Colorado: Scott Mcinnis

A new, conservatively-aligned think tank is taking shape in Colorado, but few details are available about the forthcoming launch of the Colorado Policy Institute.

The state already has an assortment of non-profit policy organizations like the Independence Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Golden, and the Rocky Mountain Foundation, a research and education institute founded by former Congressman Tom Tancredo. Independence Institute founder and former state Senate President John Andrews also recently launched the Centennial Institute, an academic policy center at Colorado Christian University. These groups hold non-profit 501(c)(3) status under federal tax law, and do not typically participate in candidate elections.

Former Congressman Scott McInnis has officially entered the 2010 gubernatorial race with little fanfare and after critics have for weeks argued that he should file campaign-finance disclosures.

The secretary of state's office confirmed that the Grand Junction Republican turned in his paperwork Tuesday afternoon.

McInnis has traveled the state building support for his campaign in recent weeks and launched a phone campaign. But he has maintained, until now, that because he had not formally announced or spent money supporting his run, he did not have to register with the state or report the campaign's financials.

A legal-watchdog group has asked the secretary of state to look into whether McInnis' actions violated state campaign

Candidate Affidavit

laws.

Perhaps the moment you've all been waiting for--given Scott McInnis' track record of expressing 'interest' in running for everything, from the U.S. Senate to Mesa County dogcatcher, we'll only fully believe it when the Secretary of State gets the papers. But no question there's intense jockeying going on behind the scenes in the GOP right now, as the Grand Junction Sentinel reports:
The battle for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010 could be a Western Slope affair, pitting former Congressman Scott McInnis against his onetime aide, Josh Penry.

McInnis, who retired from Congress in 2004 after six terms representing the 3rd District, is interested in the job, as is Penry, now the minority leader in the state Senate.

If you ask Ron Wolfe, the Republican mayor of Avon, Tom Stone has played a major role in marginalizing his party in Eagle County, where there was a Democratic sweep in November and the GOP trails in voter registration for the first time in recent memory.

And as Republicans continue to take stock of their defeats nationally and locally, there’s debate over whether Stone, a Realtor and former county commissioner, would be a better GOP party chairman than Dick Wadhams.

“If anything, [Tom Stone is] the Rush Limbaugh of Eagle County,” Wolfe told the Colorado Independent Tuesday. “I don’t think Tom had a history here of working well with anyone who was anything but super-, super-conservative.