If the GOP contest to challenge Gov. Bill Ritter is a generational affair, Scott McInnis was in friendly territory during a visit Monday to Colorado Springs.

McInnis, a 56-year-old former congressman who’s facing a 33-year-old rival for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, emphasized his “experience and judgment” Monday at a luncheon of the El Paso County Republican Women.

The governorship “doesn’t allow training on the job,” he told the gathering of about 70 people at the Valley Hi Golf Course clubhouse, asserting that Ritter, a former Denver district attorney, had no experience.

“It’s about like being rushed into the hospital in critical condition and saying, ‘Get me the new doctor, would you? The one that’s just out of medical school,’” McInnis said. “That’s kind of what we did, and the results have shown.”

“He’s in over his head,” McInnis said of Ritter. “Governor, you’re a nice guy, but step aside.”

He criticized the governor’s push for tighter regulations on natural gas exploration, claiming the new rules had driven away more Colorado jobs than could be attributed to the recession and the collapse of gas prices.

He also assailed Ritter for failing to veto a legislative roadblock to the Army’s plan to expand the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, a Fort Carson training ground northeast of Trinidad. As McInnis reminded his audience, his main primary opponent, state Sen. Josh Penry, voted for the bill, which McInnis said was an insult to the Pentagon, the engine of the Pikes Peak region’s economy.

Otherwise, McInnis kept the conversation away from Penry. (A third candidate, Dan Maes of Evergreen, is also seeking the 2010 Republican gubernatorial nomination.)

The rivals know each other well. Penry, now the Senate minority leader, was a congressional aide in McInnis’s office. Aside from Piñon Canyon, they disagree on few issues. Their contest seems likely to turn on whether more Colorado Republicans are drawn to McInnis’s message of experience or Penry’s argument that the party cannot refresh itself with the same old leadership.

State Rep. Mark Waller, who at age 40 was one of the youngest people in the audience but is a McInnis supporter, said the age issue cuts both ways. Penry, he said, “has to overcome that stigma of ‘Everybody thinks I’m too young to do the job, so I gotta show them that I’m not.’”

Other local elected officials at the luncheon included state Rep. Bob Gardner, El Paso County Commissioners Wayne Williams, Jim Bensberg and Sallie Clark (who is McInnis’s county chairwoman), District Attorney Dan May and Fountain Mayor Jeri Howells.

McInnis, a lawyer and former Glenwood Springs police officer, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2005. His former district includes most of Western Colorado plus the I-25 corridor as far north as Pueblo. He lives in Grand Junction, as does Penry.

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Mariel, left, and Annagail Hoskins played at a harp recital. Mariel is a fourth-grader and Annagail is a sixth-grader. Both are home-schooled. Photo by COURTESY OF CAIA AND STEVEN HOSKINS