GOP rallies around McInnis vs. Ritter

Former congressman Scott McInnis's path to be the GOP's gubernatorial candidate next year appears to be clearing, as his past and potential future rivals are getting on board.

McInnis's one-time rival for the party's nomination, Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, who ended his own bid nearly two weeks ago, officially endorsed McInnis in Grand Junction Sunday. The event at Sherwood Park follows a week of meetings spent crafting a conservative agenda for the 2010 election cycle.


That agenda, tentatively titled the "Platform for Prosperity", will be rolled out Monday morning at a R.K. Mechanical, a business in Denver's Stapleton neighborhood.

Also expected to attend are former Gov. Bill Owens, House Minority Leader Mike May and former congressman Tom Tancredo, who is likely to announce that he will not be challenging McInnis for the GOP's gubernatorial nomination.

Tancredo, who, like Penry, appeals to the more ideological, populist base of the Republican party, said earlier this month he was likely to run in Penry's place.

Tancredo says he will not run if McInnis agrees to the platform. He plans to endorse McInnis at the event on Monday. "If all goes well I will take a different path," Tancredo said.

He softened his statements last week as he began to meet with McInnis, Penry and others with the goal of crafting an agenda that would be conservative enough to unify the party behind McInnis and create a framework on which other down-ticket Republican candidates could also run.

Now, with Tancredo set to appear with McInnis and the rest of the party's most prominent figures, it appears that goal has been reached.