Former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis has all but ruled out a run for governor, fearing his advocacy on behalf of Western Slope water interests could douse his chances of winning the Republican primary.

McInnis said he isn’t saying no altogether to the idea, but he indicated that it’s highly unlikely.

“Right now my real focus is completing my relocation to Colorado and not the governor’s race,” he said.

A Glenwood Springs native, McInnis completed a 12-year tenure in Congress in 2004, deciding against running for a seventh term.

McInnis represented the 3rd Congressional District, which includes western Colorado. Before going to Congress he represented the Glenwood Springs area in the Colorado House of Representatives for a decade.

In both capacities he worked hard to look out for the Western Slope on water issues. Most of Colorado’s precipitation falls on the Western Slope, and the region is ever-wary of Front Range attempts to divert water through tunnels under the Continental Divide.

As he looked at a run for governor, McInnis said, he learned that his history on water issues might hurt him in the Colorado Springs area.

“I received several reminders of my clashes on water over there,” McInnis said.

That’s a problem because the Colorado Springs area is heavily Republican and will be well-represented in the state Republican convention and primary, McInnis said.

Pat Waak, chairperson of the Colorado Democratic Party, thinks McInnis’ Western Slope perspective would have made him a solid contender in the Republican primary. But she said it could be hard for someone with a history of advocating for the Western Slope on water to convince the rest of the state that he has sympathy for their position on water.

“Any candidate running for governor is going to have to try to find a place of balance” on water, she said.

McInnis said the only way he could imagine running is if something happened where he could get around “the convention problem.”

An alternative is to skip the convention altogether and petition onto the primary ballot.

“But that creates a lot of dissension in the party, and that’s just not my focus,” he said.

Katy Atkinson, a Republican political analyst in Colorado, said McInnis was lobbied by a number of prominent party members about a year ago to run for Congress, but it’s late in the process now. The only way she could see McInnis entering the race is if U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez dropped out and decided to run again for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District seat, and a movement to draft McInnis to replace him developed.

But she doesn’t see any reason Beauprez, the presumed front-runner in the race, would pull out. He is scheduled to formally announce his candidacy today.

If Marc Holtzman, a part-time Carbondale resident who is considered more of a dark horse in the race, ended his candidacy, that would be less likely to draw McInnis into the race, she said.

McInnis considers both Holtzman and Beauprez to be good friends, and good candidates.

Both have raised more than $1 million in campaign funds, which would put McInnis at a considerable disadvantage if he tried to enter the race this late, Atkinson said. Colorado’s caps on campaign contributions mean that candidates have to attract a lot of small donations rather than relying on fewer big ones.

“It takes more time to raise more lower-dollar contributions. … That’s an area where he’d really be playing catch-up,” Atkinson said.

She said Republicans also already have largely divided up their support between Beauprez and Holtzman as they prepare for local caucuses ahead of the state convention.

McInnis said he has no hard feelings that his stance on water is costing him politically now, and he’s not disappointed that his differences with some Front Range Republicans mean he won’t run for governor.

“That’s fair, I understand it, it’s just that we were always at loggerheads on water,” he said.

“I always felt thrilled to be a congressman. It’s not like I have a need to feed an appetite of going higher or going to another political office.”

McInnis is a lawyer at Hogan & Hartson in Denver.

“My guess would be that he’s enjoying being in the private sector and having a chance to make some money and have a life,” Atkinson said.

McInnis admitted to having “withdrawal pains” since leaving public life.

“Who knows, maybe someday I’ll be a county a commissioner or something. I really like being with people,” he said.

But he said he’s enjoying what he’s doing now. A one-year “cooling off” period that applies to former members of Congress has expired, so McInnis is able to play a political consulting role and lobby people through Hogan & Hartson, he said.

He also serves on some national corporate boards, and writes public interest articles on water and natural resource issues as a senior fellow for the Hasan Family Foundation.

“I’ve got a full agenda,” he said.

He said he also is enjoying spending time with his wife, Lori, on a hobby of theirs — going out to the desert and calling for crows, coyotes and other animals. They don’t hunt, but just like the challenge of trying to call in different creatures.

It’s enough to test the persuasiveness of an ex-politician.

“Coyotes are tough,” McInnis said. “Man, they’re smart animals.”