Chris Romer: The 527 pushing him in mayor's race hasn't evolved from dirty dinosaur tactics

The end of the endless Denver mayor's race is just a week away, and no matter how Chris Romer or Michael Hancock may feel about creationism, there's little evidence that this campaign has evolved.

A Romer-supporting 527 is still wallowing in the mud.

While Hancock has an effective new ad countering the Romer attacks, and Romer's official campaign is now running the kind of feel-good commercials that it should have been using from the start, Romer's shadow supporters continue to wallow in slime.

On Friday, that slime poured through my mail chute in the form of a Citizens for Accountability flier that pronounces "Michael Hancock wants creationism in Denver Public Schools. And then his campaign said he doesn't."

That same day, I also tracked down the identity of the man heard on the robocall made to assorted Denver households insisting that Tom Tancredo had endorsed Michael Hancock.Here's a transcript of that call:

Chris Romer was being endorsed by former mayor Federico Peña. His opponent was being endorsed by Tom Tancredo. We all know that Tancredo has repeatedly attacked our community. Tancredo has supported devastating policies that lead to racial profiling and policies that make it more difficult for our children to receive affordable health-care coverage and access to quality education. We can't afford to have someone in the mayor's office who doesn't understand the issues we face. There is a clear difference in the candidates in this race. Please vote for Chris Romer for Denver Mayor.

That Tancredo endorsement never existed, of course. But the voice that recorded the script is all too real. Turns out it belongs to Mannie Rodriguez, who founded Independence House, a halfway house, in Denver circa 1976, is a member of the Democratic National Committee, served as a super delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention... and has definitely endorsed Chris Romer.

The phone call effort was completely "independent" of the Romer campaign, Rodriguez said when I contacted him Friday, and was partly inspired by Hancock's position on Secure Communities -- although that wasn't mentioned in the script.

Nor was the 527 behind so many of this campaigns dirty tricks, the ironically named Citizens for Accountability -- which has no accountability for its actions.

With friends like these, who needs enemies? Or a Tancredo endorsement?

More from our Calhoun: Wake-Up Call archive: "Tom Tancredo offers his endorsement in the Denver mayor's race: Viva Chris Romer!"