Not a Good Couple of Weeks for Peggy Lamm

It hasn't been a good couple of weeks for Peggy Lamm, one of two announced candidates for congress in CD-7.

Lamm faced the first public attack of the campaign last week when she was criticized in an open letter from Bill Thiebaut, the Pueblo District Attorney and former Lt. Governor candidate, for allegedly supporting Republican Bill Owens in 2002 instead of Democrat Rollie Heath (and Thiebaut). The attack was less of a concern than the laughable way in which she responded, which was an early indicator of how she might respond to future attacks.

Now comes word that Lamm has gotten a cool early response from EMILYs List, the powerful Democratic fundraising arm that takes on the cause of Democratic women candidates in big races around the country. Lamm had apparently assumed that support would be forthcoming from EMILYs List, but was recently told by some senior staff members that their support was not an entitlement and needed to be earned -- which wasn't what she expected to hear.

Officials with EMILYs List were critical of Lamm's reportedly tepid early fundraising efforts, her scattered message, and her top-heavy campaign team (who didn't do much to prepare her for the aforementioned initial attack). EMILYs List plans to announce soon its early list of candidates that it will support in 2006, and unless Lamm dramatically increases her fundraising in the next week or two, she is not expected to be on that first list.

Lamm can always be added to the list at a later point, but if she had been counting on EMILYs List for support (and we hear that officials were privately turned off that she thought she would be an automatic addition) she's going to have to do a lot of the heavy lifting on her own before it happens.

Comments

[Unawen]

Having observed Lamm closely for the past seven or eight years, she strikes me as a Republican in Democrat clothing. Emily's List would do better to support someone else.

[unnamed]

I know little about her. I hear that she works for Big Horn. I understand that her family and the Heath family don't like each other much, but how can she be a Democrat who supports Owens.

[Jill D.]

It should come as no surprise that A caplable competent woman is trashed in our Party. For years we have praised Peggy Lamm but when she steps out to run against one of our "power brokers" in former Sen. Ed Purlmutter she is found to have all sorts of blimishes that make her unworthy of gaining the Democrat parties nomination. The same harassment was leveled at Congresswoman Degette but she ignored those critics and powered forward to victory. I would recommend the same corse of action for Peggy, she should know there are alot of us with you, keep up the fight.

[Ter Ducken]

Yeah, right. She's getting trashed because she's a woman. Or maybe because she's white? Or is it because she lives in a blue house?

Peggy Lamm is getting trashed because she did something really stupid. She screwed up. She did it to herself.

And it's not harassment, it's called politics. Frankly, she concerns me as a candidate, as a Democrat, because if she can't take a punch from a Democrat she'll get rolled by the Republican nominee, who will hit her even harder.

[alan smitheee]

I agree with TD. Lamm thought she was making a politically saavy move supporting Owens. Now the chickens have come home to roost with her response being the biggest egg layed in CO politics in awhile.
It is ridiculous, naive and self victimization to think Lamm is being attacked for her gender. Every D in CO wants the strongest candidate in the 7th to make sure that seat is a pick up and it is very clear Lamm is not the strongest candidate.

[GOPCakewalk]

You liberals are hilarious. You can't win without parroting conservative ideals (or masking as "Centrists", a la Salazar), but then you take your people out to the woodshed for doing so.
The 7th will be irrelevant in Dem hands as the GOP picks up several in the House AND Senate.

[vladimir]

Whoa -- for weeks Lamm's Inner Circle were saying that they could easily compete financially with Lilliputian Ed Perlmutter cuz Emily's List had pledged a huge infusion of cash.
Were Peggy and Rick Ridder (sic) and Jimmy Merlino being less than candid while touting support that in fact is not there -- or did Colorado Pols get this one wrong? Anyone in the know from the Lamm group who can let us know?
My bet is that Lamm is out of the race before the end of the summer -- any takers?