Another Wild Card

The Denver Post is reporting that:

Bob Kinsey, a Denver peace activist who in a 2004 congressional race was able to peel off significant votes from the major parties, says he'll run as a Green Party candidate for Colorado's open Senate seat...

Kinsey declared that he'll focus on a core of issues he says are being skirted by the major candidates — immediate withdrawal from Iraq and the impeachment of President Bush among them. Both issues are top concerns for a narrow group of progressive voters who otherwise would likely support Udall.

The last third party candidate to make the statewide ballot in Colorado was Ross Perot, the man who made Bill Clinton President and who may also have gifted the nation Hillary.

Third party candidates can impact the outcome of an election. It will be interesting to see how and if that happens in 2008. Mark Udall's campaign manager, Mike Melanson, didn't seem very worried, perhaps because having a Green Party candidate in the race gives the impression that Udall has moved to the center without his having to change a single position.

Committed Green Party activists will likely remember publicly the ploy Mark Udall's staff used to get Caroline Bninski a one year jail term. It was doubtless intended by his cynical staff as a Sister Souljah moment, but it was ham handed in its execution.

Udall's staff had made an agreement with Bninski for a peaceful anti-war demonstration that lasted over a period of weeks. Until the last day, she followed the agreement.

She announced that she would perform an act of civil disobedience on that last day. The cops were called about 30 seconds later. Udall's staff reportedly told the judge that she had disrupted office operations for weeks. While that may have been true, her conduct was protected by her agreement with the staff and by the First Amendment's right to petition.

The Denver Post reported the incident in the most deceptive way possible, claiming that she got a $500 fine and a month in jail. She actually got a year in jail, all but 35 days suspended, and a $1,000 fine, half suspended.

It will be an interesting election.

Looking at Hillary through the Newsum Prism

This week, on Colorado Inside Out, David Kopel offered the view that unless the Democrats nominated Bill Richardson, having the convention dominate the news in Colorado for so long will remind Colorado voters of the "leftyness" of the national party which will make it harder for Udall to try to move himself towards the center of the Colorado political spectrum.

Dani Newsum, who later in the program complained that Bill Ritter and the Colorado Legislature "aren't half as liberal as I would like them to be" claimed that it is an urban myth that Hillary is a "lefty." Newsum considers Hillary "right wing" on foreign policy and "in the mainstream" on health care. Of the front runners, Hillary is the most conservative, but you would never know it checking out "right wing blogs." "She's no Gloria Steinem."

One wonders when KBDI will pull the plug in the looney left commentary that Dani provides. It may never happen as she may be on the program to make the two other left leaning commentatiors seem centrist. It doesn't work, but nice try.

The Alternate Universe That Is Boulder

Does anyone recall the Mark Udall quote about Boulder County being:

“home base for me. This is the touchstone; this is where I take my inspiration.”

We have found a new Boulder based blog that is part of the alternate universe that is Boulder. It is Rant from Boulder and Bellview. It is an entertaining read and we learn so much. We would have never guessed that Karl Rove was so effective that:

They have had years to paint Senator Clinton as a looney liberal. She isn't. She is right of center just like her husband. but the truth never got in the way during a campaign cycle.

The implications of this revelation are enormous! Hillary is a part of the vast right wing conspiracy and yet Karl Rove has painted her as a looney liberal!

That kind of thinking is what makes Boulder politicians look so far out of touch with reality:

Maybe it is true, in this alternate reality, that Mark Udall didn't really sponsor the Department of Peace. It was really to be a top secret renewable energy project that would have sent Saudia Arabia back to the era of scimitars and horses.

Schaffer v Benner?

In what might be a cynical ploy to make Mark Udall look like the moderate (chuckle) he can no way claim to be, a far, far left wing member of the state Democrat executive committee is making noises about entering the primary against Udall.

The name is Mark Benner, and he would supposedly run against Udall on an impeachment platform, a cut and run platform, and a drive the health care system into the ground platform.

Yes, we admit that this guy makes Mark Udall look a little less wild-eyed in comparison, but so would Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro (with whom Udall had a recent photo - op and now we know why).

Where do the Democrats find these loons? Oh, we forgot, the loon in the attic is coming to Denver this summer and he will want a bird of that feather around to roost next to. Mark Udall, who usually flocks with the Ohio loon will be busy helping push Hillary over the line (or off the cliff, as the case may be).

Observations

We've spent a number of hours doing what we should have done from the beginning - we are cross referencing the posts to make them more useful.

In doing so, we have been reminded of some ongoing and open themes:

1. Ken Salazar used to run interference for some of Mark Udall's wilder, more left wing schemes, and doesn't seem to be doing so as much at the current time.

2. The Denver Post went out of its way to lie to the public about Carolyn Bninski's sentence. Bninski seems to have disappeared from the news. That may be because Mark Udall has very publicly and counter intuitively moved his position on the war leftward at a time when the surge is working.

3. A few months ago, MoveOn.org was publicly threatening Mark Udall that it would cut off donations if Udall didn't move his war policy to the left. It remains to be seen if the move will result in additional money, and more importantly if the additional money it generates will be worth the cost to his chance to reposition himself on the political spectrum as a "moderate."

4. The out of state left wing blogs used to be giddy about Mark Udall's chances to take the Colorado Senate seat. Early in the summer, two days couldn't go by without some over confident comment about how Colorado was turning "Blue." That over confidence is gone.

5. No one is writing about how Hillary and the Democrat convention being in Denver will help Udall. Udall's staff never thought they would, and said so publicly.

6. The very best quote of the fall was from Mark Udall, himself:

Said [ Mark ] Udall, who lives in Eldorado Springs: “It’s wonderful to be home.” He said Boulder County is “home base for me. This is the touchstone; this is where I take my inspiration.”

The cross referencing project is only about half done, and will doubtless generate more observations.

Yearly Kos

5280 reports that Mark Udall's campaign manager was at Yearly Kos, along with Jared (Amendment 41) Polis, and Jay Fawcett.

The laugh of the weekend must have come when Hillary Clinton spoke of "The Rule of Law" in a panel at Daily Kos.

Maybe not. The Democrat concept of "the rule of law" is more accurately described as "Anything a Republican does is a crime and we're going to investigate and prosecute."

Did you know that Congress has over 300 investigations going? That factoid came out of the Sunday talk shows this weekend.

Doubt on the Left about Udall's Electability

When a blog named "An Enduring Democrat Majority" titles a major piece CO-Sen: Is Udall the Favorite in Open Seat Contest? you know that there are many on the self described Progressive Left who fear that Mark Udall is too far to the left for Colorado. They say as much:

Udall has considered statewide runs previously, but had opted out fearing his "Boulder Liberal" label made him unattractive to the Colorado electorate. The state's recent shift toward the Democratic Party and Udall's efforts to move towards the middle appear to have changed this analysis...

Could anything deter Dems from picking up this seat, widely regarded as our top 2008 pick up opportunity? There are concerns about a 'drag' or 'reverse coat-tails' affect in Colorado if the national party's presidential nominee is unpopular in the region. News reports quoted the Udall campaign as having an eye on the presidential race - concerned about the top of the ticket potentially hurting their chances. More on the electability issue as the campaign wears on.

Not that we are keeping score, but that is the fourth liberal or left source to express that fear or observation.

Mark Udall Fears Top of Ticket

The Mark Udall campaign admitted in the Rocky Mountain News today that some Democrat Presidential candidates would be a "hard-sell" in Colorado:

Alan Salazar, Udall's longtime chief of staff, won't talk about the specific presidential candidates. But he admits he does worry that the person at the top of the ticket might be a hard-sell in independent-minded Colorado, prompting Udall to work that much harder to distinguish himself.

The choice of the word "distinguish" is very interesting. It is politic speak for "distance," or "run away from."