The agenda, modeled on the winning reform recipes of Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell in their New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, gives McInnis something concrete to run on rather than merely running against Ritter. It’s sufficiently faithful to traditional conservative principles to please and reassure the Republican base, while specific, practical, and inclusive enough to attract swing-voting independents in the state. You might call it a Contract for Colorado.

I’ve already tackled why Tancredo is not a serious candidate but would be a force to  reckon with in the context of a GOP primary. The kicker is, Tancredo knows just about where he stands. He’s a firebrand who voices radical conservative social issues at a time when, by all accounts, the state and national GOP hopes to move away from those very issues–abortion, homosexuality, and arguably immigration–that have turned independents and thinking Republicans off the GOP agenda.

The Contract with Colorado may be a great idea, or it may simply be another campaign slogan to rise and fall without ever catching on. Either way, the platform isn’t so much the highlight (for this post, anyway). Here’s why I find Rosen’s column so interesting:

The election of a Republican governor could be the start of a GOP comeback in this traditionally red state. Paving the way is what appears to be a meeting of the minds between Scott McInnis, the presumptive Republican nominee, and key players in the party. Emerging from recent meetings between McInnis, Josh Penry, Tom Tancredo, Dick Wadhams and Republican leaders in the legislature is an agreement on a platform that all parties can enthusiastically embrace.

Tancredo has managed to stay relevant and make sure that, at least in name, he’s a prominent figure in the state GOP. See what happened there? Tom Tancredo,  largely ignored since his exit from the 2008 Republican presidential primary, has a place at the table. Empty huff and puff though it may be, his gubernatorial pretensions translate as political kabuki that even this staunch anti-Tancredoist can stand back and admire.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her reservations were clear: Give the guy a platform, and he stirs up the crazy and validates hate among a population of voters. I chucked such consideration aside as I finished my post, and I figured that my overt criticism of Tancredo would frame the discussion in an appropriate light. “Tancredo is a wingnut uberconservative of the radical fringe, and his politics of hate have no place in the state or the nation.” Nuff said, right?

But then a reader from out of state shared the following thought: “I don’t live there so I cannot say, but Tancredo is not too far right. More than 52% of the population agree with him [on closing the border].”

That stopped me in my tracks, because maybe I didn’t make clear just how odious I find Tom Tancredo’s hatemongering, and I think my out-of-state reader will too, strong differences of opinion about border policy aside, once I dedicate a little time to Tom Tancredo’s finest moments.

So here’s Tom T. with Glenn Beck in October, 2006, on the topic of “Mexico: Friend or Foe?”

GLENN BECK: Here is what I think that — I think we need to preface this so you know where I stand. Mexico is not our friend. No matter what anybody tells you, it is a crime-riddled country that is out for its own interests.

Representative Tom Tancredo from Colorado. Mexico, Tom, is that a friend or foe?

REP. TOM TANCREDO (R), COLORADO: It`s a foe. It`s a foe. And I thought so for a long time. I told the president of Mexico. I told the head of a ministry down there called, at that time, by the way, believe it or not, the Ministry for Mexicans Living in the United States.

And when he told me what they did and how they, in fact, were pushing their nationals into the United States, helping people break our laws, I told him that I believed it was an act of an aggressor nation, not a friendly nation.

For what it’s worth, in October of 2006 Mexico listed as the third-largest trade partner of the United States and accounted for $332 billion of total trading that year. Also for what it’s worth, Mexico is still the third-largest trade partner of the United States. And, uh, there is no “Ministry for Mexicans Living in the United States” in the Mexican government. Just sayin’.

2006 was a good year for Tancredo and global affairs. After he called Mexico a foe, he likened Miami to a third world country. That’s right, the city of Miami, FL: “You would never know you’re in the United States of America. You would certainly say you’re in a Third World country.” Classy. FYI, Miami is located here:

Miami, Florida, USA

Moving on, Tancredo misrepresented the motto of the organization La Raza in order to compare said organization to the KKK and assert that Justice Sonya Sotomayor is racist. This is ironic for many reasons, not the least of which is that, while Tancredo ran around the country accusing the then-Supreme Court nominee as racist, Tancredo’s own racist staffer, Marcus Epstein, awaited sentencing for a hate crime–to which he pled guilty–against a black woman in Washington, D.C.

Most recently, as if Tancredo isn’t unlikable enough, you’ve got the chickenhawk who can dish it out but can’t take it. This clip is worth watching in all its uncomfortable glory as Tancredo 1) justifies the signature of a current office holder, Steve King (R-IA), on a racially tinged anti-Obama poster at a health care rally; 2) argues that posters depicting dead bodies in concentration camps are appropriate to characterize the effects of health care reform efforts; and 3) disses the VA yet can’t handle the pushback and storms off the interview set when an actual veteran debates right back. Watch:

Okay. I could go on. Here, here, and here (which requires a visit here as well), for starters. But there’s work to do and a family to feed, plus the world is just too grand to devote any more time to so much discussion of a little, little man.

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.

Former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton will announce her candidacy for the U.S. Senate today, much to the chagrin of retired U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Tancredo said he would not have had a problem if Norton earlier this year had called fellow Republicans statewide to say she wanted to run for the office and outlined her reasons.

Instead, he charged that Norton in recent weeks got talked into running by Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Norton family friend and political ally.

“Does John McCain have a right to do that? Sure. Do I have a right to (complain) about it? You bet,” Tancredo said in an interview Monday night. “Jane Norton is a nice lady who I like. End of story. But I fear she is not ready for prime time.”

Tom Tancredo, finally, has given me something to laugh about. The former U.S. representative and 2008 presidential candidate is upset because Norton never called to ask his blessing. Apparently Jane Norton, John McCain, and just about everybody but Tom Tancredo recognizes the value of Tom Tancredo’s blessing.