DENVER—Colorado’s top three gubernatorial candidates agree on one thing—this has been one of the wackiest political races in Colorado history.
Republican Dan Maes, American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo, and Democrat and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper held their final debate before the election on Friday on KCNC-TV.
Tancredo, a former GOP congressman, said he never thought he’d be within a few points of Hickenlooper after only three months in the race.
“I’m trying to figure out how to campaign against two opponents. You have to figure one campaign for this opponent and one campaign for that opponent,” Tancredo said.
Maes said he was surprised by winning the caucuses, the primary and making it all the way to the general election, only to find out that the GOP state and national parties would not back him and urged him to get out of the race over character issues.
Maes has been dogged by campaign finance violations and ridiculed for his views on U.N. global warming conspiracies involving bicycles in Denver, among other gaffes. He also made questionable claims about his shadowy record as a policeman in Kansas. He refused demands that he drop out of the race and acknowledged making “rookie mistakes” on campaign finance.
Hickenlooper says his biggest problem was figuring out how to deal with his opponents after Maes beat primary opponent Scott McInnis and Tancredo jumped from the GOP to a third party.
“The strangest part for us was trying to figure out who we’re running against,” he said.
“It certainly has been a wacky, wild ride,” said political analyst Eric Sondermann, a moderator at Friday’s debate.
The three candidates defended their television ads, including a scathing ad by Tancredo that cites the case of an illegal immigrant who drove into a suburban Denver ice cream shop, killing a 3-year-old boy.
Tancredo has accused Hickenlooper of running a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants. In the ad, the boy’s father asks Hickenlooper how he can sleep at night.
“That is the basic aspect of a sanctuary city. Attack ads are in the eyes of the viewers. If they don’t like what they’re hearing, they’ll call it an attack ad,” Tancredo said.
Hickenlooper said it’s the “seedier underside of politics” to take a human tragedy and try to make political capital of it.
