Interviews, Audience Questions, Answers

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.

Those following the Jane Norton ads that charge that Ken Buck’s budget soared 40% in only a few years may want to review my April 18 interview with him. He answered a lot of questions about his budget. I concluded and believe that his budget increased with Weld County’s population and his office’s workload. I think he has been a fiscally conservative district attorney. See the link to our interview below.

How maddening. Both Scott McInnis and Dan Maes have blown opportunities to sell themselves in today’s Denver Post. When you’re interviewed by the editorial board of a newspaper, show some respect by doing your home work, preparing for predictable questions and taking clear stands on tough issues. Be articulate.

Both interviews were way too short to give the candidates time and space to discuss the issues in depth. That’s the difference between a space-limited printed newspaper and a blog, where space is unlimited.

LINKs:

A conversation with Scott McInnis. Denver Post editorial board transcript.

A conversation with Dan Maes. Denver Post editorial board transcript.

McInnis’ record shows slow steps to the right. By Karen E. Crummy.

Gubernatorial candidate McInnis’ voting record inconsistent on abortion. By Karen E. Crummy.

Taking the gloves off, former Colorado Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton said in an 85-minute interview in her Centennial office today that Ken Buck, her opponent for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, is the real Washington insider and that she’s the fiscal conservative in the race.

“I am not the Washington insider in this race. That would be Ken Buck. Ken has a Washington insider 527 running over $1 million of ads on his behalf. And he received over a third of all his donations from employees of one company that relies on stimulus money and millions of dollars of special interests contracts,” Norton said.

(Her campaign provided me with a list of employees of Greeley-based Hensel Phelps Construction Co. who have contributed $141,800 to Buck’s Senate campaign.)

In reply to the Buck campaign’s charges that Norton is a Washington insider because she is backed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and is related to a Washington lobbyist, Norton said, “Ken Buck was Governor Bill Ritter’s best man. If we’re going to play the guilt by association game, that’s an interesting connection.”

Like Buck, Norton says she would not vote for a bill that would help Colorado if it included a tax increase.

Appointed Democrat Senator Michael Bennet “is totally out of touch with Colorado values. . . He’s a rubber stamp for anything the Obama administration wants.”

As executive director of the Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Environment between 1999 and 2002, Norton said, “My general fund request was down 28% when I left office. We eliminated programs that were not authorized by the state statute or in the state constitution.”

Norton also noted that when she ran for lieutenant governor, she took an unpaid leave of absence from her state job. Ken Buck continues to serve as the district attorney of Weld county even though he’s often absent so that he can attend campaign events, she said.

She also clarified her role at the Englewood-based Medical Group Management Association, where she was in charge of monitoring changes in states’ laws and regulations and informing managers of some 7,000 medical group practices about how they could comply with new state laws. She wasn’t in charge of the MGMA’s lobbyist in Washington and she never managed lobbyists or served as a lobbyist, she said.

“I have never been a lobbyist,” she said.

To see the 27 questions and answers, please click on the hed of this story. If you’re viewing this story at Rocky Mountain Right or Peoples Press Collective, go to http://www.businessword.com.

Is Ken Buck really a fiscal conservative? If he’s elected to the U.S. Senate, will the Weld County District Attorney (DA) put his votes where his mouth is?

The answer seems obvious. If elected, Ken Buck would be one of the most fiscally conservative members of the U.S. Senate. After reviewing some 40 pages of

Ryan Dawkins interviews Tom Lucero, a Republican candidate who wants his party’s nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey in Colorado’s fourth congressional district. Despite poor fundraising, he says he thinks he can beat his GOP opponent, Cory Gardner, as well as Markey.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck said in an interview in his Greeley office last week that he believes that his leading opponent, Jane Norton, would someday vote for tax increases while he never would.

During the 45-minute interview, Buck answered most of the questions I recently posted for him. I skipped a couple of the questions as we ran out of time. Most of the interview was about how his management of his office over the last five years shows he is a fiscal conservative. That will be covered in Part II of this report.

On whether Norton would ever vote for tax increases, Buck said he believes she would because, “I think that if you look at her position on Referendum C and her position with lobbyists, it indicates that she has made friends with those people and she will pay them back.”

Norton, of course, promises that she won’t raise taxes. She defends her support for Referendum C on the basis that the state of Colorado faced a fiscal crisis. Also, she notes, that—as required under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) section of the state’s constitution—the issue was presented to voters and they approved the tax increase. When she supported Referendum C, she was former Governor Bill Owens’ lieutenant governor.

The next question was: If Bill Owens had made you Lt. Gov. and part of his team and asked you to support Ref. C, would you have backed him up or defied him by opposing C?

Buck answered:“I would choose the team that I was on very carefully. I did not support Referendum C, and I would not be put in the position of supporting Referendum C.”  (Please click on headline to see rest of the interview.)

It’s time to ask Ken Buck some questions that might let him clarify his stands on critical issues without causing him legal or political problems. Here are some of the questions I’d like to ask Buck in an interview. After I ski tomorrow morning (I do have priorities.), I’ll give his campaign a call and see if we can chat on the phone. Or he can e-mail his answers to thebusinessword atty yahoo dot com. Or he can answer in the comment section below. Questions:

Democrat gubernatorial candidate and Denver mayor, John Hickenlooper, Thursday promised business executives at the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce that if elected governor he would return a pro-business environment to Colorado and work to end the anti-business sentiment voiced by Democrats in the General Assembly.

“The anti-business sentiment is crazy,” Hickenlooper declared. “Bill Owens and I rebranded the state” as pro business. “Now we’re getting a brand that’s anti-business. That’s crazy,” he asserted. He said he would sit down with Democrats and Republicans to come up with ways to help Colorado businesses find new markets.

Pointing to 

The three Republican candidates for Colorado Treasurer mixed it up a bit in a joint appearance today before the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce. Their joint appearance drew the coverage of Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post’s popular blog, The Spot.

Please click on the headline to see my full report on the event and the Q & A session and links to my interviews with the candidates and links to related web site and stories.

Former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff today told a small Frisco luncheon group that he wants to become the state’s U.S. Senator so that he can help build coalitions and get things done. He said he supports a single-payer health care system, including a government-run health insurance plan in President Obama’s health bill,  and he likes a proposal that would get employers out of the health insurance business.

Without being specific about how he would create jobs, Romanoff said Congress needs to help unemployed Americans get jobs.

“We’re in charge now, and we ought to act that way,” he declared. The Senate is a country club and it needs to stop dithering, he said. If the Republican minority wants to filibuster the health and other bills, he said, let them. (Please click on headline to see the rest of this story.)

Walker Stapleton said in a recent interview that he believes his experiences as an investment banker, chief executive officer, real estate and stock investor and chief acquisitions officer for a large company would help him be a strong Treasurer for Colorado. He is seeking the Republican’s nomination for Treasurer. His opponents are Ali Hasan and J. J. Ament. Links to my interviews with them are below the jump. Democrat Treasurer Cary Kennedy is seeking re-election.

The makeup of the board of directors of Colorado’s troubled PERA (public employees’ retirement association) needs to be changed and the organization needs to fully disclose its profits, losses and holdings, according to J.J. Ament, a Republican candidate for state Treasurer. If Ament is elected Colorado’s Treasurer, that also will give him a seat on the 16-person board of directors of PERA.

“You have to change the system,” Ament said in an interview, adding,

J.J. Ament said in an interview that he wants to be elected Treasurer of Colorado so that he can use his 10 years of experience as a municipal finance consultant and as an investment banker to eliminate the state’s investment losses. He wants to reform the state’s approach to managing its $6.3 billion in investments. And he promises to invest to maximize returns for taxpayers instead of looking out for the political interests of the Treasurer, governor and General Assembly while making sure they live up to the spirit as well as the letter of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). Ament said

Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party and a veteran campaign manager, told about 100 men and women at the Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club breakfast this morning that the GOP must campaign on the issues, because Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, can’t be beat in 2010 in a personality contest.

That is why the Democrats are in a slightly better position in the governor’s race since