dan Maes’ refusal to “pander” to moderate Republicans and independents.
• Supports Dan Maes’ long campaign effort to con Colorado voters about his business record, which looks pretty dismal.
• Winks at incompetence.
• Wants to win political power at any cost.
• Is willing to live with a governor who doesn’t know how the state government works and doesn’t think he needs to.

The Blueprint; How the Democrats won Colorado and why Republicans EVERYWHERE should care is a powerful book by Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer about how the Republican-controlled legislature infuriated four Colorado billionaires back in 2004 and motivated them to combine their resources to build an unstoppable political machine. That machine really was a coalition of rich liberals and nonprofits that figured out how to destroy even Republicans they liked.

Democrats took over Colorado by investing millions in opposition research, building databases that contain information about the political beliefs and voting records of all registered voters and creating and using huge mailing lists to get their negative messages out to Democrats and independents. They used news releases, numerous direct mail pieces and radio and TV ads as well as emails and blogs to smear and defeat their opponents.

Any Dan Maes Republican will mark herself or himself as another GOP loser and has been. Democrats will smear “Dan Maes Republicans” mercilessly just as they have crushed numerous GOP candidates since 2004. 

Indeed, so far, most of the Republicans who are endorsing Dan Maes are losers, has beens and a few naive Dan Maes groupies. They have nothing to lose, and they don’t seem to understand or care that by endorsing Dan Maes, they’re helping to destroy the GOP.

It makes no sense for GOP candidates to give Democrats more ways to demonize them. By endorsing Dan Maes, GOP candidates and party officials would be buying the rope that Democrats would use to “hang them together.” Not many Republican candidates will do that.

This is my 142nd post about Maes. Search http://www.businessword.com for Maes.

LINKS: 

Getting to know Dan Maes. By Ross Kaminsky.

GOP resources begin sift to Buck as he focuses on Bennet. By Allison Sherry.

Maes treated to silence from GOP after gubernatorial primary win. By Karen E. Crummy and Christofer N. Osher.