This just in: We’ve been handed yet another message from the Tea Party.
I’m still trying to decode it. All I know for sure at this point is that we’re in the midst of what may well be the strangest political season in memory.
As you may have heard, Dan Maes beat Scott McInnis at the Republican state assembly Saturday in Loveland, meaning Maes gets the top line on the ballot for the Republican gubernatorial primary in August.
The news of the vote count was shocking. No one expected this, including, I’m certain, Dan Maes. Ace reporter Lynn Bartels recorded his response thusly: “Wow.”
Favorites such as McInnis — the establishment candidate — often fail to get the top line on the ballot. It may not mean anything in the primary (see: Miles, Mike; Schaffer, Bob), but it means something today. Favorites rarely lose to someone like Maes, who is — to put it kindly — virtually unknown. In fact, I’m thinking if Virtually Unknown had been in the race, VU might have gotten top line.
As far as I know, the only people who have heard of Maes are the Tea Partyers who endorsed him and those activists at the assembly who voted for him. Maes’ latest polling numbers came in at 13 percent — and I’m assuming 90 percent of those 13 percent were people looking to vote for anyone not named Scott McInnis.
Meanwhile, Ken Buck won the senatorial vote at the same assembly, the one Jane Norton — the other establishment candidate — didn’t attend because she’s petitioning onto the ballot. Presumably, she stayed away because she didn’t want to get clobbered at the assembly.
There’s anti-establishment trend here, right? (As expected, Andrew Romanoff easily beat incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet at the Democratic assembly, a victory that would be overshadowed by the Republicans. Poor Andrew.)
But the trend lines don’t necessarily run true, which is why I was headed to see Sarah Palin on Saturday night to get a better read on the situation.
I’ll concede that Palin — who may not have heard of Maes either — isn’t exactly my first choice in political punditry. When she was on “Fox News With Chris Wallace” the other day, Wallace asked her to handicap the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. She said she had no idea what to expect.
OK, maybe she was just being coy, but you have to admit she had a point. Who has any idea what’s coming even as soon as this November?
But no can deny that Palin is at the center of things, and not just because of her endless political tour, which could be a warmup for a presidential run or — this is my guess — a warm up for a career in endless political tours. She’s selling books and, uh, writing a new one. She’s selling tickets. She’s selling her brand.
And, most important, as the Tea Party’s favorite noncandidate, she’s the No. 1 endorser on the circuit. She was there, of course, for Tea Party hero Rand Paul, which looks like something of a mixed blessing. Paul, as you know, has retreated to Kentucky, where he’s resting, although apparently not on his laurels.
I didn’t expect to Palin say anything about Paul, a sore subject, except maybe to take a shot at the media, who insist on asking about things he has actually said. But I thought she might have something to say about Colorado.
She might, I thought, even endorse Norton, who’s not a Tea Party favorite and is in desperate need of some Tea Party cred. Norton was mentioned by Palin as one of her “pink elephants,” copies of which I’m sure you can now purchase by now online. It was worrisome enough for Ken Buck that he called the timing of Palin’s visit “rude.” Actually, Palin didn’t steal anyone’s thunder. She gave a stump speech — even if she’s not running for anything — that would work in Dover as well as it would work in Denver.
She talked about how we’re all Arizonans and about the march toward European-style socialism and Obama’s apology tour and getting “shnookered” on Obamacare and the value of average, everyday Americans and the everyday worries about the national debt. She got in one you-betcha as well as one mention of field dressing. What I mean is, for those in the paying audience, they’d heard much of it before.
Palin didn’t have anything to say about Norton. She didn’t have anything to say about beating Betsy Markey or John Salazar. No mention, or punditry, on the governor’s race. The only mentions I heard of Colorado were a pro-Broncos shout-out for Tim Tebow and the fact that the Colorado mountains, while smaller than Alaska’s, were still beautiful.
The theme of the Palin tour stop was to urge people to vote for Republicans in the midterms — and not just Tea Party Republicans.
Palin did have her own Tea Party message to deliver, though. She said she saw it on a sign at a Tea Party rally: “I can see November from my house.” In November, we’ll be able to decode just what that means.
Analysis
Mike Littwin writes Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-5428 or mlittwin@denverpost.com.
