CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
December 10, 2014 06:27 AM UTC
31 Comments
Both the nominal Chairmen to the Democratic Party campaign committees have now absolved themselves (quite conveniently) of all responsibility for the horrible campaign and results:
Steve Israel, DCCC Chair:
And Colorado's Favorite Son in the Senate, Michael Bennet, DSCC Chair:
Ah ha! It was the President's fault for not being on the ballot, or something.
Because Bennet asked for their permission up front. Maybe he told them it was a "no show" job.
Simple: By losing.
Because being Bipartisan with the most partisan, obstructionist, irrational, anti-intellectual Republican Party in years should be the foremost goal. Not.
Israel and Bennet are happy with the jobs they did. The Professional Left gave them a pass. And the Democratic Party, at this point at least, has learned nothing from the election we were just subjected to by their best and brightest political leaders.
I respectfully disagree. Based on my experience over the past 40 years every time one party has a bad election, that party looks inward and blames those running the party when they had virtually nothing to do with how an individual candidate ran their campaigns. The DNC, the DSCC and DCCC did not run Senator Udall's campaign or Mr. Romanoff's campaign. Voters don't see the name of the various committees on the ballot. They see candidates names and they vote for one or the other based on how that individual presented themselves or how their opponent defined them. When a candidate looks in the mirror the morning after the election, he or she is looking at the reason why they won or lost. Party officials get credit for nothing and get blamed for everything even though they have very little say or control about who is nominated or how individual candidates conduct themselves. Except for raising money Sen. Bennet and Congressman Israel are not in control of much and therefore can't be blamed for our loses.
The one mistake most of the campaigns made this year was allowing Republicans to define them. By running away from President Obama, instead of standing up for his policies, they remained virtually silent and allowed the other side to define who the President is and who, in turn, they are. When I ran campaigns one of the cardinal rules of engagement was never, never , never allow the opposing campaign to define the candidate we were working for. In mid-term elections there are risks in standing-up for the administration but, if a candidate doesn't, they to a large extent loose control of their image with the voters which is always the wrong place to be.
Blaming Sen. Bennet and Congressman Israel misses the point. I thank them for taking on what is always a thankless job.
Bennet was specifically given that job to help Udall win. He didn't. Yes, the were many other factors, but there was definitely more that could've been done, by definition and by analysis. Bennet doesn't want responsibility now; he shouldn't have taken the job then.
Except, well, maybe the smell of the money was just too good to ignore.
Machiavelli wonders — "in what ways might it have been in Bennet's personal best interest for Mark Udall to lose (or, alternately, for cory gardner to win)" . . . ??
. . . that guy is a a prince, huh?
What specifically did Sen. Bennet fail to do for Sen. Udall? What acts could he have done or undertaken to win the campaign for Sen. Udall that he failed to do?
According to MB there was nothing more that could have been done. I respectfully disagree with Bennet on that. It's quite obvious, thought, that he has made sure the message got out that he takes no responsibility for this.
I'll say one thing Bennet and Udall could have done was not playing the losing triangulation game at the outset of Obama's presidency:
Blue Dogs and their pack are distinctly on the verge of extinction these days. Centrism and Bipartisanship are more dangerous but just as endangered, and Democrats are idiots for negotiating with anyone in today's Republican Party.
I'm not trying to be hard about this but what specifically should Senator Bennet done differently or that he failed to do as chair of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee that would have won the election for Senator Udall?
What Senator Bennet failed to do was have a wining message. Corporate, conservative, non-populist, running away from the economic issues relevant to lower income people, running away from Obama–all losers. Bennet directed candidates toward that and gathered funding but not votes. Did each candidate have a responsibility for his or her own campaign? Sure. But the direction from the top was wrong. It is Bennet's own neck next if he has not learned that lesson.
Candidates choose their message not the chair of the DSCC. For example, Senator Shaheen (D-NH) ran for reelection on a platform, in part, based on her support of President Obama's policies. If Sen. Bennet actually had the control over campaigns that your comment assumes, then he would have stopped Sen. Shaheen from running on the platform she did. Again, I'm not trying to be a hard ass about this but blaming Sen. Bennet for Sen. Udall's lose is far fetched. I just don't see any hard facts or evidence to support such a viewpoint.
I don't believe the money from Bennet's operation and the other national rainmakers came without some influence. Most candidates ran the way Udall did–as the rainmakers were pushing them. Shaheen was one of the few (unfortunately, few) who pushed back against that. Udall did not, and, yes, he is responsible for his failure. But Bennet's job was to elect Democratic Senators, and he has to take some level of responsibility for failing to do that.
You sound like you'd be a tough boss . . .
. . . not willing to buy that, "Sure I oversaw abysmal results, but I tried hard; and, really it's everyone else's fault"???
"It is Bennet's own neck next if he has not learned that lesson."
That sentence is 7 words too long. (Ed.)
Bingo R36 on not letting opposition define you. I do think the DSC , etc, have some say in forming the talking points and priorities for campaigns, but what do I know?
I am equally hated by the Republican and Democratic party chairpersons in Pueblo, for similar reasons, both having to do with telling the truth as I saw it. I think that there is a willful blindness and unwillingness to listen to alternate points of view, which comes with being in charge of a political party in a given locale.
Maybe they just allocate monies. Money isn't speech, but it sure makes speech reach further.
Thank you MJ55.
As I mentioned a moment ago above, Sen. Shaheen ran for reelection in New Hampshire and proudly talked about her part in passing Obamacare and her support of other administration policies and she won, in part, I think because she looked like a stand-up person who the voters could trust. Blaming Sen. Bennet for Sen. Udall's lose or for any of the other senate seats lost is unsupported by the evidence. If the chair of the DSCC really had that much control over the message candidates utilized in their campaigns, Sen. Shaheen would have campaigned with the message she did.
This would have been risky but if I would have been the President a year ago and my political advisors told me I was a liability to the democrats running in 2014, I would have ordered them to come up with a political plan to change that which of course would have meant the President campaigning coast-to-coast, but at least we would have tried. It certainly would have fired-up the base and probably enhanced Democratic turnout. Laying back and letting the Republicans define the President and then hitting Democratic candidates over the head with that image was exactly the wrong approach. Failing to counter that image really cost us some seats that could have probably been won. But again, that's not Sen. Bennet's fault. As DSCC chair, he doesn't have the power to decide what message a specific candidate will utilize. The candidates and their campaign advisors make those choices. I believe Sen. Shaheen and her advisors got it right. Others did not.
"would not have" instead of "would have"
Don't agree. These aren't just a bunch of individual campaigns. There is definitely pressure for candidates to stress certain yhi things and stay away from certain things in their campaigns. All the Dems in competitive districts ran similar lousy campaigns steering clear of anything that would have connected them with Obama which caused them to steer clear of all the economic success they could have used in their campaigns. They were obviously steered away fro looking partisan so they all avoided pointing to failures of R economic policy everywhere where Rs were in complete control. So we never got a single ad contrasting Dem controlled Colorado success with R controlled abject failure next door in Kansas.
They stayed away from talking about raising minimum wage even though it polls so well because they were supposed to sound closer to Rs on economics. These elements were pervasive. Not much was unique to individual campaigns outside of a few regional issues. The decision was, everybody should distance themselves as much possible from Obama even if that meant saying nothing about economic success, sound as Republican lite as possible on economic and tax issues even though that meant not pointing to the failures of GOTP voodoo economics and focus on winning women by harping on choice and the threat of personhood because women only care about lady parts stuff.
That said, Bennet's job was primarily fund raising not strategy. He's a proven big bucks raiser. Enough money was supposed to do the trick. It didn't because it was spent on terrible messaging. You could have poured all the money in the world down the toilet of the chosen collection of approved Dem messages and it wouldn't have helped. In fact we did just fine on the money front. Bennet did his job. Bennet raised the money he was supposed to raise.
The strategists whose job it was to spend that money to get Dems elected must shoulder the lion's share of the blame. For starters, whoever it was who convinced Dems that Obama should delay taking action on immigration reform, thus throwing away a golden opportunity to energize the Hispanic vote , perhaps to presidential year levels, in states like Colorado, needs to never be given the chance to run a Dem campaign.
This ^^^^ everyone — right here. +1
Agree, agree.
DC Dems: Every election loss is a reason to move further to the right.
Can't win for winning, can't win for losing.
Zapp, Please get behind the moveon.org draft Fauxcahontus movement. She is just what the Dems need in 2016.
You do not live in a Marxist workers paradise. But if you can take over the Dem party and try to sell that paradise in 2016, please do.
Unfortunately, AC, I can't just tune you out on my work computer. "Fauxcahontus"? Seriously?
Pols, can we PLEASE get this racist tool banned, at least temporarily?
That personal attack on Warren really helped save Scott Brown’s ass in ’12, didn’t it.
It's not racist, it's accurate.
It's neither. It's stupid and irrelevant and grasping at straws.
Fuck you, white man.
Yo, Zapp:
Sen. Mark Udall, Discussing Secret CIA Report, Calls for Director's Resignation – NationalJournal.com
Here's something interesting:
oops. Here's lin for more:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/10/thinkbigus-policies_n_6298844.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
That would be link. Bye!
To all of the civil discussions above, -past recriminations The pendulum swings back the other way in 2016. Rs cant govern only stall & spin. Meanwhile, off shoring of taxes by Koch, Disney, SKYPE, to name a few doing biz out of a PO box and one shared staffer.
Lux-leak by real Euro journalists !link to above