Hazlehurst's Blog

Stay in the race, Dan!

Republican power brokers want Dan Maes to step aside as Republican nominee for governor. Their concerns: He can’t win, and he might drag down the rest of the ticket. Both concerns have merit, but there are two much larger questions that the uber-GOPsters haven’t considered. Dan Maes won the nomination fair and square. He came [...]

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The Primary is over, now the fun begins

Thanks to would-be Sheriff Jake Shirk, I narrowly missed a perfect primary prediction record. Had I picked Shirk, I would have made a perfect zero – but even the best prognosticators sometimes fall short. Forced to choose between two experienced, intelligent, and eminently well-qualified candidates, Democrats went with Michael Bennet. The incumbent Senator has the [...]

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Tancredo enters the gubernatorial race

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory used to be the preferred strategy of Democrats, while those calculating, cold-hearted, practical Republicans concentrated on winning. A few years back, when I was a candidate for “weak mayor”, I was regaling then state Sen. Ken Chlouber with my visionary ideas. Ken listened for a while and then [...]

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McInnis: ‘We’ve moved on’ from plagiarism

There’s nothing quite as dispiriting as a political campaign gone bad. Staff members jump ship, support evaporates and the candidate has to soldier on and pretend that everything’s just hunky-dory. To make matters worse, the media just won’t let it (whatever “it” is) go. They ask the same pesky questions, they roll their eyes, they [...]

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The McInnis mess – part II

Political scandals such as this one have a predictable arc. The candidate/elected official/senior appointed official is caught red-handed in behavior so questionable that denials are futile.  Loyal spinmeisters blame the press, or focus on some minor detail of the alleged transgression that can be effectively disputed, thereby (they hope!) discrediting the rest of the accusations. [...]

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Good news, bad news from the caucuses

Last night’s caucuses held a few surprises, to the delight of some. Good news for Republicans: it looks as if Scott McInnis made at least two good decisions, as his race for the Governor’s mansion gathers steam. After shelling out $467 to an “image consultant,” he shaved his 1980′s mustache and changed his hair color [...]

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