Superdelegate Mark Udall Taking His Time to Make the Obvious Choice

Superdelegate Mark Udall has not exactly been a profile in courageous leadership. Even as the rest of the world has figured out that Barack Obama will be the Democrats' Presidential nominee, Udall and some of his fellow Colorado Congressional Democrats are stuck on the fence:

Sen. Ken Salazar on Monday met with three other Democratic senators who are uncommitted superdelegates, but he insisted afterward that he hadn't made up his mind whether to back Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton.

He and three other Colorado superdelegates — Congressmen John Salazar and Mark Udall and Gov. Bill Ritter — have yet to publicly back either candidate. Pressure on the uncommitted delegates is mounting as Democratic Party leaders are eager to begin trying to unify the Clinton and Obama camps.

So what's Mark Udall's reason for holding out on Barack Obama?

Rep. Udall's office could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, the Udall Watch timer counts down.

What Political Favor is Mark Udall Holding Out for from Hillary Clinton?

With momentum growing behind the Barack Obama campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination but an insufficient number of pledged delegates for either candidate to win outright, the heat is picking up on superdelegate Mark Udall and his Colorado peers.

Rocky Mountain Right asks the most penetrating question in this developing story of intraparty rivalry: "What did Hillary Clinton Promise Mark Udall?" Or, as he elaborates:

At this point holding out only benefits one person in the race: Hillary Clinton. In a state where practically the entire state party backs Obama it makes sense that Clinton supporters would stay quiet or risk political suicide. The question now is: what did Hillary Clinton offer Mark Udall that is compelling enough for him to defy 66% of his base and refuse to endorse his party's presidential nominee?

A good question I gladly echo here. Where is the enterprising reporter who will ask Mark Udall directly, or who will dig deeper to find out the rest of the story here?

Udall Watch Unveiled ... Mark Udall Says Decision to Come in June ... Coincidence?

Last Friday, Schaffer v Udall unveiled the "Udall Watch", giving a countdown to the Democratic National Convention for superdelegate Mark Udall to make a decision between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Yesterday the Grand Junction Sentinel reported (before the results from the Indiana and North Carolina primaries were made apparent):

Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall, D-Colo., said Tuesday he remains committed to being formally undecided until sometime in June.

“If the contest is still under way in June, I think it’s incumbent on superdelegates who are uncommitted to weigh in at that point,” Udall said.

Coincidence? Probably so.

Udall Watch and the Difficult Decision of Colorado Democrat Superdelegates

Not only are Mark Udall and other Democrat superdelegates paralyzed with indecision about which candidate to support, the Rocky Mountain News reports today that Colorado Democrats themselves are still undecided about who one of their superdelegates should be:

Mayor John Hickenlooper and former Mayor Federico Pena will likely face off this month to be named Colorado's one at-large "superdelegate" to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The two are the only nominees for the slot, which could have national implications because superdelegates likely will decide the contest between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

Unlike delegates who are pledged to a candidate based on the outcome of their state's primary or caucus, superdelegates are free to vote for whomever they think has the best chance of winning in November.

In honor of all the recent news about Mark Udall's superdelegate troubles, Schaffer v Udall this morning has unveiled Udall Watch - a countdown clock until the Democratic National Convention and the Boulder liberal Senatorial candidate's impending decision: Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?

On Superdelegate Mark Udall's "Recurring Nightmare"

In a Los Angeles Times column today, political scientist Norman Ornstein highlights the serious challenge faced by Democratic superdelegates:

As the front-runner, Obama is playing it cool, although he is still using his spare moments to call superdelegates and chat. If Obama wins Indiana, odds are that a pent-up flood of supers finally will endorse him on May 7, signaling an early end to the process. If he holds Clinton's edge in Indiana to somewhere close to 2% and wins North Carolina by anywhere close to the 15% margin he holds in the polls, odds are that a trickle of superdelegate Obama endorsements will become a steady stream, resulting in a slower May decision.

If neither of these scenarios pan out, the supers will try mightily to resolve the issue on or after the last active voting on June 3, to keep their convention from careening out of control. But they need a good reason to end their torture. Ambiguous results, damaging enough to Obama to keep him from closure but not definitive enough to move these reluctant power brokers to the Clinton camp, are their recurring nightmare. [emphases added]

Superdelegate Mark Udall, the Democrat U.S. Senate candidate from Colorado, has as much or more to lose than any of his fellow undecideds - especially if the Denver convention does careen "out of control."

A "recurring nightmare" is not a good way to get a good night's sleep.

Mark Udall's Superdelegate Decision Dilemma Looking as Sticky as Ever

If there's any credence to this report on the New York Times blog, it looks like superdelegate Mark Udall will be waiting to declare his preference for a Presidential candidate until the Democratic National Convention in August.

Four weeks ago we wrote about the dilemma Mark Udall was facing:

Go with the guy who won big majorities at the Colorado caucus and still kind of looks like the frontrunner despite nagging scandals and incompetent advisers. -OR- Pick the wildly unpopular and shrill former First Lady who suddenly has campaign momentum and who could make your life miserable if she ends up the nominee, especially if you wait too long to back her.

The dynamics of the race have shifted once or twice since then, but the New York Times blog still sees the two-candidate showdown dragging on until Denver:

Hillary has no incentive to bow out early, and every incentive to stay in until Obama is officially the nominee -­ something that won’t happen until the convention.

Does Mark Udall want to take the Convention stage with far Left Barack Obama, whom some might say fits more closely as his "touchstone" candidate? Or does Mark Udall want to take the Convention stage with Hillary Clinton, wildly unpopular in Colorado (44 percent favorable, 55 percent unfavorable) and probably even more so after eking out the nomination with the pragmatic but undemocratic intervention of the superdelegates?

It could even get messier and more confusing: political guru Michael Barone sees a plausible scenario where Barack Obama wins the delegate count but Hillary Clinton wins the popular vote.

What to do then? Udall probably wants to put this decision off as long as possible.

In Schaffer v Udall Battle, Coloradans Offered Clear Choice

"The two likely candidates in this year's U.S. Senate contest, Rep. Mark Udall, a Democrat, and former Rep. Bob Schaffer, a Republican, served side-by-side in Congress from 1999 through 2002. Over those four years, they cast 2,036 votes together, often on symbolic or non-controversial matters. And yet they still managed to disagree more than half the time - 1,078 times, to be precise"--Rocky Mountain News

As the Rocky Mountain News points out, Senate candidates Bob Schaffer and Mark Udall are as different as night and day:

If you think Rep. Mark Udall, a Democrat, and former Rep. Bob Schaffer, a Republican, disagree on 1,000 different things, that's close.

From 1999 through 2002, when they worked across the aisle from one another in the U.S. House of Representatives, they cast opposite votes a whopping 1,078 times.

That long and detailed record makes the 2008 contest a rarity in state politics. Not since 1986, when Democrat Tim Wirth faced Republican Ken Kramer, have two one-time House colleagues gone head-to-head in a U.S. Senate race.

"Talk about a paper trail. This is a paper trail that leads into the Rockies for this Senate race," said Norman Provizer, a political science professor at Metropolitan State College in Denver. "They represent two very differing views on all kinds of issues. If you look at it from an issue perspective, they aren't Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum."

The Rocky Mountain News analyzed all 2,036 congressional votes, big and small, that Schaffer and Udall cast during their four years together in the House. It's more than enough to keep the ad-makers on both sides busy in the run-up to November.

Fair use prevents a lengthier quotation (the article is quite long and extensively researched), but here are a few highlights:

Schaffer's stance is first, Udall's second

Military issues

* IRAQ WAR: Resolution authorizing use of force against Iraq. (Oct. 10, 2002) YES NO

* SPENDING: An amendment that would have imposed a 1 percent, across-the-board cut on military programs. (May 18, 2000) NO YES

* RECRUITING: Amendment to education spending bill that would have prohibited funds from being used to block military recruiting at secondary schools. (June 13, 2000) YES NO

Homeland security

* ANTI-TERRORISM LAW: The anti-terrorism law, the Patriot Act, first enacted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. (Oct. 12, and Oct. 24, 2001)YES NO

* ARMING PILOTS: Legislation to allow airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit as a defense against terrorism. (July 10, 2002)YES NO

Education

* SCHOOL CHOICE: Amendment to the proposed "No Child Left Behind Act" that would have allowed students from low-performing schools, or crime victims from "unsafe schools," to choose to attend private schools using public funds. (May 23, 2001)YES NO

Taxes

* BUSH TAX CUTS: Approval of White House-backed tax cuts of the "Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act of 2001." (March 8, 2001)YES NO

* TAX LIMITS: A proposed constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds majority votes to approve new tax increases. (June 12, 2002)YES NO

Takeaways?

This contest pits candidates from rival parties that present a clear difference in viewpoints. The common charge that most candidates in any election are "basically the same" can simply not be applied in this case.

Schaffer-Republican-Conservative

Udall-Democrat-Liberal

The move to the "middle" where both sides believe the election will be won features an unaffiliated voting bloc poised to become the largest pool of registered voters in Colorado. Schaffer acknowledges that the state's tilt has been blue since 2004; Udall realizes that he is not the "moderate" that either Sen. Ken Salazar or Gov. Bill Ritter were (or purported to be) when they ran statewide.

The most recent poll shows both candidates within the margin of error (Udall leads 46-43), a clear toss-up, in spite of the MSM's continued meme that the seat is really Udall's to lose.

The votes revealed (or re-revealed, in some cases, for those political junkies who have been following this blog) will be the subject of campaign fodder, political ads, and 527 mudslinging for the next 7 months.

The only thing that can be agreed on--the stature and importance of this race. Republicans see the seat as an opportunity to roll back further losses due to retirement and a generally unfavorable political climate that has persisted since 2006. Democrats envision not only a pick-up, but an advance toward the potential 60 vote filibuster-proof supermajority.

Exit question: with Republicans settled on Sen. John McCain as their nominee, and the Democrats witnessing a fierce race rage on between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, which candidate stands to benefit from their respective party's nominee? Who is helped more, or flipping that proposition, who is hurt the least?

**Update:
Ryan Sager is rather pessimistic about the GOP's chances in the "interior West" unless Sen. Hillary Clinton is the nominee, but Daniel Larison has a different explanation for the region's recent trend to blue, and asks--is it really a recent development, and can short term trends be extrapolated into long term outcomes?

The Washington Post and Lying

We find it unfortunate that so much of the space in this blog of late has been devoted to exposing and documenting the bodyguard of lies being told to get Mark Udall elected.

It seems that the Washington Post has discovered that the same thing is happening with the Democrat Presidential candidates and a lot of folks aren't all that happy about it.

With colleagues in Congress quick to claim credit where it is due, word moves quickly when undue credit is claimed.

"If it happens once or twice, you let it go," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), an Obama supporter. "If it becomes the mantra, then you go, 'Wait a minute.' "

We are reminded of the words of Mark Udall's unofficial campaign spokesman who observes that "a lie is just a campaign tactic that the other side doesn't like," or something to that effect.

Do read the Washington Post article if you care about the Presidential election. Our interest is limited to our regular theme that too much of Democrat politics and strategy is tied to keeping the Big Blue Lie Machine well oiled and well fueled, in an environmentally friendly way, of course.

Udall Afraid Continued Clinton/Obama Battle Will Have Negative Down-Ticket Consequences

From the New York Times:

Suddenly the Democratic presidential race is teetering on the edge — not just between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, but between boost or burden for the party’s hopes in the fall.

So far, the clash between the two history-making candidacies has appeared to be an unalloyed benefit to the party. In state after state, Democrats displayed their enthusiasm through robust primary turnouts that drew in many new voters. If Clinton and Obama supporters have fallen into consistent niches by gender, income, education and ethnicity, polls show that most Democrats would happily support either one in November.

But now the threat of stalemate, vituperation and disillusionment hangs over a contest structured to declare a verdict a month ago. Potential fallout could imperil Democratic hopes for both the presidency and larger Congressional majorities.

“I’m very concerned,” said Representative Mark Udall of Colorado, who needs Democrats in his state to unite behind his bid for the Senate seat held by Wayne Allard, a Republican who is retiring. Mr. Udall warned that unity “could be a real challenge, especially as this thing grows more fierce.”

No doubt the threat of violence and mayhem at the Democratic National Convention in August--with groups there to Recreate '68--will not play well if Denver is trashed or the scene from the convention floor is one of intraparty rancor and argument.

But Udall is also concerned about the money, as in the money he can't raise if it is siphoned off by warring Democratic factions:

A prolonged fight poses special risks to the party’s drive to build a working majority in the Senate. Frenetic fund-raising by the Clinton and Obama campaigns, which collected $90 million in February alone, diminishes the pool of cash available to Senate candidates.
. . .
Mr. Udall said he opposed second-chance “mulligans” for Michigan and Florida. But he said he favored one last contest after the primaries end in early June — a “national caucus” in the form of swift decisions by superdelegates who remain uncommitted. Mr. Udall is one of them.

“Another 60 days probably doesn’t hurt us,” he said. “At that point, we’ve got to decide on a nominee.”

It will take at least $7-10 million for each candidate to wage a formidable campaign. The liberal big bucks will still be there, but tapped-out small time donors that have given to Clinton or Obama may not be there in as great a number should the Presidential nomination come down to the wire in a brokered and messy Denver convention.

The continued focus on the nomination will also prevent Udall himself from stealing the spotlight on Denver for his own promotion, becoming completely overshadowed in the intervening months.

Udall: Can't Decide Whom to Support, Can't Stand Up for Democracy in His Own Party

Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall has got to be looking for a break. These are rough days on the campaign trail for the Democratic Senate candidate.

1) Udall's influence in Congress is in a radical freefall.
2) People are once again noticing the confusion - no, let's call it what it is: plain dishonesty - about Udall's address of residence.
3) Udall's spokesperson opens his mouth to the press only to reinforce how out of touch the candidate is.

Now this...

The increasingly bloody melee in the ever-lengthening Democrat presidential primary has got to be increasing Mark Udall's heartburn, too. Over at the Politico website, they're keeping track of which Democrat officials and high muckety-mucks have pledged their superdelegate votes and to whom.

Mark Udall is still firmly in the undecided column, but you'd have a hard time deciding, too: Go with the guy who won big majorities at the Colorado caucus and still kind of looks like the frontrunner despite nagging scandals and incompetent advisers. -OR- Pick the wildly unpopular and shrill former First Lady who suddenly has campaign momentum and who could make your life miserable if she ends up the nominee, especially if you wait too long to back her.

Then there's the whole superdelegate scheme itself. A couple days ago Udall's colleague Rep. Ed Perlmutter was busy trying to pooh-pooh rank-and-file Democrats' concerns about the patently undemocratic scheme. That was before Hillary's Tuesday comeback threw a wrench into the plan of not having to rely on superdelegates to decide the Democratic nominee.
Now, to make matters worse, Clinton's people are trying to get delegates in the non-binding straw poll to turn their votes from Obama, even though he won an overwhelming majority. How is that for "democratic"?

Where does Udall stand on the matter? In complete silence, as far as we can tell. Just when the Democrat voters he's relying on need him to step forward.

Nothing. Not a word.

But hey, Mark Udall, stuck between a tangled feud of party leaders and party faithful, is paralyzed by inaction. And it looks like there could be many more weeks of this unresolved intraparty strike for Udall to look forward to, maybe all the way to the Democratic National Convention at the end of August.

A Profile in Courage, Not

The Denver Post humorously observed that Mark Udall and Ken Salazar can't seem to screw up the courage to tell the public who they will vote for as a Democrat super delegate.

Mark Udall operates on pure fear, but Ken Salazar has well thought reasons for not going public. After all, Barak lives in the same builing as Salazar does and Hillary was polite to Salazar's mother for a few minutes:

Colorado's soon-to-be-senior-senator makes this assessment of the candidates: He lived in the same Washington, D.C., building as Obama, with whom he works out. And he is grateful to Clinton for having chatted with his elderly mom at a reception.

"Picking between the two would be akin to choosing between family members," said [ Ken ]Salazar, who was willing to campaign for Joe Lieberman after the Connecticut senator defected from the Democratic Party.

As for Udall:

Udall also is loath to alienate voters as he vies to replace Republican Sen. Wayne Allard.

Udall has mustered the political courage to oppose bark beetles. Yet on the question of who should run the free world, he remains uncommitted.

But, is this true? Mark Udall has not had the courage to oppose the Sierra Club's and the Wilderness Society's do nothing, let 'em die, let Colorado burn attitude.

We do admit that Mark Udall did have the courage to co-sponsor a Department of Peace - that is until he decided to run for the Senate, when he lost even that level of courage and withdrew as a co-sponsor.

Susan Greene sums it up best:

But officials who try to be everything to everyone risk winding up as nothing to anyone. In politics, guts matter.

Who Does Udall Want at the Top of the Ticket?

With a little time now for the Super Tuesday results to sink in, and a desperately close and hard-fought primary campaign in the cards for the Democratic Party, who is Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall's campaign secretly rooting for? The candidate who makes him look like someone with a wealth of foreign policy and military experience, or the candidate who makes him look honest as a Boy Scout?

Just wondering who Udall would rather have standing by his side at the DNC in Denver, and to campaign with him this fall. Inquiring minds...

Catching Up With Democrat Lies - There are so many

We were busily working on another project this weekend and now find that we have fifty Google alerts to go through for our various blogs. This is a partial catch-up post.

One of the accidental themes of this blog is now the willingness of liberals to lie for their "cause," and be nasty or sometimes stupid about it. While David Sirota's current lie is about the political mess Bill Ritter has created for himself and doesn't mention Mark Udall at all, it illustrates the depths that liberals sink to when they are in power to stay in power. John Andrews takes Sirota to task for his latest lie, but is too polite to actually call Sirota a liar:

This weekend, in one of his most overheated blog posts yet -- which is saying something for a commentator who operates close to Fahrenheit 451 at all times -- Sirota hit a new high in slicing and dicing the plain facts.

Gentleman Bob Beauprez obviously took great pleasure in observing that John Murtha has decided that the "surge" is working after all. While he won't call Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Harry Reid political liars intent on damaging our country for political gain, we will.

From Harry Reid’s “this war is lost” and Pelosi’s “The escalation (Surge) has failed to produce the intended results” to Clinton’s September rebuke of Gen. Petraeus (”The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief”), the Democrats have invested their future in failure by America’s finest.

We would be remiss not to note that this weekend Bill Ritter got accused of being either a liar or terminally stupid (our words, not the Denver Post's).

Either Gov. Bill Ritter knowingly deceived Coloradans and sold them a bill of goods with his executive order on labor unions, or he doesn't understand the law.

While we were gone, another obvious Mark Udall lie (hopefully it was a lie) surfaced regarding his sponsoring a peace department bill at the urging of high school students. It reminded us of Jimmy Carter's famous claim (hopefully it was a lie) during the 1980 Carter-Reagan debate as related by Wikipedia:

[ Ronald ] Reagan would have none of it, and it came as no surprise, then, when the candidates repeatedly clashed over the nuclear weapons issue in their debate. But it was Carter's reference to his consultation with 12 year old daughter Amy concerning nuclear weapons policy that became the focus of post-debate analysis and late-night television jokes.

Udall Political Dynasty At Stake In 2008 Senate Races

"One reason to call those two the 'Kennedys of the West' is because they share a very liberal voting record with the Kennedys of the East"--Bob Schaffer's campaign manager, Walt Klein, on Mark and Tom Udall's Senate bids in Colorado and New Mexico

Can't add it to the scoreboard, but the analogy hits the liberal record of candidate Mark Udall dead on--his is no ordinary moderate Democrat vote, and his family no ordinary political dynasty:

"I think the West in the 2008 election is all about the Udalls, and it's all about the return of the Udall ethic," said Terry Bracy, chairman of the Udall Foundation, which was founded in part to honor the environmental and civil rights legacy of Mark's father, former U.S. Rep. Morris Udall, D-Ariz.

"The Udall ethic is really an ethic of public service, of conservation, of civility, of seeking to lead, and it reaches into both parties in the West," Bracy said.

The family's history in politics has led some to call them "the Kennedys of the West."

Hagiographical puff pieces by the MSM aside, aren't America's democratic (little d) ideals better supported through the election of a wide variety of citizens from all walks of life instead of political dynasties? Isn't that part of what we fought a revolution for?

Michael Barone had an enlightening piece earlier in the year on the specter of royalism that could occur under the constitution. A Hillary Clinton victory in 2008 and reelection in 2012 would mean 36 years with either a Bush or Clinton in the White House as President or VP. It is already true that a sort of hereditary qualification for office has devolved upon the descendants of politicians or their immediate family. One only needs to look at the political fortunes of the Salazar brothers in Colorado to witness an example. Families like the Udalls have made election to office seem an almost familial duty.

That Udall's family has had such electoral success shouldn't be a reason to vote against him, but it should also not prevent the discussion over the long-term viability of a republic willing to hand over the reins of government to political dynasties from any party. However, being labeled the "Kennedys of the West" won't help too much in establishing either Udall's moderate credentials--certainly a reason not to vote for either candidate in 2008.

So, Who Does Hillary Represent?

If Mark Udall represents Moveon.org as Eric Sondermann suggested yesterday, What does Hillary represent?

Newsbusters has the answer and an audio tape:

We are certainly better prepared and more focused on, you know, taking our arguments, and making them effective, and disseminating them widely, and really putting together a network, uh, in the blogosphere, in a lot of the new progressive infrastructure, institutions that I helped to start and support like Media Matters and Center for American Progress.

So, from now on, it will be Senator Hillary Clinton, (D) Media Matters.

Cynical Charitable Gift

Mark Udall is following the lead of Hillary Clinton's campaign and giving at least some of the tainted campaign money he received to charity.

Considering Udall's lifetime commitment to the environmental extremist movement, one might guess he would give the money to them. Or, one might guess that he would give the money to the victims of that movement, the people who have lost homes and lives to uncontrollable forest fires made worse by his own legislative efforts.

In a move that reminds us of Michael Dukakis' photo op ride in a tank during the 1988 Presidential campaign, Mark Udall is giving the money to the Colorado National Guard Foundation. He isn't doing so quietly, either. His campaign told his hometown paper.

For those of you too young to remember what happened, Life Magazine called the photo one of the "100 photos that changed the world." Their take:

Compared with the dashing WWII pilot Bush, the little Dukakis came off a clown, and the photo op blew up in his face.

There are many things a politician can do in a campaign that might seem believable and sincere, even when they are not. The tank ride wasn't believable, and neither is this.