For those who don’t know him, Tancredo is the former presidential candidate who ran in 2008 on a platform of closed borders and expanded militia resources. On the whole, Tancredo is a wingnut uberconservative of the radical fringe, and his politics of hate have no place in the state or the nation.

And yet, I’d like to see him enter the race.

The Denver Post suggests this morning that with Penry’s exit, GOP heavyweight Scott McInnis can tack to the center to press a vulnerable Bill Ritter. Penry had posited himself as the young, big-tent Republican with a strong ethic for fiscal responsibility and a willingness to steer the GOP away from hot-button social issues that have driven young conservatives away from the party in recent years (abortion, gay rights). In other words, Penry had already grabbed the open-minded centrist role, and McInnis played to the right of that.

Tancredo’s presence in Colorado’s gubernatorial race won’t change McInnis’ position; indeed, if anything, McInnis will only look more and more sane the more Tom Tancredo speaks out. What a Tancredo bid will do is galvanize the state’s radical right (lately I like to call them the Dan Hayes Repulicans). In other words, Tancredo’s appearance in the GOP primary will do exactly what McInnis has sought to avoid: divide the party and create fodder for the general election. Tancredo is just pesky enough–and just crazy and arrogant enough–to make the primary process messy, and that bodes well for incumbent Bill Ritter.