Reclaim the Blue blog

Everyone knows that by running a third party ticket, Ross Perot gave us Bill Clinton and Teddy Roosevelt gave us Woodrow Wilson. Compelling as those third party candidates were, all they did was split the conservative vote. The last time a third party managed a win on a national scale was Abraham Lincoln in 1860 when the Republican Party replaced the Whigs.

The left knows this. Lacking a natural majority, the left can only win big when conservatives lose their way.

Think about it: when, in the history of the republic, was there ever a split on the left? Conservatives are of an  independent spirit, fractious and opinionated. The left are true believers in the socialist utopia and they naturally march in lockstep. Their cause only advances when conservatives cannot unite. They talk about bipartisanship, they chide conservatives for not compromising, but they never compromise.

In the Florida senate race, Republican Marco Rubio barely leads newly-minted Independent Charlie Crist 35-33, with Democrat Meek trailing at 20%. (Rasmussen, July 21.) Crist would never have won the primary as a Republican; He’s been widely criticized for putting himself before party.

In Colorado, Tom Tancredo seems to have ambitions to become the Colorado Crist. The situation here is a little more complex and it won’t work the same way. No one can doubt either Tancredo’s or Maes’ conservatism so we will have two conservatives battling it out against the leftist Hickenlooper. That’s a scenario Pat Walk and the Democrats must be absolutely giddy about.

Here’s my assessment. The left is the left and they will march lemming-like off the cliff with the Looper. The Colorado electorate is roughly one-third each Democrat, Independent and Republican. (See Secretary of State stats for June.) But while Democrat is increasingly synonymous with the socialist left, there are three somewhat overlapping groups of voters who will decide: true independents, conservatives, and Tea partiers. Here’s roughly how that looks:

The boxes are roughly proportional to the numbers of voters in the 2.4 million Colorado voter pool. I have no statistics on the numbers of voters who consider themselves both Tea Partiers and conservatives, but recent polls show about one-third identify with the Tea Party movement and most of these are fiscal and constitutional conservatives. Nationwide, about 60% of voters consider themselves conservative, so the dark blue box under-states conservative voters.

How does Tancredo expect to win? The American Constitution Party has 1453 active voters–not much of a base. He is not supported by the Liberty Movement: an open letter signed by 21 of the states’ groups was released yesterday in opposition. Republican activists are not too happy with his last-minute entry into the race either, bypassing the assembly process–especially as he had considered then rejected a run early on. Social conservatives not strongly connected to the GOP and Independents? Independents are not likely to resonate with his far-right agenda and social conservatives can find all they want in Maes.

Maes is highly popular among Tea Party groups. If he can unite GOP stalwarts and the new activists, he can win. He’s neck-in-neck with the Looper already.

Tancredo cannot win. He can only allow Hickenlooper to steal the show.