Colorado

Introducing the top-line results from the 2nd edition of the survey of Colorado's political temperature. Exactly 500 people participated in the project. It's not exactly scientific, but El Presidente and I created it to be more in-depth and meaningful than your run-of-the-mill straw poll.

Bottom line? It's becoming more apparent that Josh Penry is beginning to establish himself as the Republican frontrunner in the governor's race, while the U.S. Senate primary seems to be turning into a tough, 3-way race on the GOP side. Coming later in the week will be an analysis of some key crosstabs and correlations. But for now here's a quick rundown of the survey's top-line results:

• The biggest winner, making significant gains in both support and perceived strength since our July survey, is gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry
• The larger shifting field of the U.S. Senate race gives a less clear picture, with Ryan Frazier edging out Ken Buck for most support, and Jane Norton beating Frazier by a similarly narrow margin for perceived strength
• The heavily Right-leaning crowd definitely shows more respect for Andrew Romanoff as a Democratic rival in the race than for appointed incumbent Michael Bennet
• Among the other races, treasurer candidate J.J. Ament made the biggest gains, while Scott Gessler (Secretary of State) and Cory Gardner (4th Congressional) widened their respective leads
• Demographically speaking, the group of participants in this poll was slightly more Republican, older, female, married, educated and non-white than the July sample
• Overall, those surveyed are more confident that Democrat policies in Washington will harm elected Democrats' chances in the 2010 election, and believe that Bennet, Bill Ritter, and Betsy Markey are more vulnerable than two months ago

For more details, read the release below:

September 2009 Colorado's Political Temperature Results

If you see any important detail from the survey missing from the above release, please feel free to comment below or contact me directly so I can help answer your question.

On thenextright.com, there were a series of blogs talking about the importance of the states in the Big Ten Conference. After reading that series, having time to reflect, and the commencing of the shortest general election campaign in history, I felt that it would be appropriate to point out another conference: The states in the Big 12 Conference.

I am not doing this blog series to put down the Big Ten (though I’m not sure I’d want to be a math major from the 11-team league), but I am doing this to show that the Big 12 states will play a central role in the 2008 Presidential Election. I should also point out that there are a number of reasons that the Big 12 may be overlooked in favor of its sister conference to the east.
 

1. The Big 12 is made up of smaller media markets compared to the Big 10. The five biggest media markets in the Big Ten are Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Cleveland, and St. Louis. The ones in the Big 12 are Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, St. Louis, Denver, and Kansas City. The St. Louis-area is included twice because it sits on the border of Big Ten state Illinois and Big 12 state Missouri.

    

2. The volume of electoral votes in Big 12 states is largely concentrated in one state. Outside of Texas (three of the six largest Big 12 cities are in Texas), no other Big 12 state has 12 or more electoral votes. The Big Ten region has four states with more than 12 electoral votes. Of course, the larger pot gets the most attention.
    

In short, the size of the composition of voters from the two regions draws large attention to the Big Ten and away from the Big 12. However, size isn’t the only thing that matters. Consider that George W. Bush, on his way to 286 electoral votes in 2004 won every Big 12 state. While the race came down to Ohio, imagine what his chances would have been if he had lost Iowa and Colorado. Take away Missouri as well as Iowa and Colorado and John Kerry is President.

Also, consider that the last time that a Democrat won three of the seven states was Bill Clinton in 1992. Clinton won 370 electoral votes and won Colorado, Iowa, and Missouri. Meanwhile, the last time that a Democrat swept the Big 12 states was in 1964 with Lyndon Johnson’s landslide win over Barry Goldwater. In short, the Big 12 is an important hold for Republicans and a chance to win an election for Democrats.

The states that make up the region are Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. As of today, it appears that Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas are likely to go for John McCain. For the purposes of this blog series, I want to focus in the coming days on the three swing states from this group: Colorado, Iowa, and Missouri.

In Colorado's closely-watched U.S. Senate race, it's been a bad week for liberal Democrat Mark Udall. Here's a quick rundown:

1. Coming off the first candidate debate in which he was soundly put on the defensive by Republican Bob Schaffer, Mark Udall appeared to come out a little stronger at Monday's recording of a televised debate. But that all would wash away.

2. At the debate, Mark Udall accepted Bob Schaffer's challenge and promised to vote against a resolution that would adjourn Congress without addressing domestic energy shortages.

3. The very next day, Mark Udall showed up late in Washington after some private campaign fundraising and missed the adjournment resolution vote, which passed 213-212. The Lefty spin machine later tried to excuse Udall by pointing out that he got to participate in the final adjournment vote, but missed the irony in their claim.

4. The Bob Schaffer campaign began pressing Mark Udall to release the names of private donors who were more important than the Coloradans to whom he made the promise.

5. A third consecutive poll was released showing Mark Udall's once significant lead has disappeared and the race in a statistical dead heat.

6. An outside group began airing ads on local TV networks exposing Mark Udall's less-than-conservative record on taxes. As we now like to say at Schaffer v Udall: "The only place Mark Udall wants to drill is your wallet."

All in one week.

**Update--Udall claims he was "on his way" to the vote and couldn't get the vote delayed, but was able to vote on another resolution just 10 minutes later:

Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall missed a critical vote today that might have kept Congress from going into summer recess until it passed an energy bill, breaking a vow he made in a recent debate.

Udall spokeswoman Taylor West said the Boulder County lawmaker was on his way back to Washington at the time and that the vote was called with only 10 minutes' notice. Udall asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to delay the vote without success, and the resolution passed by one vote, 213-212.

With gas prices the No. 1 financial worry of voters, promising to try to keep lawmakers in session until they took action was a bold stroke, but missing that vote could be an equally costly political mistake by the five-term congressman.

Whoops!  When even the MSM points out the failure . . .

There was an excuse a reason for the missed vote, of course:

Udall's staff said the Democrat stayed in Colorado to attend several campaign-related events, including a meeting with business leaders and a fundraising event — which Udall's Republican opponent quickly jumped on.

"While Coloradans are paying $4 a gallon for gasoline, I guess it wasn't important enough for (Udall) to show up for work this week," said Dick Wadhams, the campaign manager for Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer. "He made a commitment Monday, he didn't even show up for work Tuesday and then he missed the vote today."

West said that her boss would send a letter to Pelosi today objecting to the fact that the vote wasn't delayed long enough for him to make it from the Washington airport to the Capitol.

Udall missed the 1:04 pm vote on adjournment, but made the next vote just 10 minutes later.

Missing a vote you make a pledge on in debate just two days earlier should be a top priority.  We expect Udall to do the job he has already been elected to do.  If a campaign can't balance an actual work schedule with fundraising and campaigning needs, then Udall needs a better day planner or to reorganize his priorities.

By the time the debate yet-to-be-aired segment appears Sunday, it will already be clear--Udall can't keep his promises.

That's some U-turn.

More background on the Udall pledge at SchaffervUdall.

We need to engage in these Senate races, and every seat matters. Here's the latest from Colorado. -Patrick

Even as he trails in the polls, Colorado's Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer gets no breaks. A story in this week's Grand Junction Sentinel claiming Schaffer was engaged in wrongdoing by violating an unwritten State Department policy when he traveled in his role as an energy executive to discuss an oil development deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

But more facts have come forward in this case that demonstrate:

1. State Department officials gave Schaffer's employer the private go-ahead, and

2. Two Democrat operatives are posing as objective experts to keep the smear going against Schaffer.

Read the facts that seriously question the substance and the motives of this latest attack on Bob Schaffer over at the Schaffer v Udall blog.

Rather than letting the old media's carelessness be an excuse, the new media needs to pick it up a notch to help Schaffer's campaign engage with voters and overcome these bumps in the road that are getting far more play than they deserve.

The Republican is still the underdog but has a very real chance to win here in Colorado, especially insofar as an issue can continue to be made of the impact of Mark Udall's radical environmentalism on consumers at the pump, and the gross distortions about Udall's foreign policy record can be exposed.

Check out the pair on Gordon Smith.  His campaign’s new spot directly links him to Barack Obama in what is easily the most ballsy ad by a Senate incumbent so far this cycle.  The ad fits neatly into the excellent air campaign Smith has been running and what’s likely to be a wider trend among blue state Republicans of associating themselves with Obama or his message.  Colorado GOP Senate nominee Bob Schaffer also joined in on the fun this week by parroting Obama’s visuals and logo. 

From the states. -Patrick

Colorado is the site of one of the nation's most hotly contested U.S. Senate races. Republican Bob Schaffer, a strong conservative, faces a Democratic Congressman familiarly known to Coloradans as "Boulder liberal Mark Udall."

Two months ago a Denver Post reporter - apparently seeking some sort of investigative journalism award - penned a series of three front-page stories about Schaffer. The stories, based on sketchy sources, sought to implicate a trip Schaffer made as Congressman to the Marianas Islands with Jack Abramoff, forced labor, and sex slavery.