Dynamics of Campaign Slowly Turning Against Udall

The earlier conventional wisdom that the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Colorado was Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall's to lose has clearly become yesterday's news. Chris Cillizza from the Washington Post, who is following the Senate races as closely as anyone can from inside the Beltway, released his latest rankings today. Colorado has moved from third to fourth in the most likely to switch party control Line:

The downward trajectory isn't because we think Republican prospects have improved markedly here, but rather because when compared the demographics of Colorado to those of the states ranked higher, it's clear there is a larger Republican base here than elsewhere. After a slow start, Mark Udall's fundraising has picked up nicely; he brought in more than $1.1 million in the third quarter and now has $3.1 million in the bank. Former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R) is holding his own on the fundraising front, with $801,000 raised and $1.1 million in the bank. Given the open-seat problems Republicans have in Virginia and New Mexico, national Republican could well choose to focus their financial firepower on Colorado -- a state that looks like it could stay in the GOP column if the right sort of race is run. [emphasis added]

Nearly a year before election day, and the dynamics of the campaign continue to shift slowly away from Udall and the Democrats. The longer they fail to realize it, the better.

Kos Says It's Not In The Bag

Kos, that paragon of wisdom, now observes that the election in Colorado is not quite the foregone conclusion he had hoped.

Given perceptions of this race, I would've expected Bob Schaffer's fundraising to dry up (as it has for the NRSC). But in fact, he's not trailing that badly.

He then goes on to quote the numbers but fails to note, as so many papers have, that Udall dumped $1.5 million into the race from his Congressional campaign. That means that the fundraising is even closer than he might know, or want to admit.

Rossputin Comments on the Race

We are wondering if anyone has noticed that the bloggers who are commenting on the Schaffer Udall race are either 1) so far left that you can only see specks on the horizon and almost to a person living out of state who favor Mark Udall; or 2) center-right bloggers with emphasis on the "center" part of that label who live here in Colorado.

There are a very few exceptions, and today, Rossputin takes one of them on.

If the race is Udall's to lose, it is because of the exceptionally bad political environment for Republicans right now, not because he is the better candidate. To the extent that the race hinges on independents (who, by definition, are open to voting for a person in any party), this is good news for Bob Schaffer. Udall's camp does not want to appear over-confident in part out of political strategy but also because there's no reason they should be highly confident.

Udall's Resolution Folly Bound to Hurt Him on Western Slope

In light of the justifiably stern rebuke Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall received from the Grand Junction Sentinel yesterday, this nugget of information on Colorado's recent U.S. Senate race poll numbers doesn't bode well for Udall's performance on the Western Slope:

According to the poll results, 39 percent of Western Slope voters prefer Schaffer, and 27 percent support Udall. Twenty-six percent of Western Slope voters, the poll shows, are undecided.

Already 12 points behind, since the survey was conducted before Udall's anti-Limbaugh resolution folly, the Democrat's numbers on the far side of the state only figure to push him even further behind. That 27 percent figure may recede, while independent conservative Republican Bob Schaffer could very well pick up more support from the large crop of undecideds.

The Poll

Someone at the Colorado Green Party managed to snag the cover letter to the elusive Bob Schaffer poll. Those who want to look at the numbers can go to this pdf document. In big picture terms:

The contest is tight-within the margin of error if there is a Green candidate and just outside it if there is not.
The results follow traditional political lines.
The voters would prefer a generic Democrat, but would also prefer a conservative over a liberal.
Hillary will be a drag, big time.
Schaffer is stronger in his Fort Collins base than Udall is in Boulder.
Three out of five think Udall is a liberal.

That is a set of conclusions that shouldn't give the Mark Udall camp a lot of comfort.

Schaffer: "There is no independent outsider...on the Democratic side"

(Ssshhh. Don't tell the liberal activists and fundraisers about this post. We want them to keep the Udall campaign on cruise control a little while longer.)

In the course of his recent 5-minute interview with The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer made quite a simple and profound observation about his looming race: "What's different in '08 is there is no independent outsider running for the United States Senate on the Democratic side."

The conventional wisdom (repeated so often in the Nutroots, that you'd think it was a talisman) has been that Boulder liberal Mark Udall will ride a magic carpet of Blue State momentum to a sweeping victory. But Schaffer is right: Udall can in no way credibly run for office as Ken Salazar did in 2004 or as Bill Ritter did in 2006.

And so, when Cillizza's Washington Post political blog today released its weekly rankings of the U.S. Senate seats most likely to switch party control in 2008, for the first time in a long time Colorado fell from the top of the list. Apparently, Cillizza found Schaffer quite persuasive, among other factors he noted in consideration of dropping Colorado from number 1 to number 3.

3. Colorado (R): The open seat race between Rep. Mark Udall (D) and former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R) drops two slots this month but the fundamental dynamic of the race remains unaltered. Republicans are already beginning to paint Udall as a "Boulder liberal" while Democrats are making the counter argument that Schaffer is far more conservative than the average Colorado voter. Having huddled with Schaffer earlier this week, we came away impressed by his plainspokeness and his -- to our mind -- smart strategic plan to run as a reform-minded candidate. Republicans are pushing back hard on the idea that this race is Udall's to lose. Schaffer's campaign released a poll that showed him trailing Udall by just two points in a three-way race. And they make the argument that the Democrats who have been elected in the last few years have run as conservatives, putting to lie the idea that the state had fundamentally changed its ideological underpinnings.(Previous ranking: 1)

Yes, you heard it from the Washington Post, that long-standing bastion of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Mark Udall, A Sure Winner

Once again, we are getting a recommendation from the left that people thinking about donating to Mark Udall consider putting their money on more competitive races:

In Colorado, Wayne Allard is retiring, and the seat is all but Mark Udall's to take (he's the son of Democratic icon Mo Udall). To boot, the Democratic National Convention will be held in Denver, so Udall's campaign will get an immediate jump-start by being seen with the next President early and often.

Lefty Activist Breaks Rank, Sours on Glowing Projections of Udall Victory

Some thoughtful comments from a reliably liberal Colorado political activist named Jeff Bridges (no, not this guy) have challenged the conventional wisdom on the state's 2008 Senate race:

Pundits across the country have named Colorado's U.S. Senate seat the most likely to switch parties from Republican to Democrat in 2008. I'm not quite convinced.

Republican Sen. Wayne Allard is retiring, and folks in DC believe that five-term Congressman Mark Udall from Eldorado Springs will handily defeat his ultra-conservative opponent, former 4th District Congressman Bob Schaffer....

So they say in DC. I think they're wrong, and Udall's folks have a very nasty and very tough fight ahead of them....

Read the entire post to grasp the logic of his argument. Interestingly, the comments have stirred up efforts from within the "progressive" blogger community to stymie the dissent from their prevailing optimism about Boulder liberal Mark Udall's likely chances to win a statewide contest. (Skip down to the comment section of this diary.)

Bloggers at Schaffer v Udall have been hoping the Left would leave the rose-colored glasses on indefinitely, continuing to overestimate the strengths of their candidate and the weaknesses of ours (continuing to label Schaffer as "ultra-conservative" is one form of denial that's a sure sign of the writer's own leftward political leanings). Perhaps Mr. Bridges' contrarian insights will rouse his comrades into action. Then again, we hope they don't.

Hold the Contributions!

Swing State Project, a far left blog, makes the following claim:

Colorado- Open Seat- State trends Democratic. Democrats have to formidable candidate- Mark Udall. Republicans have a weak candidate. Bob Schaefer.

Their view appears to be that the Colorado campaign is over.

Democrat contributors should consider diverting campaign contributions to other, less lopsided races where the Democrat candidates are only "credible" and who are running in states that aren't "trending Democrat."

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.

Rothenberg Calls Colorado a Battleground State

No suprise there. Provided as background.

8 for '08: Battleground States to Watch