Hickenlooper has an Opponent – Tancredo

Not surprising, former Congressman Tom Tancredo made the Republican primary ballot by petition. Tancredo’s name identification, a statewide network of core supporters and his hot button issue, anti-illegal immigration, made him a perfect candidate for petitioning onto the ballot.

Tancredo is also John Hickenlooper’s favorite candidate. Democrats will use his well-established image as “extreme” to argue the Republican Party has not changed its positions and, in particular, Hispanic voters should vote Democratic.

Tancredo is attempting to avoid new controversy after a long career of inviting or engineering them, but it’s late.

If Tancredo does not win the primary, he has promised to support the ticket, no small thing for a maverick-like Tancredo who bolted the party in 2010 and ran as a third-party candidate for governor.

See Denver Post: Republican Tom Tancredo makes the ballotfor governor