Former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo is moving ahead with a third-party campaign for governor, jeopardizing Republican chances of capturing the Democratic-held seat this fall. 
 
 The conservative Republican and anti-illegal immigration activist’s decision follows a threat he issued last week to GOP candidates Scott McInnis and Dan Maes: Drop out of the race after the Aug. 10 primary and allow the state party to pick a better general-election candidate, or face Tancredo as a spoiler. 
 
 On Monday, Tancredo confirmed his plans for a bid on the American Constitution Party line, telling POLITICO: “I am going to seek the nomination of the party and then we have to take a bunch of steps.” 
 
 McInnis, a former congressman who was comfortably leading Republican primary polls before a plagiarism scandal threatened his campaign, has given no indication that he might respond to Tancredo’s ultimatum. Neither has Maes, a marketing executive running as a long-shot primary challenger to McInnis. 
 
 Tancredo’s presence in a general election could potentially doom either Republican candidate in a three-way race against Democratic Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. His argument is that, unless McInnis and Maes — who has been accused of significant campaign finance violations — withdraw Republicans are unlikely to win the governor’s race anyway. 
 
 The former congressman acknowledged, however, that his path to the American Constitution Party’s nomination isn’t clear yet: The party’s current candidate, Benjamin Goss, first needs to agree to step aside. 
 
 “I’ve met him and we’ve talked briefly. He sounds like he’s willing to let this process go forward, but I don’t want to put words in his mouth,” Tancredo said. “There’s a process here. The candidate has to pull out, then they have to vote me in.” 
 
 Clyde Harkins, the head of the American Constitution Party, was not immediately available for comment. 
 
 Colorado conservatives are already voicing concern at Tancredo’s plans and a group of 21 tea party-affiliated groups sent a letter to him Sunday asking that he reconsider. 
 
 The message, signed by tea party, 9-12 Project and constitutionalist groups, read in part: “Withdraw your ultimatum, stay in the Republican Party, let the process play out for the governor’s race within the rules already set forth, and continue to help us improve this party, its candidates, and the process — in other words to trust and respect the newly awakened, energized and informed voters of Colorado.” 
 
 Tancredo dismissed that entreaty, saying he’s received a significant amount of e-mail urging him to go forward. 
 
 “They’re saying don’t split the vote, but they were the insurgents just a bit ago,” he said, referring to tea partiers’ support for the underdog Maes at the state GOP convention. “Their candidate won the top line at the assembly.” ||||| Big Ben Goss, American Constitutional Party candidate for governor, has stepped aside so that former Republican Congressman and anti-illegal immigration firebrand Tom Tancredo can run in his place. Tancredo is seeking to offer conservative voters an alternative to the struggling candidacies of Dan Maes and Scott McInnis. 
 
 Goss talked to the Colorado Statesman Monday. Like state GOP chief Dick Wadhams, Goss thinks little of the grassroots candidacy of GOP frontrunner and tea party favorite Dan Maes: “I think Maes is hapless… if he wins [the GOP primary], he’ll look like a third party candidate [in the general election].” So much for the year of the tea party! 
 
 Tancredo’s political celebrity will draw voters to his American Constitution Party candidacy. The platform of the American Constitution Party will not. It’s an extreme agenda based around Christian right religious beliefs. 
 
 It begins: 
 
 We, the members of the American Constitution Party, gratefully acknowledge the blessings of the Lord God as theCreator, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe and of our nation. We hereby appeal to Him for aid, comfort, guidance, and the protection of His Divine Providence as we work to restore and preserve this nation as a government of, by, and for the people. 
 
 It spirals from there into an anti-abortion and anti-gay screed. 
 
 Abortion 
 
 The pre-born child, whose life begins at conception, is from that moment fully a human being created in God’s image. The first duty of the law is to prevent the taking of innocent human life. It is, therefore, the duty of all civil governments to secure and safeguard the lives of the pre-born. AIDS 
 
 Under no circumstances should government continue to subsidize activities that have the effect of encouraging perverted or promiscuous sexual conduct. In the name of “safe sex”, millions of tax dollars have been misdirected to organizations that contribute to the spread of AIDS by endorsing (implicitly or explicitly) perverse, immoral, and unhealthy sexual conduct. 
 
 Here’s Denver Post columnist Chuck Plunkett’s take: 
 
 The ACP platform calls for ending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a key Civil Rights reform that outlawed restrictions or impediments to voters based on color or race. Now that’s a real conversation starter. The ACP would return all federal land, bar women from serving in the military, end compulsory school attendance, retake the Panama Canal, preclude membership with multinational groups like the United Nations, stop domestic federal aid and so on and so forth. 
 
 Goss told the Statesman he was sure there would be “a significant flow of independent voters as well as the more conservatively minded GOP and Democrats going for a Tancredo ticket.” 
 
 “The nice thing, if you want to call it that, about Colorado politics is that you only need a simple plurality, you don’t need a majority. Because this is an anti-incumbent year, I could see Tancredo winning with even possibly less than 30 percent.” 
 
 [Photo of Ben Goss via the ACP website ]
– Tom Tancredo has officially launched a third-party campaign for governor of Colorado. The former congressman has issued an ultimatum to the two Republicans running for the GOP nomination, telling them that if they don’t get out of the race, they’ll face him as a potential spoiler. Tancredo believes both candidates are fatally flawed. Ex-frontrunner Scott McInnis is embroiled in a plagiarism scandal, and Tea Party favorite Dan Maes has been accused of major campaign finance violations, Politico explains. Tancredo will run with the American Constitutional Party—its previous candidate, Ben Goss, has agreed to step aside. “I think Maes is hapless,” Goss says. In a general election, “he’ll look like a third party candidate.” That might give the more famous Tancredo a chance, but the ACP’s extreme conservative Christian agenda won’t do him any favors, warns the Colorado Independent. The party's official platform states, for example, that AIDS prevention initiatives subsidize “perverted or promiscuous sexual conduct.”