Scott McInnis

Scott McInnis

DENVER - The man who started the latest Tea Party tempest around Scott McInnis's gubernatorial campaign has issued a statement that he hopes will put it to rest.

Don Johnson, the head of the Arapahoe County Men's Club, touched off a mini-controversy last week when he told reporters that McInnis's new campaign manager, Nancy Hopper, had told him that McInnis had met with a dozen Tea Party groups.

After polling Tea Party and 9-12 groups around the state, one of their leaders went on the attack, saying McInnis had only met with four such groups and was apparently exaggerating the nature of his support by conservative grass roots groups, deepening their existing perception that McInnis, the GOP front-runner in the governor's race, was taking their votes for granted.

That perception first took root after a Fox News Channel interview in December when anchor Neil Cavuto said that McInnis had wide Tea Party support and McInnis, being interviewed via satellite from Denver, didn't say anything to contradict or correct Cavuto's assertion.

Looking to turn that perception back, McInnis, who did meet last week with a Tea Party group in Loveland, is offering a mea culpa of sorts -- not from the campaign but from Johnson, who claims to have misheard and then misspoke when describing his conversation with Hopper and, specifically, her claim that McInnis had already met with "12 Tea Party groups."

"Nancy Hopper, campaign manager for Scott McInnis, said that I misquoted her when I reported that she said her candidate had met with a dozen Tea Party groups around the state," Johnson said. "What she said was that McInnis was going to meet with a dozen Tea Party leaders in Fort Collins Wednesday. Eight showed up. Although my notes reflect what I reported, I wear hearing aids and sometimes I don't hear as well as I'd like to in noisy places. Obviously, McInnis is and will be reaching out to Tea Party and 9-12 groups. I apologize for creating the confusion."

Read the original story