Tancredo staying put in governor’s race

By Gary Harmon
Saturday, August 28, 2010

Tom Tancredo won’t back out of the race for governor, insisting Saturday he can’t in good conscience support the GOP nominee and he has a chance to win.
Tancredo, who represented the suburbs south of Denver in Congress for five terms, is one of three candidates running to replace Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat who chose not to seek a second term.
Tancredo spoke Saturday to the Save America Constitutional Convention at the Doubletree Hotel in Grand Junction.
Tancredo rejected calls to step aside after Republican Dan Maes won the GOP primary election earlier this month, ousting Scott McInnis from the race against Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat.
Maes brings too much baggage and remains a relative unknown, Tancredo said.
What he does know about Maes makes it impossible for him to support the GOP standard bearer, Tancredo said, adding he’s not alone.
Many Republican office-holders “are secretly hoping something happens to take (Maes) out of the race,” Tancredo said.
Tancredo announced in July his bid for governor on the American Constitution Party ticket.
He now claims Bay Buchanan, a Reagan administration member and sister of columnist Pat Buchanan, as a campaign manager and is gearing up for several debates around the state with Maes and Hicklenlooper.
Tancredo said he is eager to take on Hickenlooper and rebut the mayor’s claim that Denver is not a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. Denver is operated as such, Tancredo said, even if it never has been formally declared a sanctuary city.
Tancredo, who ran for president in 2008 in an effort to make illegal immigration a campaign issue, said as governor he would require agencies to use E-verify to make sure the state doesn’t hire illegal immigrants.
Otherwise, he’d seek legislation patterned after the Arizona law being challenged in federal court.
While he is critical of how Colorado’s Amendment 20 legalizing medical marijuana has grown, Tancredo said it makes no sense to continue treating marijuana as generally illegal.
“We should tax it, regulate it and make it a hellaciously severe penalty to sell it to minors,” Tancredo said.
He has two words for Colorado water, Tancredo said: “Store it.”
Acknowledging he is engaged in fundraising to put together a credible campaign in a short period, Tancredo said his odds are better than might be expected, despite a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday showing 41 percent of likely voters favor Hickenlooper, 33 percent back Maes and 16 percent support Tancredo.
Hickenlooper’s support is tailing off, Tancredo said, but his campaign war chest will be used to destroy Maes if the Republican poses a real threat.
As a legislator, U.S. representative and presidential candidate, Tancredo said he already is a known quantity to Colorado voters.
“I have a better chance in a three-way race,” Tancredo said, “than Dan Maes has in a two-way race against Hickenlooper.”