Colorado: Wadhams

You've been reading about the scandal surrounding an apparently impostor Marine who managed to insert himself into a number of campaign-related events last year, mostly (but not exclusively, we'll get to that) on behalf of Democrats.

There's no question that the impostor in question, one Rick Strandlof, enormously embarrassed anyone who was conned by him--though he by all reports never actually worked for any Colorado campaign last year, he did volunteer to host receptions for candidates, and appeared in a 527 TV spot targeted at the Senate race.

Whatever the facts of this scandal ultimately shake out to be, we've seen nothing to indicate that anyone else, particularly other veterans associated with the organization Strandlof ran, were similarly misrepresenting themselves.

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.

The Colorado Statesman reports on last week's El Paso County GOP Lincoln Day dinner, laying the scene for a rare treat: press coverage of Dick Wadhams' opponent for Chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.
More than 300 Republicans attended the $80-a-plate dinner at the Antlers Hilton, where they dined on chicken breasts in Marsala wine sauce, sang patriotic songs and nodded their heads in agreement with speeches that ridiculed Obama's economic recovery plan as socialistic voodoo.

As Obama inspired the majority of Americans for "change" in the election last year, the Democrats are inadvertently unifying Republicans in their march toward the next political battle.

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.