Bob Schaffer Connecting with Voters During His Tour of Southern Colorado

Following the momentum from his Monday debate victory, Bob Schaffer has taken to the road. Schaffer is touring southern Colorado with his message of energy independence to contrast with Mark Udall's obstructionism.

The Pueblo Chieftain highlights Bob Schaffer's views on Pinon Canyon but offers little new. Traveling with Schaffer, Lynn Bartels of the Rocky Mountain News recounts day two of the trip, as Schaffer interacts with voters in Pueblo, Westcliffe, and Salida, including this aw-shucks anecdote:

Hillside resident Fred Berry took a Schaffer for Senate T-shirt provided by the candidate’s campaign.

"I'm getting work clothes for my wife," the 69-year-old Custer County rancher joked. "When she’s out baling (hay) she can be electioneering for Schaffer."

Of course, the advantage of grassroots energy in Schaffer's campaign was most visible recently at the turnout and enthusiasm of the debate crowd.

Schaffer v Udall Debate--Update, Quick First Impressions

**Update--no liveblogging (no wireless at the venue), but Ben will have a full recap, and I'll have photos/video posted later).

Quick takeaways and initial impressions--Schaffer clearly had the upper hand in the debate when it came to vociferous support (the Udall side was not full), a command of the issues and the details involved in policy, and in overall demeanor. Udall's answers were forced when they weren't simply regurgitations of campaign talking points, and his rebuttals routinely eschewed marked policy differences, and instead focused on rhetoric of "bipartisanship" and the notion that "we are all Coloradans, all Americans." Udall certainly didn't appear to be comfortable in his own skin appearing before the cameras and a somewhat more open style of Q&A, with questions drawn from email submissions to 9NEWS' Adam Schrager, who moderated the debate. Schaffer was on offense from the opening remarks, with Udall trying (and failing, miserably) to play catch-up.

As for the supporters themselves (and this will be revealed in the photos and video), Schaffer's proponents were motivated and loud--"fired up and ready to go." Udall's troops showed up much later, had very little presence inside the complex or on the street, and demonstrated a lack of coordination/organization and reflected poorly on a candidate up by 10 points in the latest polls. It will be interesting to see how the MSM plays the debate today--one that favored Schaffer in all meaningful aspects and really exposed Udall as a mediocre debater and Washington insider who would rather cater to special interests and promote delays and politicking with hashed reasoning (health care is a national security issue, ya know!) rather than dealing with issues head on.

Looking forward to the next debates, Udall faces quite a challenge. The format certainly favored Schaffer, and may be one of the reasons that the Udall campaign refused to sign on to Schaffer's debate series. It is clear Udall would prefer the closed-set, no-crowd debate format with canned questions from the host. To his credit Schrager ably kept the candidates in line and on topic, and dealt with unruly Udall supporters by threatening to halt the proceedings.

RMN:

Painted into a corner by weeks of attack ads, Bob Schaffer came out swinging this morning in the first U.S. Senate debate of the season, accusing Mark Udall of flip-flopping and of being responsible for high gas prices.

Udall, a Democratic congressman from Eldorado Springs, rarely took the bait from his Republican opponent, responding most often that Congress must work together rather than continue its partisan bickering.

The topics of the debate, which drew a crowd of about 800 to the Wildlife Experience, ranged from energy to the Iraq war to the proposed expansion of Piñon Canyon military training area. But one theme seemed to emerge throughout the morning: Schaffer accusing Udall of being unwilling to make a decision and Udall responding that he prefers finding consensus rather than rushing into a bad decision.

Emblematic of this was a question over whether Colorado needs to extract oil shale from the ground. Udall said that while research is under way to determine the potential of oil shale, Colorado should not be turned into a "national sacrifice zone."

Schaffer responded: "This is part of the reason I'm running for Congress.... I do not believe constant delay is a strategy for America's energy independence."

Providing Balance to Politico's Profile of Bob Schaffer-Mark Udall Race

University of Colorado law professor Scott Moss has penned an introductory column on the Bob Schaffer-Mark Udall Senate race for Politico. Despite its generally neutral tone and the author's credible job in capturing some of the race's larger themes, the article tends to distort Udall's positives and Schaffer's negatives - which may be an inadvertent product of the author's own biases.

So here's a response in the interest of fairness and balance.

At one point Moss writes:

Udall draws Republican fire as a Boulder liberal who votes against tax cuts and other Bush programs, but Udall’s mixed political persona draws liberal ire, as well. Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District includes the famously liberal college town Boulder, “the Berkeley of the Rockies.”

But Boulder is not nearly large enough to fill a whole congressional district, so Udall also represents many conservative Coloradans in rural mountain towns and Denver-Boulder exurbs....

Note that the only criticism of Mark Udall is veiled in the language of "Republican fire." But the facts are clear: Udall himself claims Boulder as his "touchstone." And Udall has embraced the "Boulder liberal" tag.

Moss, who apparently teaches in Boulder, makes one of the biggest non-statements of the year by noting that Mark Udall is "Perhaps not as liberal as some Boulder constituents...." Perhaps. But even being a centrist in the context of "the Berkeley of the Rockies" puts the liberal Congressman outside the mainstream as a statewide candidate in Colorado. In other words, "perhaps" Udall is just a little bit out of the mainstream, as opposed to way outside the mainstream. Okay.

To the author's credit, he goes on to point out Udall's duplicity on the Department of Peace, though he missed that Udall had previously pandered to one side of the Pinon Canyon issue before his current stance.

As far as Bob Schaffer goes, Moss' article also might have balanced the critique to point out that the former Congressman demonstrated integrity by keeping a term limits pledge.

More Troops for Fort Carson

In a move that isn't all that surprising, Fort Carson is to get one of the Army's six new brigade combat teams.

And what question did Mark Udall ask?

Udall said Army Assistant Secretary Keith Eastin assured him the decision to add soldiers to Fort Carson is unrelated to the military's controversial effort to expand its Pinon Canyon training site in southeastern Colorado, where the post's soldiers get some of their training.

"He said the addition of the brigade combat team was not predicated on the expansion of Pinon Canyon," Udall said.

We are guessing that if Pinon Canyon were a part of the deal, and it almost certainly is regardless of what he claims he was told, Mark Udall would have had to think twice about his pandering position. $500 million in new construction and $50 million a year is not an insignificant shot in the Colorado economy's arm.

Looking More Closely at The Udall Commercial - Part 3

In Part 1, we talked about the way the anti - Schaffer Disappearing Act ad was produced and how cheaply and easy it was to produce but:

It's impressive for anyone who doesn't understand what is going on. The hard part is getting the photography. We're a bit suspicious of the photography, but who knows?

In Part 2, we began examining the photography:

The Roan Plateau segment just didn't look right. There is so much blue water and white snowcaps in their photograph that it looks pristine, beautiful, and, well . . . wet!

Cynics that we are, we suggested readers use Google Earth to look at the Roan Plateau for themselves. There is not a lot of water there. It is scrub land.

The next photo that we want to examine is the Pinon Canyon photo that appears about 17 seconds into the video. That photo was taken right at sun up. The orange is the color given to the land as the sun's rays go through the thickest part of the atmosphere. The shadows caused by the hills make the areas in shadow look more lush than they are.

No one seems to have thought of this when the photo was used, but anyone who uses the full screen mode on YouTube will see how unproductive and barren this land is. If more land is needed for maneuver training by the Army, it is hard to justify protecting this kind of land from that use. Pandering politicians like Ken Salazar and his brother John who claim otherwise are doing themselves and their own reputation a disservice.

Of Course, Mark Udall is not just a panderer, he is a liar who would sell out the nation's security for a few votes. He told the ranchers in the pinon canyon area that future wars would be against urban based terrorists and that the Army didn't need their land. Never mind that he is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and knows better.

15 Seconds into the commercial (it moves fast) is a photo of Bob Schaffer standing beside a building with a large plaque. Curious minds that might want to know where in Colorado that building and plaque might be will be disappointed to see that a trianglur shaped haze with two embedded rectangles has been produced by the animator to make it unreadable. It is funny to see how clear and sharp the photo is to the left of Schaffer's image and how fuzzy it is where the plaque is located.

The triangle shaped haze is a simple white triangle and two rectangles made translucent by the animator and placed in front of the building image. You can see where both rectangles extend outside the hypotenuse of the triangle. This part is very sloppy and cheaply done animation.

The Washington based producers of this deceptive piece of animation couldn't be troubled to find a photo of a Colorado building and weren't honest enough to let the viewer see that. Going out on a limb, we would go so far as to suggest that this building might be located in Alexandria, Virginia, given the unusually large size of the brick and the round object at the top of the photo. In Colorado, brick buildings are relatively scarce due to the easy availability of quarried building materials. We've never seen a building built with oversized brick.

All in all, we think this commercial is so poorly thought out and executed that it will do Mark Udall much more damage than it will ever do to Bob Schaffer. We actually think Bob Schaffer's campaign should be promoting it!

Production Values Hide Udall's Lack of Values

The Rocky Mountain News is reporting that the DSCC has created a new "disappearing Act" YouTube ad.

The cost of producing things like this is so low that given the proper software, one person could do this in an afternoon, though it might take longer to render. It appears to have been done on something like Lightwave 9. There isn't even all that much animation in it, mostly making the camera move. It is a matter of plopping in a background, creating two foreground objects and making one disappear. They did that three times in 15 seconds. The intro is the reverse.

It's impressive for anyone who doesn't understand what is going on. The hard part is getting the photography. We're a bit suspicious of the photography, but who knows?

Expect to see a lot of this kind of thing from now on in this election and all the ones to come.

As to its political value, we would ask just one question: So?

This ad is more a reflection of Mark Udall's willingness to pander to special interests when it comes to national security issues (oil and gas production / military readiness) and his willingness to buy votes with SCHIP than it is a reflection on Schaffer. Schaffer doesn't need to go public on the issues for months.

This ad could be parodied in a way that would make Mark Udall look bad. It isn't well thought out.

The Cost of Udall's Pinon Canyon Pandering-Part 2

Some time ago, we wrote about the cost of Mark Udall's pandering to the ranchers in Pinon Canyon with a statement that shows either that he is willing to play games with national defense to score a political point (very likely given his record of untruthfulness), or that he is too naieve about US Defense to be a Senator (not unlikely given some of his actions).

The Gazette recently reported on the efforts to bring Air Force Cyber Command to Colorado.

Rocky Mountain Politics, a new political blog, brings more focus on the impact of Mark Udall's Pinon Canyon pandering:

In the letter, they [ Lousiana Congressional Delegation ] write "We were happy to learn recently that the Army is studying the potential acquisition of additional lands contiguous to the installation." They further add that the additional lands result in "ensuring the continued viability of the base for years to come." To drive the nail home, they say "We feel this is a compelling reason to seize the opportunity to acquire additional lands now, and look forward to assisting the Army in any way possible throughout the process."

So whom do you think the lands will be acquired from? I bet there will be private lands acquired, just as would happen at Pinon Canyon. You have to wonder if the difference in support here won't play out in the halls of the Pentagon on an issue like locating Cyber Command. Guess we will have to wait and see, maybe sooner rather than later.

The High Cost of Pandering

Not long ago, Mark Udall, Ken Salazar, Bill Ritter, and the Colorado Legislature signaled their uncertainty about keeping Fort Carson viable with an expansion of the Pinon Canyon training area.

Today, our friends at Rocky Mountain Politics laid out the potential cost of this pandering. Keep in mind that if Space Command leaves, some very high paying civilian contracting jobs will move out of state, not only from Colorado Springs, but from Jeffco and Boulder.

Nebraska is not alone by the way in trying to take advantage of our feud here in Colorado over Pinon Canyon [by trying to get USSPACECOM and NORTHCOM moved to Omaha ]. Guess who the only 2 Republicans in the United States Senate to vote for Ken Salazar's amendment to stop the expansion were? The 2 Republicans from Kansas, Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback. Kansas is home to Fort Riley, which was one of Fort Carson's competitors in the last BRAC round and came very close to being closed. They sure wouldn't mind an expanded base with more units stationed there.