Colorado Senate race

Promoted and bumped. Excellent grassroots journalism effort around the DNC. -Patrick

If you're interested in grassroots, cutting-edge, new media-style coverage of the Democratic National Convention by savvy local Denver bloggers, you'll want to bookmark the Peoples Press Collective to stay connected to the action. As the Independence Institute's Jon Caldara describes the project:

They are a team of Colorado bloggers who will be armed to the teeth with point and shoot cameras, video cameras, and live streaming cell phones to document all the shenanigans, beat downs, hippie love-fests, and wacky protests going down in the streets. Basically anything the mainstream media won’t be around for, they will. Some pretty big time Colorado bloggers like the Rocky Mountain Right, Rossputin, Slapstick Politics, and Drunkablog have already signed on. They’ve got some cool features on their site like a quick 1 minute DNC preview video, a DNC blog post aggregator, and even a comprehensive schedule of DNC events.

Keen political observers should be interested in following the impact of this coverage on the course of the campaign. How will the DNC and its public perception affect Barack Obama's performance, especially here in the swing state of Colorado? And what about the number one Senate race nationwide between Boulder liberal Mark Udall and Republican Bob Schaffer? Stay tuned....

One of the key contrasts in the important Colorado U.S. Senate race is the issue of tax reform. Bob Schaffer has a consistent record as the taxpayer's friend, while Mark Udall has a consistent record as an old school tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.

You can almost hear the groans of protest from some Democrats: Mark Udall? He's just against all those tax cuts for the rich? He wouldn't vote to increase taxes on the middle class, especially not as Colorado families face the crunch of rising energy prices? Right?

Wrong. Fellow Democratic Congressman have called out Mark Udall and the Party's liberal leadership for just that:

Reps. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and Don Cazayoux (D-La.), who both won election earlier this year in districts held for years by the GOP, explained their votes against the Democratic budget as stands against tax increases on middle-class voters.

“I can’t support a budget, from either party, that raises taxes on the middle class,” Foster said in a statement posted on his website. “I campaigned on a platform of middle-class tax relief, and I was elected to Washington to bring about change. When asked to choose between my party and the people I represent, I will choose the families of the 14th district every single time.”

Cazayoux struck a very similar tone.

“I voted against [the budget] because it allows tax cuts to expire in 2010, raising taxes on most American taxpayers,” he said in a statement given to The Hill. “I promised the people of the 6th district of Louisiana to vote with my party when they are right, and vote against them when they are wrong. My vote today was the right vote for my constituents.”

On a narrowly decided question, Mark Udall's vote in the House of Representatives helped to lay the groundwork for bringing back the marriage penalty and other tax hikes on hard-working, middle-class Colorado families.

Mark Udall is just representing liberal Boulder in Congress. But he is out of step with most of Colorado.

Cross posted at Schaffer v Udall