I’ve been behind the times a bit, and am striving to catch up. The Scott McInnis teeth-and-claws interview (MP3) with Caplis & Silverman on 630 KHOW?

Simply bizarre.

The former Congressman’s over-the-top reaction to softball questions from local radio hosts belies the supposed advantage of an elder statesman’s savvy and gravitas. Instead, from everything I’ve seen so far, Josh Penry has come across as more serious, reasonable, focused, articulate … in short, a better candidate to represent the Republican Party and better leadership material in general.

In the interest of fairness, I’ll also point out that McInnis called back to the Caplis & Silverman Show the next day, apparently after someone on his team sat him down and told him it was time to do a little damage control (MP3) on one of the strangest unforced errors I’ve ever seen in Colorado politics — maybe politics anywhere.

I’m even less convinced than before that Scott McInnis is the right candidate for Colorado statewide office in 2010. Of course, Dan Maes is out there, too.

In any case, for what it’s worth, I’m getting closer to making up my mind in the GOP gubernatorial primary and throwing my support 100 percent in someone’s corner. Listening to last week’s KHOW interview just well may turn out to be one of those crystallizing moments.