It’s Tuesday!!!! Littwin’s Weekly GOP Governor’s Race Rankings

Here we go again. It’s time for the latest GOP gov rankings. Last week’s rankings are in parentheses.

1. (1) Tom Tancredo. The question facing Tancredo is when someone in the GOP field finally takes a swipe at him. At the time of the last debate, Tancredo had skipped off to Oklahoma City, where he participated in an anti-Eric-Holder rally. Really. He called for Holder’s impeachment and, of course, Obama’s impeachment and promised to fight the feds if they ever tried to pull a Cliven Bundy-style raid here. It was the usual Tancredo nonsense — does anyone think Colorado would be better served by a governor calling for the president’s impeachment? — but none of his rivals have the, uh, nerve to challenge him. Which is why they’re 2-through-4 in the celebrated Littwin Rankings.

2. (3) Bob Beauprez. The Republican establishment seems to be rallying around Beauprez for the lack of anyone else to rally around. The idea is to stop Tancredo, who obviously can’t beat Hickenlooper. And to stop Gessler, because no one in the state GOP establishment likes Gessler. The trouble with Beauprez, of course, is that he lost by 17 points to Bill Ritter the last time he ran for governor, which doesn’t seem like much of a recommendation. Still, he’s now got endorsements from Greg Brophy and Steve House – two candidates who couldn’t make the ballot. And, in the big news, he’s got Mitt Romney as his latest endorser. It seems petty to note that Romney couldn’t even win the Colorado caucuses in 2012, but at least the Mittster came much closer then than Beauprez did in the governor’s race in 2006.

3. (2) Scott Gessler. He’s having a hard time making news, which is a bad thing when you’re running for governor. He’s running as the anti-corruption candidate in a state that is not exactly New Jersey. Maybe if we had more bridges. But the truth is, we don’t do much corruption here. But Jason Salzman reports on Gessler saying on a recent radio show that “our state government is corrupt” and that he’s the only one who had “the guts to stand up and say, ‘No more.'” Unfortunately for Gessler, the story ran under the headline: “Ethics Violator Gessler Says Only He Can Fight Corruption.”

4. (4) Mike Kopp. He has no name recognition. He has no money. But he is out there trying to get his story told. He’ll speak to the Longmont Republican Women on May 15, to the Castle Rock Breakfast Club on May 16, to the Bel Nor Republican Women on May 17 and at the Chaffee County Lincoln Day Dinner also on May 17. Here’s a thought: Go and see if you can pick him out. The first one who sends me a photo (mlittwin@www.coloradoindependent.com) with Kopp, I will send a selfie of me with my 2000 Florida voting machine, with genuine hanging chads.