Tom Tancredo Loses GOP Primary For Colorado Governor

Ben Jacobs

Controversial former congressman Tom Tancredo lost his primary for governor on Tuesday.

-snip-

The conservative former congressman and presidential candidate lost a tight four way primary for the Republican nomination to be Governor of Colorado on Tuesday, finishing second, just behind establishment choice former Rep. Bob Beauprez, by margin of 30.2% to 26.6%.

The Daily Beast talked to Tancredo while he was awaiting the returns Tuesday afternoon. He had just returned from his garden where he had “planted a whole bunch of flowers.” The Colorado Republican described gardening as a “very relaxing hobby” while reflecting on the closely fought primary.

He looked back on this election with a sense of surprise that Republican Party regulars made such effort to get involved to defeat him. Tancredo cautioned that this shouldn’t be considered “a Tea Party versus establishment split" though. “I don’t know I’m the tea party guy” he told The Daily Beast. “There are tea party guys that hate me” Tancredo noted, pointing to his third party bid for Governor in 2010 where he received 40% of the vote and his support for TARP in Congress in 2008. Instead, the former five-term congressman said “they just look at me as a maverick curmudgeon.”

-snip-

Tancredo also expressed his dismay at the number of negative ads that had been run against him, some of which he characterized as charging “I essentially want to legalize and pump heroin into little children.” The ads came in response to Tancredo’s support for marijuana legalization. Although the Colorado Republican has never smoked pot---in his words, “wine satisfied whatever need I had in that particular regard”---he didn’t see why the state should prohibit its use. As Tancredo told The Daily Beast “It’s always been fascinating when you talk freedom, especially to conservatives, they really are unwilling to extend to people they don’t like or don’t like what they do.” (emphasis added - Don)

-snip-

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/26/tom-tancredo-loses-gop-primary-for-colorado-governor.html