Penry plays Palin card, calls pledge story a ‘left-wing blog’ fiction

Did he sign it? Did he doodle on it? Did he go along with it only as a gimmick? What did The Penry Pledge say? Was it: “I’ll keep my State Senate seat for four years”? Or was it: “I won’t run for another office while I’m serving Senate District 7”? Or was it both?

The story of The Pledge and exactly what Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, signed or didn’t sign during a Club 20 debate in 2006, as first reported by Colorado Confidential (our predecessor), has been building for four days.

In the latest twist, the Denver Post weighs in with an actual return call from Penry, who dubs us a “left-wing blog” producing “total fiction” like a story accusing him of conspiring with George Bush to cause the recession.

Don’t recall that piece … must have been on ColoradoPols.

The Post piece, though, also offers this interesting tidbit: “Penry said Wednesday he thinks he wrote a note on the pledge to the effect of ‘great prop’ or ‘great gimmick.’”

Does that apply to oaths of office and other solemn vows he signs his name to? Was the Western Skies “Energy Leadership Action Plan Pledge” a gimmick as well?

The source of the pledge offered at the Club 20 debate, Penry’s Democratic opponent Dana Barker, said he’s still trying to hunt down the original signed document. As he recalls, the wording may have been more about fulfilling the full four-year term, which Penry has said he will do even as he seeks the governor’s office in 2010. The intent of the pledge, though, according to Barker, was to elicit a promise from Penry not to run for a higher office and to give constituents in SD7 his undivided attention.

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