Dan Haley: “Too bad voters can’t be trusted with…electing their leaders”

Denver Post editorial page editor Dan Haley and I at times certainly disagree. But one observation in his Sunday column deserves a hearty “Amen”:

Too bad voters can’t be trusted with such matters as electing their leaders. At some point, party insiders need to shed their irrational fear of primaries and realize they can actually help candidates.

What’s at issue? Well, the sense of unity supposedly fostered by Republican leaders’ new “Contract for Colorado” — er, “Platform for Prosperity”. The fact that it was drafted for the party’s rank-and-file as a way to determine our candidate for us has not sat well. Especially without a grassroots escape clause.

In his interview with the Post‘s Lynn Bartels, erstwhile candidate Josh Penry at least stressed to Scott McInnis the bare minimum of what he needs to do:

That he has to shake the impression that it’s his, that he has to go out and hustle for it and earn it. And he will. He’s doing that already.

I pushed him hard to get going on the issues. I said if you want to beat Bill Ritter, you’ve got to be a guy who’s about an agenda and about the issues.

But with a shaky post-Contract/Platform start by McInnis — namely, backing down from a proposed repeal of the unpopular car tax apparently to sate contractors and vendors — well, let’s just say a lot more Show-Me has to happen.

Meanwhile, Dan Maes — whom Haley says is “staying in the race because he doesn’t realize it’s not his turn” — presses onward and forward in his steep uphill campaign. New RMA blogger Don Johnson is absolutely right about the “unified” GOP’s sudden silence on the Car Tax: “Dan Maes should take this opportunity and hammer it.”

Because it’s a point that absolutely deserves to be hammered.