Colorado Politics, News and Inside Information

Line Changes and More Fat Trimmin'

We've updated the Governor and CD-7 Lines and made a couple of major changes, starting at the bottom.

On the Governor's Line, we dropped off former Senator Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell and State Senator Tom Wiens until (and if) something changes that would indicate either is still a player in this race. Campbell had been talking about it months ago, and Wiens definitely wanted to run, but now that we are into June there just isn't a scenario where either candidate could get a foothold in the governor's race anymore. We also dropped off former CSU President Al Yates, after he told The Ft. Collins Coloradoan that he would not be a candidate in 2006.

So, that leaves us with a tidy 10 candidates left on the Governor's Line.

How Hispanics Win

The Rocky has a good piece today concerning the “coalition-building, de-racialized campaigns” of the Salazar Brothers in ‘04.

According to two CU Political Science Professors, the Salazars pushed themselves as more mainstream candidates – allowing them both to overcome daunting margins and achieve victory in a state that went for President Bush by more than 100,000 votes.

The campaigns de-emphasized their standing as Latino candidates. They reconstructed themselves as farmers and businessmen… Look at how Ken represented himself. Nothing in his bio said he is Latino. This was also reflected in the issues he presented positions on. He packages himself as a more mainstream candidate. John Salazar does the same thing: 'Send a farmer to Congress,' not send a Latino farmer to Congress. What becomes salient is his role as a farmer.

Weekend Open Thread

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

A New Candidate for CD-7?

UPDATE: Herb Rubenstein is expected to announce his candidacy for CD-7 on June 15.

We've been hearing rumors for weeks that Herb Rubenstein was considering running for congress in CD-7 as a Democrat, and those whispers are growing louder now -- to the point where an announcement may be made within the next two weeks.

We don't know a lot about Rubenstein, other than that he only recently moved to Colorado. Rubenstein runs a leadership development think tank called GSI, based in Maryland, that recently opened an office in Denver.

If he can raise a lot of money out of the blocks then he could at least be a player in the race, but in a Democratic primary with two announced candidates already, the "carpet bagger" issue will be a tough hurdle to overcome.

Friday Open Thread

For your commenting pleasure.

Questions for Senator Wayne Allard

Senator Wayne Allard has agreed to participate in a Q&A with Colorado Pols on June 10, but we're going to be doing it a little bit differently than normal.

Trying to schedule an entire day for a Q&A with a member of Colorado's congressional delegation is next to impossible, so we think we've come up with the next best thing to our traditional "live" version. Here's how it's going to work:

We will solicit your questions for Senator Allard through the afternoon of June 3. At that point, we will send Senator Allard our 11 questions along with 10-15 of your best questions, and then he will take a week to answer them and send them back to us. On June 10, we will publish the entire Q&A.

What's the criteria for your questions? There really is no pre-set criteria. We'll try to select the questions that best represent the overall themes that you broach below, and we'll also give more weight to questions that have the best chance to solicit an interesting answer. We'll try to avoid sending him a bunch of softballs as well, so keep them creative and thought-provoking.

Obviously we'd love to always have a "live" Q&A, but that's not realistic in certain cases. We hope you agree that this is the next best thing. We'll also post a link each day back to this post so you don't have to go searching for where to leave your questions.

Okay, that about covers it. Submit your questions for Senator Allard below until the afternoon of June 3, and then we'll post the full Q&A on June 10. If you have questions or comments about this process, leave them below or e-mail us directly.

Only questions that are submitted in the COMMENTS section below will be considered for Senator Allard (we won't accept questions for Senator Allard via e-mail). This way you can be sure that we didn't just ditch your questions and make them all up ourselves.

Start your questions any time...

Bob Beauprez and CD-7

The Washington D.C. publication Roll Call (subscription required) has a story from today on the congressional race shaping up in Colorado's CD-7:

With Colorado 7th district Rep. Bob Beauprez (R) all but certain to run for governor in 2006, the suburban Denver Congressional seat that he won in 2002 by just 121 votes is once again shaping up to be one of the toughest battlegrounds in the country.

The focus on the article is on whether a heated Democratic primary between Ed Perlmutter and Peggy Lamm will end up costing the Democrats in the general election. Roll Call also quotes both Perlmutter and Republican frontrunner Rick O'Donnell as having raised $100,000 already.

Meanwhile, while we've always operated under the assumption that Congressman Bob Beauprez is in the race for governor to stay (as Roll Call also states), we've been hearing increased rumors that the pressure is growing from both GOP congressional leaders and the White House on the two-term congressman to stay where he is and run for re-election instead.

In fact, Beauprez has been telling friends and supporters just that, making no secret of the fact that the GOP leadership and even the White House is leaning heavily on him to stay. O'Donnell is considered by some in the NRCC to be a good candidate, but a beatable candidate, and the GOP is growing increasingly concerned that CD-7 will go Democratic should Beauprez leave (or at least take up more resources to hold onto the seat than they would like to expend).

Polling data reportedly shows that Beauprez would beat Democratic frontrunner Perlmutter in a general election despite increasing Democratic registration numbers. Either way, we hear that the NRCC has already amassed a hefty opposition research file on Perlmutter -- research that points to attacks that will link him to special interest groups.

We still think Beauprez is in the governor's race to stay -- as it is right now -- but if Karl Rove really turns up the heat, will Beauprez get out of the kitchen? And if he leaves for the governor's race once and for all, it's looking like a near certainty that CD-7 will be one bloody battle to the finish.

Political Community Roundup

We've received a few e-mails this week about different political events taking place soon, and we thought it would be a good idea to start what we'll call a Political Community Roundup.

If you've got events, protests, or other gatherings that you'd like to publicize, drop us an e-mail. Once we get a couple of announcements in a row, we'll post them under this title. Click below for the first batch of events.

Thanks to Terrance Carroll

Please join us in thanking Representative Terrance Carroll for taking time out of his day to answer your questions today.

Smith ‘N Senate

No Real Big Surprise, Here.

Republican (and once Congressional Candidate) Matt Smith confirmed he is “considering a possible State Senate” run in today’s GJ Sentinel.

“I’m not ruling anything out,” Smith said Wednesday. “I am being encouraged to look at the Senate seat” that will be open with the end of Republican Sen. Ron Teck’s term next year.

Smith is considering the potential run after being passed over for an appointment to the Interior Department – a nomination, by the way, that had the support of John Salazar.

Salazar said he was disappointed that Smith didn’t get the nod. “Matt and I made a good team fighting Referendum A together,” Salazar said. “His expertise would have been welcome as we continue to fight to defend rural water.”

With Matt Smith a definite (?) no-go on another run for CD-3, the field still holds only Greg Walcher and Scott Tipton.