At Ben Degrow’s Mount Virtus blog Tuesday, Penry weighed in on the coming race for state Sen. Dan Gibbs’ seat. Libertarian DeGrow quoted Penry saying that Republicans can win SD 16 by running against plans to install tolls on I70 he said Democrats were proposing.

“If voters approve of the Ritter economy and toll roads on I 70, then we won’t have a chance,” Penry said. “My guess is voters will see it differently.”

In fact, placing tolls on I70 has featured in both Republican and Democratic solutions to the congestion problem on the state’s most popular highway. And the idea has been rejected by both Democrats and Republicans.

In 2008, state Sens. Chris Romer, a Denver Democrat, and Andy McElhany, a Colorado Springs Republican, both proposed legislation that would have installed tolls on I-70. Romer’s bill would seen tolls being levied on Sundays year round and during ski-season rush hours, exempting vehicles carrying three or more passengers.  Sen. McElhany proposed a $5 dollar toll along a 35 mile stretch from the Denver Metro area to Eisenhower tunnel for all vehicles not registered in Clear Creek and Gilpen counties. McElhany later killed the legislation, which he sponsored with Parker Republican Rep. Mike May.

It was also Democratic Sen. Dan Gibbs and Democratic Rep. Christine Scanian who opposed both toll proposals. Gibbs spoke here on the reason for his opposition.

Ritter also attacked McElhany’s bill, explaining that he preferred to allow the Colorado Department of Transportation to continue to try to forge a plan with I-70 stake holders.

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Who is Rick Davis? Grassroots Colorado Republicans not in the know already will be interested to learn he was an adviser to John McCain during last year’s failed presidential bid. Davis is yet another McCain connection for Norton, who has been taking heat from state conservatives as a doomed McCain-driven national party pick since even before she announced her candidacy in September.

As many GOP voters know by now, Norton was a main backer of the McCain campaign in Colorado last year, which is far from a great thing for Norton. Mitt Romney trounced the Arizona Republican in the GOP caucus here, pulling down 60 percent of the votes to McCain’s 18 percent. When Norton first announced her candidacy, former GOP U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo and others lambasted her as McCain’s pick, repeating the fact– and forcing Norton to admit it to the media– that she had consulted by phone with McCain before deciding to run.

Tancredo told the Denver Post Norton should have called fellow Republicans statewide earlier in the year and outlined her reasons for wanting to run for office. Instead, he said, McCain, “a family friend and political ally,” talked her into running.

“Does John McCain have a right to do that? Sure. Do I have a right to bitch about it? You bet.”

McCain is a liability for Norton in the state but the connection will not be easy to unravel, even if Norton wanted to unravel it. The ties thread through her relationship with her “uber-lobbyist” brother-in-law Charlie Black, who was one of McCain’s senior advisers last year. Black co-hosted a fundraiser for Norton at the end of September in Washington D.C. with National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman John Cornyn.

The conservative People’s Press Collective blog put it bluntly:

“Jane and McCain” – not exactly the best association to make in the minds of voters right out of the gate.

In addition to general distaste in the state for McCain’s brand of conservatism, right-wing analysts here see the national party as suffering from a rejection of true grassroots candidacies. Norton is seen as a prime example.

Cornyn’s NRSC was seen to be meddling when in August, weeks before Norton declared her candidacy, it purchased Internet domain names for her campaign, a story broke by conservative site Complete Colorado.

Ben DeGrow, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, was all over the report at his Mount Virtus blog, lamenting it as a sure sign that the premature national party “candidate coronation process,” was already underway, a process he said has deflated local power and has ended in a string of GOP defeats.

That Norton can pull down huge sums to fuel her campaign against Democrat Michael Bennet surely cheers state Republican activists. That those donors are national big wigs gives them pause. That much of Norton’s campaign, including a large portion of her war chest, is tied to McCain is still a surefire negative.

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Complete Colorado, a roughly year-old right-leaning website mostly known as a news aggregator, reported yesterday that on August 17, NRSC New Media Director Vincent Harris registered two Norton campaign domain names: “www.nortonforsenate.com” and “www.janenortonforsenate.com.” The registrations list Harris as both the administrative and technical contact. Calls to Harris’s office at the NRSC this morning have so far gone unreturned.

Republicans see Bennet’s seat as a prime target. Although he has worked in government for years, Bennet has never run for office. He was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Bill Ritter when the Obama administration tapped Ken Salazar in December to head the Department of the Interior.

Ben DeGrow, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, has been all over the Complete Colorado report at his Mount Virtus blog, lamenting this kind of premature “candidate coronation process,” which he said has deflated conservative grassroots power and has ended in a string of GOP defeats.

The move by the NRSC all but confirms reports posted by the Colorado Independent early this week that Norton was poised to join the field of GOP candidates vying for the chance to unseat Bennet.

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez this week announced he was withdrawing from the race. Republicans remaining in the ring include Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, businessman Cleve Tidwell, Crested Butte attorney Luke Korkowski and former state Sen. Tom Wiens of Castle Rock. Radio personality Dan Caplis has also flirted with running against Bennet.

Norton would be the only hopeful who has run for election statewide, albeit as the running mate of popular Republican Gov. Bill Owens when he sought his second term in 2002. Since the two left office in 2007 (after Owens ran up against term limits), Norton has been the founding executive director of the Denver Police Foundation, a charity that raises money to bolster officers and public safety in general. During Owens’ first administration, she headed the state Department of Health and Environment.

To what degree her experience as a candidate with Owens makes her the best candidate to challenge Bennet and one worthy of early “coronation” is now the subject the right-blogosphere will begin parsing in detail.

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