Local chapter has about 800 members on e-mail lists; 200 attended Thursday’s meeting.

By PETER ROPER

THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

If members of the Southern Colorado Tea Party (SOCO) were feeling cocky at their monthly meeting Thursday night, it was understandable — they’d just seen Massachusetts elect a Republican senator, Scott Brown, with a healthy share of the credit falling to like-minded conservative voters.

Southern Colorado Tea Party

“We don’t want any candidates that have been picked by the anointed,” Sheldon Bloedorn, chairman of the local group, told the audience of nearly 200 people at the Pueblo County Conference Center. He was referring to both mainstream Democratic and Republican officials. “We want candidates selected and elected by the people.”

That got cheers and some fist pumps from the audience.

Which is a reason the Tea Party movement could be posing a challenge to Republican candidates as well as Democrats. The local chapter has about 800 members on its e-mail lists and Bloedorn announced the group is endorsing Bob McConnell, a retired Army colonel and lawyer from Steamboat Springs, in the 3rd Congressional District race.

McConnell doesn’t yet have the name recognition or financial support of state Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, who is also running in the 3rd District race. But McConnell was clearly popular with the local members Thursday night and they are preparing to attend the March 16 GOP precinct caucuses to get themselves elected to the county and state GOP conventions. Meaning they are a new force for the mainstream Republican Party to contend with.

“I had a meeting with (Colorado Republican Party Chairman) Dick Wadhams,” Bloedorn explained to the crowd early in Thursday’s meeting. “And he told me the party is defined by the people who participate in it. And people, we’re going to be participating in it. We’re going to move the Republican Party to the right and that means supporting conservative candidates who believe what we believe.”

Which is why a list of Republican candidates came to the monthly meeting Thursday night to woo that support.

- Dan Maes, a businessman who is running for governor, acknowledged that former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis is the better-known Republican running for governor this year, but that may not carry much weight in Tea Party circles.

“I’m not a lawyer, is that okay?” Maes asked, knowing the crowd would cheer. McInnis is a lawyer. “I’m not a career politician, is that okay?” Maes went on, getting more cheers. McInnis spent 12 years in Congress. “I’m a conservative and I’m a Republican, and as we all know, those two don’t always go together these days — but with me, you get both.”

Maes clearly understood that scoffing at Democratic themes would be like tossing meat to hungry wolves. “Aren’t you sick and tired of the word ‘green?’ ” he asked to an ovation, saying he would fully develop Colorado’s oil shale and uranium deposits to boost the state’s energy economy.

He made a point of saying he was anti-abortion, opposed to gay marriage, and a strong believer in gun owner rights.

- Cleve Tidwell is a retired businessman running for the U.S. Senate and he even unrolled a copy of the Constitution to illustrate his pledge to stick to it when making laws.

Tidwell is from Georgia and has a soft drawl, but his words were more hard-edged. He will not take campaign money from lobbyists or special interests, he pledged. “That won’t happen. If it does, you call me on the phone and I’ll come home,” he said.

Electing lawyers, lobbyists and others who already work in the political system would just be putting “clones” into the government, according to Tidwell. He’s never been a part of that, he said.

A former Marine, Tidwell said he still reads the Bible at night.

- J.J. Ament is running for state treasurer. The investment banker got a laugh by saying he’d be the first state treasurer in a long time who’d actually been trained in finance. Ament did his best to link Democratic Treasurer Cary Kennedy to Gov. Bill Ritter, saying Kennedy had not opposed any of Ritter’s tax or spending policies.

In fact, most state treasurers get little attention unless they choose it. Former Gov. Roy Romer, for example, used the office to publicly oppose the Colorado Lottery and then ran for governor. But Ament charged that Kennedy had failed to make smart investments with Colorado tax revenues, costing the state money instead of earning more interest revenue.

- Alexander Mugatu, of Pueblo, is running for the state Senate District 3 seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Abel Tapia. Mugatu said he would oppose any efforts in the Legislature to evade the restrictions on taxes and revenue in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. He also said he wanted to replace the members of the Colorado Supreme Court.

Mugatu said he would fight to restore state sovereignty from the federal government and “cut the Gordian Knot of socialism” coming from the federal government.

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