Activists led by Personhood USA yesterday submitted over 50,000 more signatures than the 86,000 required to make the 2014 election ballot, making it likely voters will cast ballots next year on a measure that would add “unborn human beings” to the definition of a “person” and “child” in Colorado’s criminal code.

Backers and opponents of the measure disagree on whether it would affect abortion rights, but the fact is that supporters of the amendment, including its designated representative and a spokesperson for Colorado Right to Life, have referred to it as “personhood.”

So this means it’s likely that political candidates will face questions next year about their views on the personhood concept, under which all abortion would be banned, even for rape and incest, as well as common forms of birth control.

In 2010, the last time a personhood amendment was on the Colorado ballot, all Republican candidates for Governor and Senate supported the measure.

This year, most top-line Republican candidates are on record supporting personhood (See below), while no Democrat has done so publicly. The Colorado Statesman’s Peter Marcus has sought comments from this year’s crop of candidates, but he’s faced some resistance.

Coverage of the yesterday’s signature submission, including informative pieces by CBS4’s Shaun Boyd and the Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic, didn’t provided a tally of personhood support among top candidates. So I will supply it below:

Governor

State Sen. Greg Brophy endorsed personhood in 2008 telling 7News at the time, “Clearly it’’s always the right time to take the stand for the sanctity of life.” Colorado Right to Life writes on its blog that Brophy “supports personhood” and is “pro-life with no exceptions.”

Secretary of State Scott Gessler is apparently not on record on personhood.

Former lawmaker Mike Kopp “supports personhood” and is “pro-life with no exceptions,” according to the Colorado Right to Life blog.

Former Rep. Tancredo supports personhood.

U.S. Senate

Sen. Randy Baumgardner is “100% pro-life with no exceptions” and “supports personhood,” according to the 2012 Colorado Right to Life blog.

Weld Country DA Ken Buck withdrew his support for the personhood amendment in 2010, but stood behind is position against abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.

Sen. Owen Hill is “pro-life” and “supports personhood” according to CRTL in 2012.

U.S. House

Rep. Mike Coffman is listed by CRTL as a personhood supporter, and he has been held up by Personhood USA as a model personhood-supporting candidate. He’s against abortion for rape and incest.

Rep. Cory Gardner supports personhood.

Rep. Doug Lamborn supports personhood.

Rep. Scott Tipton is not on record as a personhood supporter.

Just as Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo started pleading with Colorado Republicans to stop beating up each other, GOP strategist Dick Wadhams took to the radio waves to slam down Tancredo as unelectable.

On KNUS’ Backbone Radio show Sunday, Wadhams amplified on an a Sept. 1 Denver Post op-ed, where he made veiled references to GOP candidates who’ve lost previously and who, if nominated, would extend the Republican “losing streak” in Colorado.

Guest host Randy Corporon deserves credit for getting to the heart of the matter, when he asked Wadhams:

Corporon: “The two candidates who popped to mind for me who’ve lost state-wide office in recent history are Tom Tancredo and Senate candidate Ken Buck. Did you have them in mind?”

Wadhams: “Indeed I did. I cannot see how a candidate who has clearly had a history of rhetoric that has alienated Hispanic voters can get elected state-wide in Colorado. I don’t see it.”

[BigMedia intervention: One wonders if Corporon thought about asking Wadhams for the name of any GOP candidate, including Rep. Mike Coffman, who does not have a “history of rhetoric that has alienated Hispanic voters,” but let’s continue with the interview.]

Wadhams: In terms of Ken Buck, who I think would have been a marvelous U.S. Senator, and Ken, actually, was going into October with a lead. But he said some things that gave Michael Bennet the ability to come from behind and win that… And those issues don’t go away.

[BigMedia intervention: But Buck blamed his loss on Democrats, not on himself.]

Wadhams later in the interview: “I do not think that even if it had been a head-to-head with Hickenlooper and Tancredo, that Tancredo would have won in 2010. Hickenlooper never had to run a negative ad… He’s never been tested state-wide in a campaign like this. I don’t think he would hold up under scrutiny.”

Dick Wadhams on KNUS Backbone Radio 09-01-13

I respect the conservative talk-show hosts, like Corporon, who’ve been dedicating serious time to figuring out how to reform the Republican Party. Contrasting Wadhams’ attacks with Tancredo’s peace-offering is definitely part of this debate.

And again, Corporon took on the issue directly, asking Wadhams whether Tancredo’s “peace plan” is something he’d reject. Wadhams said “issues matter in campaigns” and ignoring them during the primary will just make Republicans go down in flames in the general election.

It’s a “bunch of bunk” that primaries hurt GOP candidates, Wadhams said, adding the bruising primaries benefit good candidates.

I started thinking about the U.S. missiles that are poised to bomb Syria. Peace is difficult to pull off, but at least they’re debating the topic, as it relates to the Colorado Republican Party, on conservative talk radio.

Three weeks ago, FOX 31 aired a story about Colorado’s state-owned jet, including the fact that Gov. John Hickenlooper flew on the plane, along with businessman Ken Gart and his son, to the 2012 Pro Cycling Challenge in Durango.

The FOX 31 story wasn’t received very well.

Denver Post editorial writer Tim Hoover reviewed the story and concluded that “the ‘concerns’ outlined in the FOX 31 report were just silly.”

Editorial Page Editor Vincent Carroll concurred, tweeting:

“Nice job by Tim Hoover deconstructing an overhyped Fox 31 story on usage of a state plane.”

In his piece, “Not airworthy: FOX 31 Piece on State Airplane Usage Was Pretty Lame,” Hoover noted that Gart helped organize the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, “a large-scale, high-profile event that is important to Colorado and one a governor would be wise to attend.”

Hoover: It doesn’t seem crazy that one of the key people behind organizing the event might attend it with the governor. But in any case, the report notes Gart reimbursed the state $431 for his travel costs after FOX 31′s inquiries.

Despite this, and the fact that Hickenlooper reimbursed the state for his son’s trip, Denver talk-show host Jason Worley was so impressed with the FOX31 story that he filed a complaint Monday to the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission, in part, he said on the radio yesterday, because “nobody else wanted to do it.”

“There’s a news story backing up every bit of what I’m saying,” Worley said on the radio yesterday. “This is not a frivolous claim. We didn’t do this on a lark.”

Worley’s complaint stated that KDVR did not report when Hickenlooper and Gart paid back the state, but the station flashed Hick’s $903.75 reimbursement check for his son, and it’s dated Jan. 30, 2013. Gart’s $431 check is dated Jan. 15. That’s about four months after the trip, during the period KDVR claims it was doing its investigation, as Worley pointed out to me.

Citing an alleged precedent set in a recent Gessler case, Worley’s complaint states that “subsequent reimbursement” of funds “cannot spare a liable public official from an IEC penalty.”

Ethics Watch Director Luis Toro, however, told me via email that “Team Gessler never actually requested that the IEC drop the case based on the payment (as I fully expected they would)” and the case did not establish the precedent that “late repayment should not prevent an ethics complaint from going forward.”

[See Toro’s answers to my other questions about the case below.]

Asked by KDVR about taking his son with him to Durango, Hickenlooper said:

“The hard part about this job is I never get to spend time with my son. I feel like I’m missing his childhood. He’s about to turn 11…. We always pay his pro-rated share. So we pay the state back when he’s on there.”

“I’m glad he pays the state back for his son,” Worley emailed when asked to respond to Hick’s statement.  “Not sure why it took an investigative reporter to prompt him to do so.”

In his complaint, Worley asks the state to investigate, among other things, whether Hick used the plane to take him and his guests to Durango for non-state or political business.

“I do see that this trip could have been a ‘perk’ of being Governor,” Worley emailed me. “However taking a campaign contributor means this was a least in part, questionably political.  How much was business, how much was personal and how much political.  Why didn’t he allocate for that as was decided in the Gessler case.  It is a requirement.”

On the radio Tuesday, Worley said he plans to bring a live microphone to any ethics hearing, if one takes place, raising the question of whether this is a publicity stunt by a talk-radio host, not unlike throwing live chickens out the studio window.

“Ken and I make no bones that we are activists first,” Worley said. “No one else stepped up to file this complaint, why not me?  If publicity were our main focus we’d go off and purposely say outrageous things.  We don’t do that, we give our honest opinion.”

Luis Toro, Director of Colorado Ethics Watch, answered questions yesterday via email regarding Worley’s complaint to the Independent Ethics Commission:

Was it ok ethics-wise for Hickenlooper himself to use the state plane to go to the race?

I believe it is pretty standard for governors to attend high-profile events like the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. In this case, the governor is lucky to be the governor of Colorado where events like that happen in places like Telluride and Durango. Undoubtedly it is one of the better parts of his job, but one that fits very comfortably into what governors are expected to do. There is actually a specific Fiscal Rule (11.6) regarding travel by the Governor that says “In the case of travel by the Governor, security, protocol, ceremonial functions, and time demands may require considerations not accorded any other State official or employee.”

What about bringing Gart?

It’s always fair to question whether some people get better access to the governor than others. Arguably it’s worse if only those who can afford a trip on the state plane can ride with the Governor. From the stand point of the use of public resources, which is the focus of this ethics inquiry, once the governor is taking the plane to an event, the incremental additional cost to the state of more passengers is likely very small – like the additional fuel cost from that much more weight on the plane. On the other hand, it’s obviously a big benefit to Mr. Gart to be able to travel to Telluride without having to buy a private plane ticket. It’s appropriate that he reimbursed the state for the value of the flight to him.

What about bringing his son on the plane?

It’s pretty much the same analysis as for Mr. Gart. It’s not as though the state is a private carrier looking to fill every seat with a ticketed passenger. If the child didn’t come along, the seat would likely have been empty, and the flight would likely have been slightly less expensive for the state, but we are talking very small amounts of money, maybe not even measurable. On the other hand, it’s obviously a great personal benefit for the governor to get some quality time with his son. It’s appropriate that he paid the state back for this.

Does it matter that Hickenlooper and Gart reimbursed the state for the airfare (Hick for his son)?

Of course it matters a great deal. The element of personal financial gain is essential to prove an ethics violation based on misuse of public funds, but if the money is paid back, there is no personal financial gain.

If reimbursement makes a difference, then why didn’t the IEC drop the complaint when Gessler reimbursed (at least partially) his office?

I’m the one who brought the partial repayment to the attention of the IEC and asked them for guidance. It was on May 21, 2013, seven months after we filed the complaint and just a little more than two weeks before the hearing. The Chair, Matt Smith, instructed Ethics Watch and Gessler’s attorneys to get together and see if we could reach an agreement that could be presented to the IEC for approval. That’s not unprecedented – we worked out a stipulation with the Public Trustees Association of Colorado after 32 of their members accepted a free hotel night in Black Hawk that was worth over the gift ban limit. The Trustees agreed to pay the full amount of the fine and the IEC approved the stipulation at a public hearing after making some changes. In this case, Gessler’s attorneys never offered to make the whole hearing go away, and our view was that if we were going to have a hearing, we might as well try the whole case. As it turned out, Gessler was found to have improperly used not only the $1,270 he paid back at the eleventh hour, but more money as well such as the end of year “reimbursement” to himself out of the discretionary fund. So our decision to go to the hearing was vindicated. From the IEC’s point of view, I certainly understand that it would be a bad precedent to allow a public official to spend tens of thousands of dollars of public money on legal fees, only to pay the money back after months of dragging out the process and avoid the fine of double the amount of improper personal gain that is set forth in the state constitution.

Does it make any difference, in terms of how serious the IEC should take this case, that it was filed by a radio host, who could be accused of using the EIC to promote his radio show?

It shouldn’t. The state constitution says “any person” can file a complaint “asking whether” an ethics violation has occurred. If a public official has violated ethics standards, why should it matter who filed the complaint? Personally, I welcome this filing because we at Ethics Watch are often criticized for not filing this or that hypothetical complaint, but none of our critics has ever put their money where their mouth is by actually filing a complaint themselves, which is their right under the state constitution.  For years, we have advocated a less adversarial process at the IEC, where the complaining party is not expected to put on a case like a prosecuting attorney. That would take the focus off the person who filed the complaint and on to what really matters, which is whether an ethics violation has occurred.

Anything else that you want to add?

I’m looking forward to seeing the process unfold. Assuming the Ethics Commission doesn’t simply dismiss the complaint as frivolous, will the Attorney General sign off on outside counsel for the Governor? Will the Governor run up a legal tab anywhere near the $122,000 Scott Gessler’s legal team billed to the state? Will he use public money to ask a court to declare Amendment 41 unconstitutional, as Secretary Gessler has done? It will be interesting to watch.

CORRECTION: The “metrosexual liberals” quote was originally attributed to Sen. Brophy, when it was in fact stated by the KNUS host Kirsta Kafer.

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Last week, ColoradoPols posted a publicity photo of Sen. Greg Brophy and his family, all brandishing big guns.

The Pols post caught the attention of Brophy, who commented on KNUS’ Backbone radio over the weekend:

Brophy: And then those goofs – you know, those lefty goofs over at ColoradoPols — pitched a fit oh, sometime this past week, over a family photo that we have from back in 2011, where every member of the [sneezes] – excuse me, out in the country, — every member of the family is holding [whispers] a scary black gun, a scary black gun.  And it’s a beautiful photo, and we had a great time.  We shot hundreds of photos that day, right after Christmas when we had the whole family together for the first time in ages.

And they had to make a big deal out of it, you know.  And, you know, my guys, [inaudible] wanted to clean some of that up, and I said, “No.  You know what?  Firearms are part of the culture of rural Colorado. It’s a part of the culture of my family, and if you follow me on Twitter, which is @SenatorBrophy, or on Facebook – Greg Brophy.  You know, we’re out at the farm right now today.  My brother happened to come down for a family reunion, and guess what we’re doing.

Brophy told the Backbone audience that he was proud of the photo and even promoted it on social media after Pols posted it.

Host Krista Kafer responded: “I looked at that photo, and my first thought was, “It’s kind of like a family ‘Charlie’s Angels’, you know?”  Because you have all the guns at different levels, or different kind of pointing – no gun is pointing at a human being, but they’re all pointing in different directions.  And then I had this vision of these Metro-sexual liberals in Denver looking at that photo and being horrified. And being like, “Oh no!  He’s got guns!” [BigMedia emphasis]

I have to say, Brophy’s family looks nice, even with the firearms, but there’s a big problem here: Kafer is wrong about the guns not “pointing at a human being.”

I guess the fact that I’m an aspiring metrosexual gives me the ability to see that the girl on the left is almost certainly pointing his gun at the leg of the boy next to him.  (H/T to Pols commenter Ross Cunniff, who pointed this out on Pols.)

This is one reason I’m scared of guns and proud of it. Accidents happen, even when pros like Brophy or Dick Cheney are in charge.

Brophy hands out the guns to his family, and he has no clue that one of his kids is pointing a big black gun at the other one–or if not at him, way too close for comfort. Yes, it could happen.

Brophy’s daughter could have shot his son.

Yet, on the radio, Brophy said: “You treat guns like they’re loaded all the time…. the reality is, that those of us who have grown up handling firearms – you know you treat them all like they’re loaded, whether they are or they aren’t.”

Brophy: And we have a lot of fun doing [the photo].  I’ve got[ten] a lot of response.  You know.   I’m just going to punch back, because – you know, I am what I am, and I’m proud of who I am and I’m proud of where I come from.  And so I actually re-shared that photo on Facebook again yesterday and it just exploded!  I mean, people were just sharing it all over the place and commenting about it all over the place.  And, you know, it’s—the hard core Left can want to take away everybody’s guns and think that guns are demonic.

Backbone Radio host Krista Kafer, who interviewed Brophy, owes it to her listeners to get Brophy back on the show and ask him about how his family photo could possibly demonstrate the proper safety rules for guns that Brophy told her he lives by. It’s a serious question.

Incidentally, don’t you think Brophy is a bit of an aspiring Metro-sexual himself? He’s even moved temporarily to Denver. Kafer should ask him if he thinks there’s any chance he’ll be giving up his guns as soon as the Capitol Hill, Metro-sexual culture seeps into him.

On Friday, the Durango Herald ran an article on newly-minted CO Republican Senate candidates, state legislators Owen Hill and Randy Baumgardner.

The Herald reported that Hill has taken strong anti-choice stands in the past. (Opponents say he supported de-funding Planned Parenthood in Colorado.) And Baumgardner “pitched an Arizona-style immigration law for Colorado two years ago when he was in the House.”

The Herald’s Paige Jones reported that Owen Loftus, a spokesman for the Colorado Republican Party, “downplayed the candidates’ proposals on abortion and immigration – both of which quickly failed – and said voters make their decision based on a range of issues.”

“People in Colorado don’t vote on just two issues. They vote on the whole package,” he said.

Maybe they don’t vote on just two issues, but Jones should have asked Loftus how he could possibly downplay the importance of women’s issues, like abortion, and immigration after Loftus’ deflating experience as spokesman for Ken Buck’s failed Senatorial campaign in 2010.

Buck was poised to win his race, you recall, and before the 2010 election, Republicans like Loftus were saying the same thing about itsy-bitsy women’s issues: they don’t matter. And look what happened to Buck.

At the time, as Buck was attacked as an anti-abortion extremist, Buck campaign consultant Walt Klein told The Denver Post:

“If they think they can make Michael Bennet a more appealing incumbent by going on and on about abortion, then fire away. But all the polling data show economy, jobs and unemployment is pushing all the other issues to the bottom of the chart.”

Responding to a news story about a college student who was angry at Buck for telling reporters that the student would be accused of having “buyer’s remorse” if her rape case went to trial, Loftus told The Denver Post: “When it comes to women and men, they’re worried about jobs. … That’s what everyone cares about. Voters understand this is a machine set up to smear Ken Buck, and they aren’t buying it.”

As everyone now knows, Loftus was wrong then, he’s wrong again, and reporters should press him on why he continues to say the same lines even though he’s had a two-bit role in the history that proves him wrong. Loftus did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Three days after 2010 election, Buck himself told The Denver Post:

“My effort was to focus on spending and unemployment, and they wanted to talk about anything but,” Buck said. “It was part of their effort to focus more on their version of Ken Buck rather than the issues that I thought most voters were concerned about. I don’t know that there’s any way to avoid it; I wasn’t going to derail my message to have an election decided on abortion, or any social issue, for that matter.”

The Post’s Michael Booth did readers a favor by following up Buck’s quote with this:

The irony is, of course, that the election may have been decided on precisely those issues, with even Republican analysts saying the Democratic strategy hurt Buck among independent women in Arapahoe and Jefferson counties. The final margin with Bennet was fewer than 20,000 votes, out of 1.5 million cast.

Scott McInnis recently tiptoed into the shark-invested world of Denver journalism, where plagiarists are rooted out and hung up to dry.

In an exclusive interview, McInnis told KOA radio’s Colorado Morning News that our state did the right thing by not purchasing an espensive tanker fleet to fight forest fires. He said Colorado should be concerned about the expense and that various options should be evaluated.

Siding with former-McInnis-enemy The Denver Post as well as Rep. Doug Lamborn on the matter, and butting heads with current gubernatorial candidate Greg Brophy, McInnis had this conversation with KOA co-host Steffan Tubbs @ 3:57 :

TUBBS: You’re clearly still on top of issues that go on here in Colorado… to some people it’s unfathomable that a state with so much vegetation, wooded areas, national forests, –like Colorado, that we don’t have an air fleet based here, in this state. Is that a mistake? And has it been a mistake in the past? And would you say you support – no matter where the money comes from, get the money and put a fleet of aircraft here that can quickly respond to the wildfire?

MCINNIS: No, I don’t think it’s a mistake. I mean, it’s easy to talk about putting an air fleet together, and you know, when you have a big fire and people want to a fire station on every corner. I mean, the reality of it is is that It’s very, very expensive and you’ve got a lot of political questions that need to be asked. For example, if we’ve got a fire going in Colorado Springs and we’ve got a fire going in Glenwood Springs, where do you send the fleet? And how many airplanes do you have? And what if our neighbor right next door, Wyoming – if we’ve got a plane up there in Wyoming, would a governor dare send a plane to Wyoming to assist our neighbors, even though we didn’t have a fire in Colorado, and all of a sudden a fire breaks out in Colorado and our aircraft are somewhere off –. I mean,there’s a lot of implications in this. And it’s not just a budget item, it is a huge budget item. Aircraft – I mean, you have to be working those aircraft all the time, and that’s why so many – the Federal government, that’s why a lot of those aircraft are so dated and so on, is because it’s very expensive to keep that up to speed. So, I know right now at the height of this fire and this horrible disaster we’ve suffered, the temptation is to buy more fire trucks, buy more air fleets, make all kinds of commitments. But we need to let it calm down, give it a few weeks, and then really ask the questions, “Okay, we have the airplanes. Now how do we decide who gets them? And how do we decide how many we get? And how do we decide what we do with the people – you know, those planes, they probably fly – I don’t know, what? — fifteen days a year, maybe thirty days a year. What do we do with the other eleven months of the year? I mean there’s a lot of questions.

Listen to Scott McInnis on KOA CO Morning News 7.3.13

McInnis also said on KOA that the reason for the “intense fires” is “we don’t harvest wood like we used to harvest it.”

He added,”They should have thought about this [fires] when we were so tough on the lumber companies that went up there.”

“Musings on wood,” was the response of @Copeakpolitics when I tweeted McInnis’ remarks last week.

Former state GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams believes Colorado Republicans should find state-wide candidates modeled after Wayne Allard, Bill Armstrong, Bill Owens, and Hank Brown.

“They were candidates that appealed to a broad section of Coloradans,” Wadhams told internet-radio host Art Carlson Saturday. “They didn’t go out of their way to alienate any Colorado voter. And as a result, they won in a state that’s very competitive, like Colorado. And that’s what we need in 2014.”

Nothing unusual there, but the funny part was, Wadhams went on to praise a possible GOP candidate who’s obviously among the most alienating public figures in Colorado.

“I think it’s difficult to start a campaign when you’re dealing with those ethical assaults [resulting form the ethics investigation Gessler faces],” Wadhams told Calrson. “But if Scott can get past them, if he can get beyond those charges against him, he’ll emerge as a strong candidate.”

What about the need to find a person who won’t “alienate any Colorado voter?” I can think of at least a few voters that Gessler might have alienated, maybe Hispanics, minorities, and the entire voting population of Colorado, for example, but unfortunately Carlson let the topic slide by.

Listen to the Wadhams interview here: Dick Wadhams discusses Scott Gessler on Arts Place 6-8-2013

Wadhams called Gessler “a great friend,” who’s “done some great work as Secretary of State.”

“It’s now been 11 years since Republicans won a race United States Senate or for Governor,” Wadhams told the internet audience. “…The common thread among the people who’ve won statewide for governor and senator as Republicans is that they were very disciplined candidates.”

“If the intention is to win an election, I think Republicans have to take this seriously and really make a decision on who can win,” said Wadhams. “And that’s not because they become overnight liberals or something. Wayne Allard and Bill Owens were two of the most conservative legislators when they ran for state-wide office and yet they could articulate their conservative agenda in a very open and welcoming way for all Coloradans to consider. We don’t need Republicans who will alienate large blocs of voters.”

If I were host Carlson, I would have asked Wadhams if substantive changes, even itsy bitsy ones, are required by GOP candidates to avoid the alienation trap.

Or is this all about messaging, like Wadhams implies? What about some specific policy proposals related to abortion? Hispanics? The environment? Poverty? Healthcare? Education? Taxes?

Those issues never came up. Carlson should have dug deep and asked about them.

If you’re a reporter, and you’ve been covering Secretary of State Scott Gessler, it’s been a tough few years, because he plays so fast and so loose with the facts.

That’s an accurate assessment, based on Gessler’s record of distorting basic voter information (Voter Fraud! Illegal Voters!), and has nothing to do with his policy positions.  If you’re a fair-minded person, you’d agree that Gessler is slippery.

So I pity the poor reporters assigned to chase Gessler around on the campaign trail, if he runs for governor, because I can only imagine the pitfalls they’ll hit as they try to fact-check the would-be Governor Honey Badger.

You can see it coming, as Gessler contemplates his gubernatorial run.

On KNUS’ Kelley and Company, for example, May 24, Gessler said that one of his major considerations, as he considers whether to run for governor, is to assess what’s left for him to accomplish as Secretary of State.

Gessler: “What have I done at the Secretary of State’s Office? What else is there left to do? Have we been able to accomplish a lot of what we wanted? To a large extent the answer there is yes.”

Gessler’s first goal as Secretary of State, you recall, was to moonlight for his former law firm, so he could make more money. He failed there, after it became obvious that no one would tolerate such brazen conflict-of-interest by the Secretary of State, of all people.

He filed a slew of lawsuits, including a big one to stop ballots from being sent to registered voters who missed just one election, and guess what? He lost most of his lawsuits at god-knows-what public expense, pissing off judges along the way.

He made several unsuccessful attempts to change campaign finance rules. Chief among them was his effort, which was ruled unconstitutional, to raise the threshold from $200 to $5,000 for an issue committee to report contributions and expenditures. He also tried to change the definition of a 527 committee so that most or all of them would not be required to report financial information.

He tried and failed to get a law through the state legislature giving him legal authority to purge voters. In the process, he unintentionally proved, to the few who might have wondered, that there is no significant problem with noncitizen voting in Colorado.

In a 9News YourShow debate prior to being elected, when listing goals as SOS, Gessler referred first to his plan to institute photo identification in Colorado. Failed there.

Next from Gessler’s lips on YourShow was his opposition to same-day voter registration, which is now law.

Gessler says on KNUS that his “record of achievement” includes a successful 2012 election and better services for Colorado business.

Even giving him this, which was arguably forced on him, you’d have to give Gessler a “pants-on-fire” rating for saying “to a large extent” he’s accomplished what he set out to do as Secretary of State.

If he enters the race, you hope journalists will report the smoke coming from Gessler’s pants–and that the fumes won’t choke the other candidates, like Tom Tancredo and Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Now that former Congressman Tom Tancredo is officially running for governor, you wonder how many Republicans will go out of their way to denounce Tanc’s anti-anti-anti (that’s triple anti-) immigration views.

It’s a question reporters should put to Republicans (Are you with Tancredo on immigration?) not only because numerous Republicans are trying to cozy up to Hispanics (See Gardner, Coffman, Penry) but also because many leading Colorado Republicans endorsed Tancredo over the years.

As The Denver Post’s Kurtis Lee tweeted this morning, Rep. Mike Coffman endorsed Tancredo in 2010.

To get an understanding of the bond between those two guys (which goes beyond the fact that Tancredo was anybody-but-Dan-Maes in 2010), watch Coffman praise Tancredo’s true conservative values in this video. (Here Tancredo nominates Coffman.)

As you know if you follow Tancredo from microphone to microphone, Tancredo’s true conservative values start with immigration, which still comes up in one of every ten of his breaths.

On Friday, Tancredo told KNUS’ Steve Kelley, for example, that immigration reform is not only wrong but “impossible” to achieve. His solution, in a word, is e-verify, he told Kelley. Just make it impossible for employers to hire ’em.

Are Colorado Republicans ready to tell reporters how and why they part ways with Tancredo?

“You are among friends here,” Rick Wagner told his radio guest Scott McInnis Thursday. “No one is going to try to pick at you because I know there is a limited amount you can say about it.”

Wagner kept his promise, stroking McInnis for about 15 minutes, even saying that McInnis’ plagiarism “was brought up by his primary opponent in the election, which of course was The Denver Post. I believe they were running for governor.” (McInnis has also blamed The Post for his downfall.)

Feeling comfy, McInnis told Wagner that last week’s regulatory decision not to strip him of his law license was “kind of bittersweet news” but, still, “gave us complete vindication.”

“Just a little too late,” he said.

Why did McInnis wait until it was too late? Why didn’t he release the emails that allegedly instructed Rolly Fischer not to plagiarize? That’s the question everyone’s been asking, and of course Wagner didn’t ask it.

But McInnis seems to think he had provided proof of his innocence all along, but no one listened!

“And at the beginning, we obviously stated exactly what had occurred, and we were vindicated by the Supreme Court that came out with the same kind of findings,” McInnis told Wagner, who interviewed McInnis Thursday on KFKA’ s Amy Oliver Show (1310 AM in Greeley). Wagner was substituting for Oliver.

Wagner should have pointed out that the report of the state’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, whose record has been questioned by Westword, did not exonerate McInnis. It allowed him to practice law, but it didn’t clear him of plagiarism or of fraud.

As The Denver Post’s Dean Singleton said on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show last week, McInnis is still a plagiarist, even if the plagiarism was  executed by his assistant Rolly Fischer. This conforms with the view of Prof. Bob Steele, a journalism ethics guru, who pointed out last year that even if text is given freely to a writer, word-for-word use of it still constitutes plagiarism. And in McInnis’ case, Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs did not authorize McInnis to use his words.

Neither has McInnis been cleared of misrepresenting his water-musings articles to the Hasan Family Foundation, which he described as “original,”  leaving him open to charges of fraud. Seeme Hasan acknowledged on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show that contrary to what the Foundation stated last year, McInnis did inform her, on a fax cover sheet, that he had hired an assistant to work on the water project. But Hasan says the assistant could have been answering the phones, for all she know. She did not know he would be writing the water musings, and she would not have allowed this had she known, she told KHOW.

With these issues unaddressed, it was easy for McInnis to tell Wagner, who’s a conservative columnist for the Grand Junction Sentinel, that “Laurie and I are very thrilled” with the attorney-regulation report.

Looking ahead, McInnis told Wagner that he thinks the attacks on him were so successful that they will be replicated.

“Look at the destruction that it did to us,” McInnis said. “And I think you’re actually going to see this tool utilized even more in the future.”

Is McInnis thinking there are more candidates out there who got paid $300,000 for a two-year fellowship, hired a research assistant to do the job, and didn’t have the time or inclination to make absolutely sure the final product wasn’t copied from a Supreme Court Justice? And then tried to blame everything on his research assistant?

We don’t know, because Wagner didn’t ask.

(Click here for the BigMediaBlog transcript of the McInnis interview discussed above. Contact jason@bigmedia.org for a copy of the audio recording of the McInnis interview.)

Follow Jason Salzman on Twitter @bigmediablog.