Scott McInnis |
DENVER - GOP gubernatorial front-runner Scott McInnis continues to get dinged up in his ongoing effort to secure more support from conservative Tea Party and 9-12 groups -- literally and figuratively.
When meeting Wednesday night with Fort Collins Tea Party leader Lesley Hollywood in Loveland, someone ran into McInnis's car and punctured the radiator, forcing it to be towed. The meeting itself, with about a dozen members of Hollywood's group, was "very pleasant", she said.
"We put some of our concerns on the table and he was very kind," Hollywood said. "It was a good experience for everyone."
But it hasn't been enough to quiet another conservative activist who's making noise that McInnis's new campaign manager is overstating the extent to which McInnis has been courting the groups' support.
"I really don't know what the problem is," said McInnis spokesman Sean Duffy. "This really is a tempest in a Tea Party pot. We're meeting with as many different folks as we can. There are so many groups out there and we have to wisely manage Scott's time. But this notion that he's not available is totally specious."
The notion took root last December, after a disastrous Fox News interview in which anchor Neil Cavuto labelled McInnis the "Tea Party candidate" and lathered him in praise (and awful puns) while grossly overstating the nature of the candidate's support from the party's grass roots -- which took notice and exception to the idea that their support would be taken for granted by McInnis or any GOP candidate who had yet to prove their conservative "bona fides" to the groups face-to-face.
This week, McInnis's new campaign manager, Nancy Hopper, who has replaced George Culpepper, told the Arapahoe County Republican Men's Club that McInnis had about a dozen meetings with Tea Party groups. That got back to Lu Ann Busse, chair of the 9-12 Project Colorado Coalition, who fired off an email to group members to determine how many times they'd met with the candidate.
Here's a summary of the responses Busse received: "Since his Dec. 2 appearance on national Fox News, [McInnis] met with one grassroots group in El Paso County, he met with Western Slope Conservative Alliance Board only (not membership), President of WSCA & I met with him on Dec. 11 and he taped interview conducted by leader of Northern CO Tea Party yesterday," Busse wrote.
"[McInnis] is scheduled for two events with grassroots organizations' members in February and one in March. Also, one leader reported she has gone to four events over past several months expecting McInnis to speak and he sent rep instead. He did not meet with any of the 31 groups prior to his appearance on Fox News."
"If his campaign keeps trying to imply McInnis is meeting with "Tea Party" groups regularly, this issue is not going away for us until he starts doing so," Busse said.
When meeting Wednesday night with Fort Collins Tea Party leader Lesley Hollywood in Loveland, someone ran into McInnis's car and punctured the radiator, forcing it to be towed. The meeting itself, with about a dozen members of Hollywood's group, was "very pleasant", she said.
"We put some of our concerns on the table and he was very kind," Hollywood said. "It was a good experience for everyone."
But it hasn't been enough to quiet another conservative activist who's making noise that McInnis's new campaign manager is overstating the extent to which McInnis has been courting the groups' support.
"I really don't know what the problem is," said McInnis spokesman Sean Duffy. "This really is a tempest in a Tea Party pot. We're meeting with as many different folks as we can. There are so many groups out there and we have to wisely manage Scott's time. But this notion that he's not available is totally specious."
The notion took root last December, after a disastrous Fox News interview in which anchor Neil Cavuto labelled McInnis the "Tea Party candidate" and lathered him in praise (and awful puns) while grossly overstating the nature of the candidate's support from the party's grass roots -- which took notice and exception to the idea that their support would be taken for granted by McInnis or any GOP candidate who had yet to prove their conservative "bona fides" to the groups face-to-face.
This week, McInnis's new campaign manager, Nancy Hopper, who has replaced George Culpepper, told the Arapahoe County Republican Men's Club that McInnis had about a dozen meetings with Tea Party groups. That got back to Lu Ann Busse, chair of the 9-12 Project Colorado Coalition, who fired off an email to group members to determine how many times they'd met with the candidate.
Here's a summary of the responses Busse received: "Since his Dec. 2 appearance on national Fox News, [McInnis] met with one grassroots group in El Paso County, he met with Western Slope Conservative Alliance Board only (not membership), President of WSCA & I met with him on Dec. 11 and he taped interview conducted by leader of Northern CO Tea Party yesterday," Busse wrote.
"[McInnis] is scheduled for two events with grassroots organizations' members in February and one in March. Also, one leader reported she has gone to four events over past several months expecting McInnis to speak and he sent rep instead. He did not meet with any of the 31 groups prior to his appearance on Fox News."
"If his campaign keeps trying to imply McInnis is meeting with "Tea Party" groups regularly, this issue is not going away for us until he starts doing so," Busse said.
