I previously mentioned Colorado gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes, who argued that efforts by Denver's mayor -- and now Democractic nominee for governor -- John Hickenlooper to make that city more bike-friendly were "converting Denver into a United Nations community, " "part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty, " and "contradictory to our own Constitution."
Maes, in this year where insanity has become a popular fashion accessory for victors in Republican primaries, won the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Apparently the fatal blow to his opponent, former Representative Scott McInnis, was self-inflicted -- McInnis admitted to plagiarizing a paper on water issues, one that he was paid $300,000 to write.
But now, not only the Republican establishment but the Tea Party leadership is backing away from Maes. Seems that not only is he a UN conspiracy theory nut, but he lied about working undercover for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and about how he left a small-town Kansas police department, and has incurred record fines for paying himself more than $40,000 from his campaign fund.
State party Chairman Dick Wadhams called for him to back out of the race before the primary, saying he was not running a professional campaign. Former Senator Hank Brown and current Senate candidate Ken Buck have disowned him. The Republican Governors Association has declined to help fund him. And several Tea Party groups have withdrawn their backing.
Tom Tancredo, former Republican presidential candidate and congresscritter, is running as a third-party candidate under the banner of the nutjob Constitution Party, whom we've also discussed recently.
Rasmussen has the polling at Hickenlooper 46%, Tancredo 25%, and Maes at 21%, with Hickenlooper and Tancredo gaining momentum and Maes falling behind. It looks like November will be a good month to be John Hickenlooper.