When Scott McInnis announced his plans to run as a Republican for governor here in his hometown of Glenwood Springs, he got a hero's welcome. He looked unstoppable, beaming beside his wife Lori as he called out names of old friends who had turned out to see him in a warehouse decked with campaign signs on the edge of town.
He sported cowboy boots and jeans, and he glowed as country singer Michael Martin Murphy managed to turn "Home on the Range" into a political anthem. As he dissed Democrats and made a plea for "jobs, jobs, jobs," McInnis seemed to be the right man with the right message.
"Get ready to say 'Governor McInnis,'" I told friends after his appearance.
How wrong I was, and how much has changed since that October afternoon.
Back then, McInnis seemed the natural Republican choice for governor. A former Congressman turned lobbyist, he was well known, or at least he used to be well known. He was charismatic, with a successful political track record, and a not-too-far-to-the-right reputation that seemed like it would be an easy sell at a time when Democrats were losing their luster.
His Democratic opponent at the time seemed certain to be Gov. Bill Ritter, whose popularity was flagging.
The future seemed certain. Then everything changed.
On the Democratic side, Ritter stepped aside and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper jumped in. The most popular mayor in world history gave Democrats a hope they never had with Ritter.
But Hickenlooper never had time to try to thwart McInnis with his Democratic why-can't-we-all-get-along approach. The Republicans turned cannibal and ate their own.
The Tea Party movement was gaining steam, so to speak, back when McInnis was announcing his candidacy. He was in a three-way race for the GOP nomination. His former protégé, Josh Penry, a Grand Junction firebrand with the sort of undirected anger Tea Partiers love, seemed like his toughest challenger. Penry had won over a cadre of followers, but he towed the party line and stepped aside to let McInnis bask in the glory.
McInnis was also facing a challenge from some guy named Dan Maes, a businessman from Evergreen who was a political nobody. Maes didn't step aside.
Once upon a time, a race between a power player like McInnis and a political unknown like Maes would have been a certainty. But with the Tea Party movement's anger at anybody who smelled like an insider, the unexpected happened. McInnis lost his mojo, and Maes found his.
McInnis tried to float above the fray, even avoiding the GOP state convention, as if he were the anointed leader. But that pretension only dragged him into the morass.
Then the flap about plagiarism exploded and his campaign imploded. I'd like to believe that the voters were so disgusted by the allegations that McInnis ripped off other people's words for his high-paid foundation gig they refused to vote for him, but I doubt it. What killed McInnis was his party's taste for blood.
"Scott has the knowledge, the looks, the charisma to be a tremendous governor," Don Vanderhoof said as he introduced McInnis to the crowd back in October. "He can win this thing. He's a great campaigner." McInnis also served 10 years in the state legislature and 10 years in Congress. It used to be, those were the kind of credentials you needed to be a candidate. Now, in the GOP, it's a resume that gets you the boot - the cowboy boot.
Vanderhoof knows a bit about McInnis the candidate. He was his campaign manager when McInnis was running for the state house, all five times. That first time, Vanderhoof said, McInnis earned himself a nickname: "Landslide McInnis." The name was a joke. He beat his Democratic opponent then by just 13 votes.
Since then, McInnis became a juggernaut. Democrats couldn't find a candidate who could beat him. But what Democrats couldn't do, Republicans could, with a candidate whose claim to fame was having no claim to fame.
Ironically, they may do it to Maes, too, as Tom Tancredo, the hero of the anti-immigrant right, steps in as a third-party candidate, threatening to divide Republicans again.
I'm tempted to say, "Get ready to say 'Governor Hickenlooper.'" But then, I've been wrong before.
David Frey writes in Glenwood Springs. Read him at www.davidmfrey.com and on Twitter.