DailyKos: Mark Udall, a Progressive Patriot PTMD

Scoreboard time again, and so soon. That paragon of liberal thinking, DailyKos, is promoting a poll with a $5,000 prize:

Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots Fund is holding a poll to pick the next Progressive Patriots. One of these candidates will get a $5,000 contribution.

The poll has closed. There were 26 votes. Mark Udall won with 12, so he gets $5,000 and another notch on our "reliably left wing" scoreboard line, which is where we put "progressive:"

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 14
liberal 30
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

Long ago, we started using music titles to make it easier to find earlier posts and to differentiate scoreboard posts from other posts. Recently, Mark Udall admitted that in 1971 he had his automobile seized in a drug related arrest. Most states don't seize vehicles unless the amount of drugs involved suggests drug dealing. Mark Udall has been quite coy about what happened. An enquiring public wants to know. In that spirit, our future scoreboard entries will be titled Puff the Magic Dragon or PTMD.

Scoreboard Updates PTMD

We've been a bit lax in trying to keep our Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard up to date, so today is catch-up day.

Two weeks ago, the Denver Post did a lengthy article on the relative positioning of Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer against well known members of Congress from the last 70 years. The Post noted that Mark Udall was 509th and:

falls squarely within his party's liberal wing — and based on his votes is more liberal than Clinton or Obama.

We will count that in our "reliably left wing" category. We are doing that in part because when we did additional digging into the numbers, we discovered that before Mark Udall decided to run for the Senate, his voting record put him as the 25th most liberal member of Congress. Since he decided to run for the Senate, he has tried to move his record closer to the center. Again, from the Post:

Udall's ranking is 509th from the left, more moderate than Schaffer but still well within the party's left wing. [ Kieth ] Poole's study shows that Udall has shifted to the middle somewhat since 2002, when an earlier version of the scale put him at 379th from the far left.

Meanwhile left leaning magazine "In These Times" has added its assessment of Mark Udall's politics:

Tom and Mark [ Udall ] are progressive U.S. representatives in New Mexico and Colorado, respectively, who have each set their sights on an open, Republican-held Senate seat in their home states.

We count "progressive" as "reliably left wing" because it is most frequently used to describe a liberal's liberal.

Thus, the the "reliably left wing" scoreboard line advances by two, today.

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 13
liberal 30
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

Long ago, we started using music titles to make it easier to find earlier posts and to differentiate scoreboard posts from other posts. Recently, Mark Udall admitted that in 1971 he had his automobile seized in a drug related arrest. Most states don't seize vehicles unless the amount of drugs involved suggests drug dealing. Mark Udall has been quite coy about what happened. An enquiring public wants to know. In that spirit, our future scoreboard entries will be titled Puff the Magic Dragon or PTMD.

Washington Post Gets It Wrong - Again

Today's "The Fix" shows exactly why people on the east coast shouldn't be writing about Colorado Politics. It also demonstrates one of the several reasons that Washington is called "foggy bottom."

The Washington Post describes the Colorado race not as it is, but as it would like it to be. There is a big difference:

[ Dick ] Wadhams, a Colorado native, has been nearly perfect in the campaigns with which he has been associated in his home state. Can he keep the streak alive in Schaffer's up hill fight against Rep. Mark Udall (D)? Expect the phrase "Boulder liberal" to become a staple of Wadhams' vocabulary between now and November.

It is difficult to see how this race can be described as "up hill." There have been three polls that we know of, and all three showed a separation between the two of one percentage point. The first two showed Mark Udall to be ahead and the last one showed a slight Bob Schaffer lead.

This is still a conservative state, admittedly with a well gerrymandered left wing legislature and a chameleon governor, Bill Ritter who ran as a pro business moderate and is governing as an anti-business liberal. The Denver Post, which supported him in the 2006 election with comments designed to make him appear moderate has opined that he may be a one term governor.

In November Cillizza himself wrote: "a state that looks like it could stay in the GOP column if the right sort of race is run," so we want to know what has changed to make it "up hill."

As for whether Mark Udall can fairly be described as a "Boulder Liberal," The Fix would do well to note that Mark Udall is a self described Boulder Liberal. His campaign spokesperson, Taylor West, opined publicly that being called a Boulder Liberal wouldn't hurt him. The Denver Post recently called Mark Udall "solidly liberal" There is no evidence either that Mark Udall is running as anything but a liberal or that he can run as anything but a liberal. His friends in the msm and the liberal blogs have routinely called him "liberal," "reliably left wing/progressive," and "extremist." It has happened so often that we keep a scoreboard.

Given all of this data, it is hard to see how Dick Wadhams could avoid noting the obvious. He doesn't have to call Mark Udall a Boulder Liberal. All he has to do is restate the information here.

It is also hard to see how Chris Cillizza could have suggested that it would be wrong or inaccurate to call Mark Udall what he calls himself, a Boulder Liberal. Is this another example of the Big Blue Lie Machine in action? It wouldn't be the first time that the Washington Post was a big cog in that machine.

McCain and Udall Compared and Contrasted

This is in response to the Lynn Bartels article in today's Rocky Mountain News. We left a comment promising to explain why Bob Schaffer will not have a problem if Mark Udall tries to cozy up to John McCain.

We promised links. Many of the links we provide are links to other blog essays, here and elsewhere, which zero in on the issue and themselves have links to the original source. Even better than links are the "labels" at the bottom of the essay which you might want to follow.

Here goes:

Mark Udall and John McCain are two different people.

1. John McCain prides himself on running the "straight talk express." We have caught Mark Udall and his staff in lies so often that we developed a "Udall as a liar" label. We also have a "Big Blue Lie Machine" label for those less closely tied to Udall who are less than truthful. See below.

2. John McCain is a self described conservative though many moderates like him because he isn't an orthodox conservative. Mark Udall is a liberal's liberal. He calls Boulder his "touchstone" and his spokesperson has opined that being tagged as a "Boulder liberal" won't hurt him. Liberals and the msm routinely call him "liberal," reliably left wing, progressive, and twice extremist. We have documented over 40 examples of that happening. To see the documentation and our methodology, follow the bread crumbs backwards.

3. John McCain is a war hero and the son and grandson of Navy Admirals. Mark Udall has so little understanding of the apolitical traditions of the military and how they keep our democracy free from a military coup that he once sponsored a resolution that would have encouraged the politicization of military officers. Not content with politicizing the military, it would have encouraged officers to make political complaints to the congress and exhorted congress to pay heed to those complaints.

4. John McCain promoted the surge. Mark Udall promoted a Department of Peace.

5. Once John McCain learned his lesson with the Keating Five, he never again allowed the source of his political fund raising to cloud his judgement or compromise his integrity. The NY Times tried to claim that he more recently had helped a lobbyist, but that help was limited to two letters asking a regulatory commission to vote on a two year old issue while carefully telling them he was not telling them how to vote. Seems reasonable, though the NYT didn't think so.

Mark Udall is taking big bucks from labor unions and has publicly admitted that he had co-sponsored a labor bill that he doesn't like. He is taking even bigger bucks from the environmentalists who don't give a damn if the whole state burns to the ground so long as no forest roads are built that might allow the beetle killed trees to be removed, even dead trees adjacent to mountain towns.

Mark Udall is so deep in the grasp of his environmentalist paymasters that last year he proposed an amendment that would close existing roads which makes the problem worse. Even his heavily self promoted and under financed bill to remove dead trees around mountain towns didn't prompt him to speak out when the environmentalists objected to the road building that would be necessary.

6. Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson dislike John McCain. Daily Kos held a fundraiser for Mark Udall.

7. In 1971, John McCain was in a POW camp in North Vietnam and had been for years. In 1971, Mark Udall was in an Arizona court having his car confiscated and being placed on a year's probation for drugs.

8. John McCain is a man of proven courage, personal and political. We recently wrote that an appropriate bumper sticker for Mark Udall would be "Vote Udall: A Coward For Today In Every Way."

Lynn Bartels would do well to note that John McCain was praising and quoting Mo Udall, not Mark Udall. It isn't uncommon in congress to refer to one's mortal enemy as "my friend."

In the end, the election in Colorado will be about character. Udall lacks moral courage and says what he believes will get him elected. Schaffer just says what he believes.

If the subject comes up in a debate, Bob Schaffer can truthfully say "I know John McCain, John McCain is a friend of mine. You're no John McCain!"

Udall's Press Agent: Boulder Liberal Tag Won't Hurt

It seems that the Mark Udall campaign has resigned itself to Udall being labeled a "Boulder Liberal" and embraced the moniker. The Daily Camera reports that Taylor West, a spokeswoman for Mark Udall's campaign said:

the Udall campaign doesn't think the "Boulder liberal" tag will hurt Udall as voters across the state get to know him.

We happen to think that being a "Boulder Liberal" is farther to the left on the political spectrum than just plain liberal and are taking this opportunity to increment the "relaiably left wing" part of our scoreboard.

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 11
liberal 30
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

Long ago, we started using music titles to make it easier to find earlier posts and to differentiate scoreboard posts from other posts. Recently, Mark Udall admitted that in 1971 he had his automobile seized in a drug related arrest. Most states don't seize vehicles unless the amount of drugs involved suggests drug dealing. Mark Udall has been quite coy about what happened. An enquiring public wants to know. In that spirit, our future scoreboard entries will be titled Puff the Magic Dragon.

Puff The Magic Dragon

The Denver Post wanted so much to attach the "liberal" label to Mark Udall that it found a way to sidestep actually putting the label on him:

The fact that Udall would be considered liberal by most voters...

We will be counting that in our scoreboard today.

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 10
liberal 30
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

Long ago, we started using music titles to make it easier to find earlier posts and to differentiate scoreboard posts from other posts. Recently, Mark Udall admitted that in 1971 he had his automobile seized in a drug related arrest. Most states don't seize vehicles unless the amount of drugs involved suggests drug dealing. Mark Udall has been quite coy about what happened. An enquiring public wants to know. In that spirit, our future scoreboard entries will be titled Puff the Magic Dragon.

Today's Chuckle

We're not going to link to this, but Mark Udall put out a fund raising email that had among it's many curious statements this most curious statement:

Act for change. Contribute today and give me the advantage I'll need to defeat Bob Schaffer -- and keep this seat out of extremist hands!

That's strong stuff. It seems to us that the msm was calling Mark Udall an extremist, but we don't recall any such label attached to Bob Schaffer. So many people, msm and bloggers alike have called Mark Udall a progressive or reliably left wing that it is hard to keep up, but we try.

Apparently Mark Udall's campaign strategy is to freely admit that he is a flaming (as in forest fire) Boulder liberal but to call Bob Schaffer an extremist.

We're laughing at Mark Udall.

Skewing the Scoreboard

Our friend at Liberal and Loving It decided to try play games with our scoreboard today. His attempt elicited a belly laugh:

Ok, the schaffer v udall blog is tracking the number of times Mark Udall has been called conservative (presently 0). So here you go - Mark Udall is a very conservative congressman. I base this on his tireless work to conserve the environment and his extensive opposition to change (in our climate).

We make the rules, and we try to keep them rational. Just as we won't count a conservative blog calling Mark Udall a liberal, we won't count a liberal blog trying to claim that he is a conservative or even a moderate.

If you folks want to rack up some "conservative" or even "moderate" hits on the Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard, go find a conservative blog to call him conservative. And no, we won't count a faux conservative blog that lacks history.

As for the claim that Udall is a conservative because he claims to be a conservationalist, we think that Mark Udall's biggest vulnerability is his environmental record. Coloradoans who go to the polls this fall need only, as Mark Udall himself said, "picture dead forests in their mind's eye." If there is a big fire and if people die in it, Udall and John Salazar will and should bear a good deal of the blame.

As for opposition to climate change, the environmentalists never seem to be willing to count burned forests as contributing to the atmospheric carbon dioxide load. The left's carbon footprint is enormous, but they pretend it doesn't exist. We had three forest fires in excess of 500,000 acres each last year. Udall's answer as of today: Lets do a study, but lets not build forest roads or clear cut fire breaks.

You folks on the left have painted yourself into a corner and it is going to take one heck of a long time for the paint to dry. The sad thing is that you don't appear smart enough to realize it.

Born on the 4th of July

We saw this yesterday, but avoided writing about it because there was so much other Udall news.

The Colorado Springs Independent made this somewhat incoherent statement (it is easy to see how it happens in the day of word processing-we do it too often, ourselves):

This, even though Udall isn't liberal enough for some progressive liberals in the 2nd Congressional District, who complain they've been ignored, particularly when voicing their views on the war in Iraq.

It sure looks like an acknowledgement that Mark Udall is a liberal to us, and yet the left wing Independent then tries to claim that Udall is a moderate:

Yet Udall's moderate positions, including his stance to continue funding the war, have attracted a potential spoiler. Green Party candidate Bob Kinsey, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Denver and has run previously for Congress, sees himself as a grassroots alternative to voters dissatisfied with the commercialized election process

It's just another lie from the big blue lie machine, but there is a reason for it, admits the Independent:

"Democrats who seek to reach statewide voters usually must project an image of being moderate and pro-business," [ Bob Loevy, a Colorado College professor of political science ] says, adding that Democrats who want to win the big races "must get to the middle."

So, that brings us to our scoreboard:

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 10
liberal 29
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

We Post Them As We Find Them - Big 40

The Seminal, a new Ohio left wing blog has decided to take sides. Read this and guess who they picked (drum roll):

Now, after careful research [ mostly conducted by reading Schaffer v Udall ] on the campaigns and personal histories of the two men, I feel comfortable giving my full support to Democratic candidate Mark Udall. Ultimately, the decision was an easy one; the positions on one side attracted as much as the other repelled.

They go on to write about our scoreboard:

The pro-Schaffer blog referred to above thinks painting Udall as a "liberal" will hurt him with Colorado voters, who they believe prefer "moderate" candidates. As such, they're keeping a tally of the different labels that are used to refer to Mark. Their scorecard reads...

One label, however, is conspicuously absent from their scorecard: "progressive." Mark's record distinguishes him from the "liberal" crowd, which includes disappointments like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

He belongs to better company. Mark Udall is a progressive candidate for a country badly in need of progressive leaders, and he enjoys my full support.

We actually do have a label for "progressive" and have used it in the past. A politician who is progressive is farther to the left than "liberal," so we count that label in the "reliably left wing" column. Had the Seminal writer followed the bread crumbs back far enough, he would have discovered our substitution.

We might not have written this elsewhere, but the original purpose of this scoreboard was to prevent both of the two major Denver papers from trying to claim that Udall is a moderate when his own party was celebrating his liberalism. Colorado is cursed with Bill Ritter who is governing of late as a left wing lunatic because the Denver Post scammed the public (or perhaps got itself scammed), telling all comers that he would govern as a moderate. The Post has now referred to Mark Udall as "solidly liberal," so we keep this up for entertainment value and possible future use.

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 10
liberal 28
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

The Yellow Rose of Texas

Californian in Texas, subtitled "the ramblings of a liberal Californian" opines:

[ Mark ] Udall is further left than governor [ Bill ] Ritter and senator [ Ken ] Salazar, but he does have a small advantage because of the state's Democratic trend in recent elections.

Since the conventional wisdom is that both Ritter and Salazar are liberal, with Bill Ritter seen as moving farther and farther to the left daily, Californian in Texas obviously believes that Mark Udall should be classified on our scoreboard as "reliably left wing."

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 9
liberal 28
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

I Left My Heart In San Francisco

As promised yesterday, we are incrementing the scoreboard by one. The Seminal, a self identified liberal blog called Mark Udall a liberal.

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 8
liberal 28
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

Jim Spencer has always lived in his own little world, and now that he works for Colorado Confidential, he slurps down and passes out their Kool-Aid by the bucket full.

He writes:

But the numbers show something else. Democrats are most likely to win if they stick to the strategy adopted by Democratic U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter. That strategy can be summed up in a single word:

Moderation.

Salazar and Ritter have enraged some of their party's base with their moderate positions on issues. The Democratic presidential nominee will need that same image of moderation to have a chance to win Colorado as the national Democratic party hopes to do for the first time in more than a decade.

For the same reason, Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall must battle every attempt to brand him "a Boulder liberal."

What Spencer says is true. What he ignores is that liberal blogs and msm outlets routinely call Mark Udall "extremist," "reliably left wing," and "liberal." Just a week ago, Spencer's old employer called Udall "solidly liberal." Udall has called himself a Boulder liberal.

We are wondering if Jim Spencer has resigned himself to always writing easily debunked lies for Colorado Confidential. It is hard to see how he could expect to be reemployed by any media outlet that valued its reputation if he continues to ignore these kinds of fully documented facts. Stop passing the purple Kool-Aid, Jim.

Paint Your Wagon

John Kerry's email is fouled up. The system is sending ghost emails, or so reports the New Political Communication Unit. The second ghost email has the following paragraph:

Follow this link to learn more about Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Mark Udall in Colorado, Tom Allen in Maine, and Jeff Merkely in Oregon. They're all good, progressive voices, and if we elect them all to the Senate, we'll have gone a long way in forcing a new direction in our country.

The link isn't provided by NPCU, but if John Kerry thinks Mark Udall is a progressive, which is actually well west of liberal, then we will happily add it to our scoreboard. We count progressive as "reliably left wing:"

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 8
liberal 27
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

A Faux Candidate

Colorado Confidential makes it sound as though the Mark Benner candidacy for the Democrat nomination for US Senate is designed by Benner to make Mark Udall look "centrist," and nothing more.

Benner isn't sure his party's progressive wing is as energized or hopeful as it was in 2004. He said he will serve as the progressive opposition to [ Mark ] Udall's more centrist positions in a primary if he gets the required 30 percent of state assembly votes. If not, he will forgo the route of collecting signatures to force his way on to the primary ballot.

If the purpose is to make Mark Udall seem centrist, it has already backfired. The Denver Post, as our fellow bloggers pointed out yesterday called Udall "solidly liberal" in response to the Benner candidacy. Those are words it will find it difficult to take back.

Mark Udall: Still "Solidly Liberal" in 2008

Based on the latest Denver Post piece highlighted by El Presidente - in which Rep. Mark Udall is identified as "solidly liberal"- it's time to update the scorecard. It has been awhile, after all.

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 7
liberal 27
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune

We picked this nugget up today:

The top 10 recipients of “environmental special-interest” funding, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, are (from 1 to 10): John Kerry, Al Gore, PaulWellstone, Barbara Boxer, Bill Bradley, Mark Udall, Jay Inslee, Jeanne Shaheen, Jean Carnahan, Barack Obama.

This explains, better than any other factoid why Mark Udall has been called an "environmental extremist" by the Gazette and "reliably left wing" by his friends.

On No One's Top Ten Lists

The AP has it's top ten Colorado list out. It is a bit lame. Well, it is more than a bit lame. We thought we could do better with a list of things that didn't make the top ten in Colorado, in no particular order. They didn't make the top ten because they didn't happen. Oh, well!

1. Despite much wishful hoping on the left, the Colorado US Senate race is not a Mark Udall runaway.
2. Caroline Bninski spent Christmas with friends and family, not in jail where Mark Udall and his staff tried to put her for a year. How inconvenient!
3. Neither Mark Udall nor his staff seem to have lied to the public or members of Congress in the last week, setting a new record if not for truthfulness, at least for silence.
4. Rush Limbaugh wasn't humiliated by Mark Udall's Congressional resolution which was written in a way to be an unsophisticated falsehood. No member of the Colorado delegation co-sponsored Udall's anti-Limbaugh resolution.
5. The US didn't cut and run when Harry Reid pontificated "This War is Lost." Nor did Udall object when Nancy Pelosi held useless vote after vote to defund the war.
6. Mark Udall didn't convince Bill Ritter to nix gas drilling on the Roan Plateau.
7. Mark Udall didn't cosponsor the loon in the attic's Department of Peace bill this year, and it is reported that Mark Udall also didn't see a UFO.
8. The Gazette hasn't called Mark Udall an "extremist" for six months, but many of his liberal friends have made certain that he can't claim to be a centrist.
9. Colorado didn't have a roadless wilderness mega forest fire in 2007, but there is still time for one to occur in 2008.
10. The Denver Post hasn't made it's obligatory election year claim that Mark Udall is a "moderate" or "centrist."

List making is so much fun. We're wondering if we are on Bill Ritter's enemies list, yet. We're doing our best.

Trouble in Udall Land

Mark Udall is about as far left as we imagine it is possible for a Colorado politician, even a Boulder Liberal, can get and still expect to be reelected.

He is so far to the left that we have a scoreboard feature that tracks the number of times his liberal blogging allies and the msm refer to him as a liberal, reliably left wing, and even extremist. That scoreboard is in the upper right corner of this site.

Now, PlagiarismNowAction has a post up whose only goal is to push Mark Udall even farther left. (Those who wonder why we call PlagiarismNowAction by that name are welcome to search this blog under that term for an explanation.)

He [Mark Benner ] plans to run on the issues. Issues important to him include the environment, torture, withdrawal from Iraq, and holding Bush and Cheney accountable with investigations and impeachment if warranted.

He is being pressured by Democratic Party elites not to run. He will need your support to buck the system. Call and encourage him.

I am a 42 year Democratic supporter. I am a (L)iberal. I believe a challenger could very possibly potentially siphon enough votes from Udall to force him to move left on the issues.

Unlike left wing blogs which are engaged in a never ending attempt to promote Republican primaries, we have much more class than to try to interfere in or promote this primary. It will happen or it won't happen completely independent of what we might do or say. We are merely reporting on it.

They Call The Wind Maria

In the enthusiasm over the poll results, our fellow bloggers appear to have missed this quote from Rothenberg:

Now, state voters will have a clear choice between liberal Cong. Mark Udall (D) and conservative former congressman Bob Schaffer (R). Neither man is running from party or ideological labels, but each believes he fits the state better.

Actually, Mark Udall is moving farther left by choosing to "blog" on MoveOn.org.

Meanwhile, we update our scoreboard:

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 7
liberal 26
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.