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June 28, 2010 12:09 AM UTC

Inside Jane Norton's Looming Defeat

  • 25 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

When Jane Norton entered the U.S. Senate race last fall, everyone–from fearful Democrats to local Republicans irate about other candidates being shoved aside by Washington D.C. insiders–believed it was a game-changing moment, and that Norton would almost certainly emerge as the GOP nominee. With a long resume of favored appointments, and the backing of John McCain’s formidable nationwide campaign apparatus (not to mention help from the National Republican Senatorial Committee), Norton represented, to Democrats and her GOP challengers alike, their gravest threat.

Nine months later, Norton is trailing badly to upstart Ken Buck in GOP primary polls, Democrats are scrambling to adjust fire to Buck, and Norton’s campaign is a shrill chorus of over-the-top negativity–against both Buck and “the liberals.” Her recent “War on Islam” online ad campaign has taken much of the air out of the room that might be otherwise available for discussion of recent negative stories about Buck. But as our friends at National Journal’s Hotline report today, 9/11, more than the economy or Ken Buck, really is what Norton’s campaign wants to talk about:


Ex-CO LG Jane Norton (R) is promoting a hawkish stand on national security issues in an attempt to tap into a base vote that has gone overlooked amid a weak economy.

“Barack Obama’s retreatist tactics in fighting the War on Terror suggest a President more concerned with political correctness than with defeating the radicals, jihadists and terrorists who hate America and would harm us and our allies,” Norton writes on her website…

And though polls show voters care most about jobs and the economy, Norton’s team believes they benefit by changing the subject.

“We’re really trying to drive the conversation to discussion about the issues and how they’d govern,” said Josh Penry, Norton’s campaign manager. “These are questions that come up a lot. Jane’s opponent in the primary has been very much a generalist and approaches issues from a 30,000-foot level.”

An accompanying web video makes reference to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, featuring the sounds of a jet plane over a blank screen…

“In a very real way, we’re picking a fight with the left, because they’re wrong both on trying to change the vernacular and they’re wrong on the substance of policy,” he said. “We knew we were going to get flak from the left, and frankly, welcome it.”

Here’s the thing: it’s not that getting lefties up in arms is, in itself, a bad idea for firing up the right-wing base in kind, although Norton’s campaign may not have accounted for how broadly repugnant the actual content of this ad would be considered. If you’re going to take a controversial position, putting in a direct inference to something as universally condemnable as a “war on Islam” makes it almost certain that whole effort will backfire.

The real problem is how Norton’s lurch to the right–which seems to have accelerated and formalized since Josh Penry took over as campaign manager in April–looks in the context of a campaign that otherwise has been a bumbling disaster, with an uninspiring message and an inarticulate stuffed suit of a candidate failing to win her base. Penry certainly knows how to go hard negative, as he’s proven in his time as Minority Leader in the state senate. The problem is that Norton has gone so sweepingly negative, and so stridently right-wing, as to inspire skepticism about everything she says–even the things that may be legitimate.

It all begins to reek of simple desperation, and that becomes the sidebar of every story.

It’s not the way it had to be: we just don’t think many of the parallels to “Tea Party” victories in other states had to play out the same way in Colorado. Colorado Republicans might well have warmed to Norton over time if she had not tried so hard to reinvent herself into this reactionary caricature, which everyone knows she would not have affected but for the rebellion against her on the right. Norton was expected to be a Bill Owens-model moderate, which would have been the better general election candidate–possibly, had it happened differently, more than a match for Michael Bennet. That’s the Jane Norton Democrats were afraid they would face this November.

But the last nine months of Norton’s pandering to the fringe right, reaching its crescendo with her broadly offensive “war on Islam” ad, have destroyed her ability to campaign as a wide-appeal moderate in the general election. Unbelievably, “Tea Party” favorite Buck is in a more general election-credible spot right now than Norton, if only because nobody thought Buck merited a “tracker” during the primary–we expect that’s changing. Either way, Norton can’t put all these wacky things she has asserted and called for on camera back in the bottle. And she has failed in her goal of winning the base votes she sought to attract with this stuff–she was too far alienated from them to have it considered believable, and she has only fallen further behind in the polls.

It’s a situation both similar to and different from the GOP Senate primary in Nevada, where the would-be frontrunner Sue Lowden lost to “Tea Party” favorite Sharron Angle. Lowden had on-camera gaffes that called into question her qualifications (like Norton, her supposed best asset)–but Angle is a toxic victor the GOP must hide all the way to November, lest the general election voters discover how crazy she truly is. Norton has the worst of both: credibility problems that endanger her in the primary, and the body of fringy statements that would harm her after.

It’s not the end, of course. Nobody is willing to say that Norton is finished, and her strategy since abandoning the assemblies of reaching out to inactive and low-information GOP primary voters could certainly work: there remains the matter of Norton’s considerable cash on hand versus Buck’s weak fundraising (offset by those deep-pocketed “independent interests,” of course).

But if we do wake up on August 11th, and are compelled by events of the previous evening to write Jane Norton’s political epitaph, we’re going to start with the worst decision Norton made, and Josh Penry doubled down on. A contrived play that failed to resonate with the primary voters she needed, and cost her the biggest thing she had going for her once the primary was over.

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25 thoughts on “Inside Jane Norton’s Looming Defeat”

  1. In large part because Buck is just as crazy as Sharron Angle. He might win this primary, but he is completely unelectable in the general. He is way too extreme for Colorado.

    1. There was a nice interview of Buck which was published on Friday in the Colorado Statesman that I think will give you a better feel.  Buck will beat Bennet by 5 or 6% in the general election.  The interview will give you a feel why.

      http://www.coloradostatesman.c…

      When all is said and done, Buck is a conservative likeable candidate who will be the Republican candidate for US Senate.  

      The Colorado Democratic base is down in numbers (33% of registered voters) and down in spirit. There is a strong conservative/Tea Party revolt going on in Colorado with 33% of Colorado voters indicating their support of and/or identify with the Tea Party.  The Democrats will nominate Bennet who has never run for office and lost every popularity poll, except for Bill Ritter’s.  The big picture issues will be very difficult for Bennet to overcome.

  2. …Lt Governor Norton has never run for office before, really – her placements as State Rep and Lt Governor were appointed, not elected, thus, this is really the first time she has ever run for office….

    With that said…

    (*in my John Goodman voice from The Big Lebowski*)

    “Do you see what happens??? Do you see what happens when you run a first time candidate for US Senate!?!?!”

    (*golf club hitting a car window*)

    2. I’m not sure Buck is the answer to your prayers either.  At least as far as Real People and ethics are concerned.

      Your mileage, might, of course, vary.  After all, your mommy and daddy are rich enough that you have no connection whatsoever to Real People.

  3. Jane Norton has a lot of cash and access to more.

    She has a potentially potent issue in Ken Buck’s outrageously unethical conduct while he was in the US Attorney’s Office.

    Buck is the favorite today but that could change in a hurry quick.

  4. Is she doesn’t stand for anything. She made it very clear she’ll support whatever best gets her elected. And I think while that worked well 10 years ago, it rarely succeeds now. It’s really sort of sad, someone willing to do and say anything to get elected – and being beat for offering everyone exactly what they want to hear.

      1. It’s serving McInnis in the primary – but you can’t say it’s doing well for him as Maes is still a credible contender. As to Hick, each time he tries that he has to backpedal.

        It will always be done to some extent. But I sure don’t see any examples of say anything working well this round.

    2. has traveled the state county by county listening to the issues that are on people’s minds. If you watch and listen to his interviews, you quickly see that he will be the most formidable candidate in the fall. Jane Norton is using traditional Republican buzzwords and catchphrases but she is hopelessly out of touch.

      1. on Denver Post and on pols.  I know Norton is not a favorite candidate on here, but I wouldn’t be so quick to favorite Buck either.

          1. Since both of those were pretty much irrelevant to my posting. Just because Jane has not been what you would consider a positive candidate, does not mean things will not change these next few months when both candidates get more competitive.  Besides, you shouldn’t be choosing how you will vote for someone based off of how negative or how positive they are.  It should really be on their views and policies they would want to enact.  

            1. I would never vote for Holtzman, and Jane Norton has become a Holtzman. As long as people vote for that dirt, it will continue to happen. Eventually, candidates will learn to stop spreading the pond scum.  Do you wonder if Holtzman is her adviser?

  6. but I think you’re still viewing this through a traditional lens in a non-traditional year. With the poll showing that 1 in 3 Coloradans identifies with the Tea Party, the highest percentage in any state (higher even than Kentucky, where Rand Paul trounced Grayson), I don’t think you can discount the influence of the liberty movement and grassroots conservatives. For the first time in a long while, libertarians, unaffiliateds, etc. have united with conservatives to take back country. These are the middle of the road voters, many of whom used to be Republican but grew disenchanted with the Party in recent years.

    And why do you persist in putting “independent interests” in quotes? Do you just take Norton at her word or do you have some proof of collusion? You won’t find any, because there is none.

    1. but thus far they are not drawing in very many disaffected Republicans. Most of the hard core support is from registered Republicans. After the Democratic surge here in Colorado between 2004 – 2008, the Republican Party saw its once massive 180,000 registration lead evaporate. Since the Democrat’s high tide, their registration has fallen 1.19% and Republican registration has continued to decline too (If I remember correctly about .35%). I would disagree with you that the movement represents the “middle of the roaders.” That group is disillusioned with both parties and is taking a wait and see attitude.

      In the long run (defined as beyond this November), to be successful, the “Tea Party” movement is going to have to articulate a broader agenda than just cutting deficits and regulations.  

    2. the Tea Party.

        I know math isn’t your strong suit, J&B.  but while a one-third hard-right faction could well win a Republican primary, the Tea Party banner should prove toxic in a general election.

        1. That facty, truthy, obviousy stuff never seems to bother J&B.  (That’s my new nickname for him, since a bottle of Scotch seems to be the only place he goes for research;-)

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