Mark Udall Now Running from "Boulder Liberal" Tag and Debates? A Connection?

Mark Udall appears to be waffling in his relationship with the liberal city of Boulder he has represented for 9 years in Congress. Politicker's Jeremy Pelzer tried to track down the definition of exactly where Udall lives:

Udall, a U.S. Representative and the presumptive Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, is regularly listed in the press as being from Eldorado Springs. That is what his congressional and campaign offices say, too.

Udall's home, however, is in unincorporated Boulder, about halfway between Eldorado Springs and the city of Boulder.

The Udalls purchased the home, about a mile and a half outside Eldorado Springs, in 2003; before that, they lived in the city of Boulder, said Udall campaign spokesperson Taylor West.

West said Udall's mailing address lists him in Boulder.

"But if you look at it on the map, it's pretty blatantly not in Boulder - it's Eldorado Springs," West said. "This is a Schaffer campaign attempt to distract what are extremely serious issues that people in Colorado are facing. If this is how they plan to run their campaign, that's fine. But we're going to spend time addressing issues that people in Colorado care about."

A pretty testy and defensive response from Ms. West, especially when just a few months ago she insisted the "Boulder liberal" tag would not hurt her candidate, and Mark Udall himself has insisted that Boulder is his "touchstone". So does Udall have a love-hate relationship with the "Boulder liberal" tag or what?

Further, West made a valiant but disingenuous attempt to accuse the other side of causing distractions. Yet only two days remain for Mark Udall's campaign to respond to Bob Schaffer's proposal for Lincoln-Douglas style debates to address the "extremely serious issues that people in Colorado are facing." And Udall accepted the debate idea before he was against it -- a real profile in "courage".

We at SvU hope that Mark Udall changes course, follows the lead of nonpartisan news and civic organizations and joins in Bob Schaffer's proposed summer debate series designed to discuss "extremely serious issues that people in Colorado are facing," or as Schaffer put it in his official proposal: "Let's give voters in every part of the state a chance to hear directly from us on issues important to them and to our state."

Mark Udall can give voters that chance, or maybe he's afraid that Coloradans will see there really is something to the "Boulder liberal" tag.