This robocall from Sarah Palin, the audio of which can be heard at RCP, makes the gubernatorial race in Colorado even more interesting than before:

“Hi, this is Governor Sarah Palin. I’m calling to ask that you and your neighbors vote for Tom Tancredo to be the next Governor of Colorado on Tuesday. Tom is the right man for the job and he’ll fight for lower taxes, he’ll stop growing government, and start growing the economy. And we know he’ll continue working to end illegal immigration. Please vote for Tancredo on Tuesday. Thank you.”

This plays well for Palin.  She gets to once again distance herself from the GOP party establishment while also adding to her reputation for political pragmatism.  The Republican nominee, Dan Maes, is a disaster for Republicans, and most Republicans have already shifted support from Maes to Tancredo.

Nor does Palin have to worry about doing any potential damage to a candidate in a moderate state.  Tancredo is more controversial than Palin.  It’s one of the rare moments in which a Palin endorsement doesn’t serve to establish conservative bona fides but instead a sense that Republican voters can feel safe in backing the independent.  Last I saw, Tancredo got 69% of the GOP voters in the race with 11% going to Maes and 14% to Hickenlooper, so Palin’s endorsement could make a big difference for Tancredo in the end.

Andrew Malcolm concurs:

It’s actually not a bad political move for Tancredo and Palin. With no GOP damage since Maes is a non-factor, she solidifies her anti-establishment, go-with-the-common-sense-conservative-guy-no-matter-what stance. Palin’s pal and Tancredo’s former House colleague Michele Bachmann made the same move earlier. If Tancredo wins, it looks like he’d owe her, if Palin were to run for something else someday soon.

And since Tancredo wasn’t getting any significant Democratic support anyway, the arrival of Palin’s endorsement costs him nothing and might help among Colorado’s conservatives, where she is a favorite and he must score very big to have a chance in this three-way tilt.

The one question about this is the risk run by Republicans in damaging their status as a major-party candidate if Tancredo gets more of the GOP vote today.  If Maes gets less than 10% of the vote, the GOP falls to minor-party status in Colorado, according to the law in the state.  That means they don’t get to raise money in the primary cycle unless they have more than one candidate running for a nomination.  That risk is probably rather small, since the state legislature is unlikely to keep the Republican Party in minor status as the party holds the registration edge in the state.  With 2012 around the corner, that’s an odd outcome that Coloradans aren’t likely to abide for long.