Ken Salazar Joins The Fray

Senator Ken Salazar has joined the debate on the eviction of three people from a President Bush "town hall" meeting regarding social security. According to The Associated Press:

Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., has asked a Treasury Department official and a Denver prosecutor to investigate the removal of three Denver residents from President Bush's town hall meeting on Social Security last month. Salazar is the latest member of Congress to request an investigation into the matter....

...In a letter Tuesday to Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey and Dennis Schindel of the Office of Inspector General of the Treasury Department, which oversees the Secret Service, Salazar said he was troubled by allegations that the residents may have been removed by someone posing as a Secret Service agent. Morrissey replied in a letter Wednesday that a federal agency should handle any investigation. While Colorado law prohibits impersonation of a peace officer, it does not cover officers of federal agencies, he wrote.

It will be interesting to see if anybody actually does investigate this and other reported sketchy "town hall" events.

But who is going to do it when the U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney General, and Colorado Attorney General are all Republicans? Morrissey would have been the obvious choice, but it's not really in his jurisdiction. Maybe he could give them a parking ticket or something.

Supporters of "the three" may have to actually file some sort of lawsuit to see any investigation, at which point Democrats are going to have to decide how much money they are willing to spend to keep this issue in the public eye. It would probably be worth it for the Democrats just to keep the news stories coming, but they may be spending all of their dough hammering House Majority Leader Tom DeLay instead.

Still, if a lawsuit could force a potentially negative deposition out of Congressman Bob Beauprez, maybe the Dems would fork over the cash. The best case scenario for Dems would be for this story to keep rolling along, pick up Beauprez as it passes, and drop him off in a weakened state. Then he would have to re-think a run for re-election in CD-7 instead of a gubernatorial run (and potentially lose that seat), and Republicans would be back to their second tier of candidates for governor.

More than likely, nothing will happen. Dems have never done much when they smell blood in the water other than ask someone else to investigate it.

And that's always been one of the major differences between Republicans and Democrats, and why elephants have more success nationally than donkeys. When a Republican falls down, Democrats just laugh and point. When a Democrat falls down, Republicans pick him up and throw him off a cliff. That's what they did to Bill Clinton, and while it didn't affect Bubba, it might have cost Al Gore the presidency.

When events like this "town hall" thing happen, the more successful party will take every chance it can get to turn it into a bigger and bigger story that ultimately reflects poorly on everyone in the opposing party. That's usually the Republicans. Call it sickening or poor sportsmanship if you'd like; we call it "winning."

This reminds us of a story someone once told us about a volunteer going door-to-door in 2002 after the funeral of Senator Paul Wellstone, during which Democrats were derided for making it look like a campaign event. The volunteer, a Democrat, knocked on one door, and a woman came out and said, "Are you a Democrat? You oughta be ashamed of yourself!" The Wellstone funeral had been several states and two time zones away, but the negativity resonated in Colorado, and this poor volunteer felt the brunt of it.

Anyway, that's what makes this "town hall" mess so fascinating politically, because it is an opportunity to take a shot at Bob Beauprez, George Bush, and the rest of the Republican Party. If Democrats take this is far as they can, it will say a lot about their mindset come 2006. If they just stand up and say, "I call for a full investigation, blah, blah, blah..." then none of it mattered.

Comments

[JennB]

wow! that is the best post i've seen here yet. great stuff.

[Stygius]

Salazar must smell the blood in the water. That's the only time he gets outraged.

[boston patriot]

The USSS isn't even a part of the Treasury Dept. Pretty lame.

[showsomebackbone]

Ken Slazar has to have the weakest backbone of any Colorado politician in recent memory. A full two weeks after the story broke he tested the water, checked the wind, did a poll, and then amazingly became outraged!

[Strider]

I am in no way convinced that BB would be apologizing for the "Town Hall Country Club" fiasco if he was not running for Gov.

This country club style screening was standard operating procedure during the Bush campaign and they got away with it. Why *would* they change their tactics.

The Republicans are putting on the reverse lights now only because it is actually getting some attention. I am very pleased to see our state Dems talking about this and drawing a line in the sand for a change.

[Alva Adams]

The difference with this event was that it was not a campaign event - it was supposed to be a public "town hall" event. Campaigns screen their audiences all the time, as they probably should. But when you're having a meeting for the general public after you're already elected - that's where screening gets you into trouble.

[GOPer]

Well said. I hope Democrats aren't paying attention.

[Sunny]

Wow- another Democratic legislator who enjoys grandstanding. It is so transparent that these guys are calling for investigations (when they know they will never actually happen), so that they can attack the president from another angle on this whole Social Security thing. They have nothing else to say in response to the President's plan to reform the system except to repeat over and over again that it is bad. Obviously, they are trying to continue to give this story legs so they can just attack him on something. Maybe they should try being productive and actually coming up with a plan on their own to fix Social Security? How petty.

[Publius]

On the contrary, I think this is an excellent (and valid) "excuse" to attack the president - though probably not on social security. The incident reflects just one more in a string of ugly civil-liberties trampling by the Republicans, and would make a great lead in to the continued attacks on DeLay (who wasted homeland security money to track down some missing Texas dems). With provisions of the PATRIOT act up for review, the timing couldn't be better.

But of course, we can hardly expect this from our Dems, and least of all Salazar. Salazar won't do anything to ruffle the feathers of Gonzales - he's in the pocket of the Hispanic voting block, which is, I suspect, his primary political affiliation. Civil liberties (and party, country, world good, etc.) be damned...