The American Constitution Party is now a major party in Colorado

By inching over 10 percent of the vote last Tuesday, Dan Maes saved the Colorado Republican Party from the humiliation of falling to minor-party status. But while Tom Tancredo didn't win the race, his 30 percent-plus of the vote elevated the American Constitution Party to a major Colorado party.

"We haven't been officially notified yet of major-party status," says Doug "Dayhorse" Campbell, who was the ACP's lieutenant governor candidate on the November ballot until Tancredo took over the top slot, and brought in his own second, Pat Miller. "I guess it's nice to be thought if in that way -- but we're still just really a small party."

So small, in fact, that the party only has about a thousand members -- and Colorado has 3,000 voting precincts.

The six members of the ACP's executive committee will meet this week, to discuss how the party's new status might change its operations. But Campbell anticipates that there could be other changes in the offing -- at the legislature, where Republicans managed to take over the House even if they almost lost their major-party label. "I think the two major parties basically thought there could never be a situation where they'd have a candidate who'd get less than 10 percent. They're going to pass some kind of de facto legislation to take away our major-party status," he predicts.      – More -