It should perhaps come as no surprise that Rep. Debbie Staffordannounced yesterday that she was switching parties from Republican to Democrat if you consider the move in a recent historical context.
As Stafford said in her remarks yesterday, the Republican Party does not well tolerate moderates:
I considered my options. Ideally, I find myself a moderate and would be best suited for a third party. However, the reality that our political system is not designed for a third party voice to be strong, my answer was to join a party that better reflects my values and respects my contribution.
Like many others in Colorado who want to balance the role of government, who want to protect business yet show compassion for those less fortunate, who want to stand up for citizens who have been lost in bureaucracy, I find that I am in the middle of the political spectrum.
I will spend my last year as an elected official serving the constituents that elected me to public office. My ability to affect change for my constituents and the state of Colorado has been impacted by the fact that I am a moderate.
Like many others in Colorado, I feel this way:
I am not leaving the Republican Party as much as the Republican Party left me.
No one pushed me or pulled me: I decided it was time to place myself, and my self-respect, with the Democratic Party.
Former moderate Republican Mark Larson was the first to publicly highlight the Republicans' intolerance of moderate voices when he abruptly walked away from a state Senate race that he almost certainly would have won. As it was reported in early 2006:
Recent sniping between state and local Republican power brokers is exposing a bitter rift in the party, as GOP officials struggle to replace state Rep. Mark Larson in the 6th District state Senate race...
On Monday, conservatives, rankled by the maverick lawmaker's history of bucking the party line, responded with guarded glee. But disenchanted moderates lashed out at local party brass and close-knit GOP leaders, who Larson said are cloistered in the right-wing power center of Colorado Springs.
Larson may have been the most vocal, but he was not the first Republican to be cannibalized by their own party. Ramey Johnson lost her general election race in 2004 when a group led by Bob Schaffer and Alex Cranberg attacked her because she wasn't strong enough on school vouchers. Months later, the ultra-conservative Republican Study Committee of Colorado promoted itself as a group dedicated to purging the GOP Statehouse of those who aren't true to the party's "core values."
The Denver Post outlined this rift in greater detail in January 2006, but apparently another bad defeat at the polls last November hasn't swayed Republicans from the idea that there is only one "true" Republican. Unfortunately for the GOP, "true" Republicans aren't winning a lot of races these days.
When fundraising numbers for Colorado's U.S. Senate candidates were all announced earlier this week, it continued a rabid conversation about what individual reporting numbers mean for each campaign. Less discussed, but no less important, is whether or not each campaign is raising enough money just to keep the lights on.
As we've said before, fundraising reports are normally a reliable indicator of potential electoral success, because most large donors (people that give at least $500 to a candidate) write checks to the candidate that they believe is most likely to win.
But the other reason that fundraising is so important is for very fundamental purposes: You need a lot of money to both support a statewide campaign and to get your mug on television. It's no secret that the candidate who does best on TV is often the candidate who ends up winning the election, so an effective campaign has to be able to pay for its day-to-day operations while also saving as much as possible (70-80% is a general rule of thumb) for television.
Obviously, a U.S. Senate race is a costly affair. In 2008, Democrat Mark Udall outspent Republican Bob Schaffer $11.7 million to $7.4 million. Now that the fundraising reports for the 2010 batch of Senate candidates are available, we thought it would make sense to look at just how much money they are going to need just to fund their campaign. The answers tell us a lot about which candidates are in a position to win, and which are just treading water right now.
Now that 2010 is here (and most of you are back to work after the holidays), it's time to take our look back on the decade that was.
We asked your opinions on what the Oughts Brought, and now it's time to start revealing the winners. We'll be here with this all week, folks, so check back for more categories every day.
Best/Worst Politician and Best/Worst Campaign awards after the jump.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will cease television advertising in Colorado by Tuesday, according to state Democratic sources, a signal that the national candidate committee believes U.S. Rep. Mark Udall is comfortably ahead of former congressman Bob Schaffer in the race for Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat.
The DSCC instead will put its resources into competitive races elsewhere as the party tries to secure a filibuster-proof, 60-seat majority.
In polls released last week, Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, had opened up double-digit leads over Schaffer, apparently helped along by the recent financial meltdown.
Hey, maybe the NRCC is pulling out of CD-4 because it thinks Marilyn Musgrave is a lock, too. Just not the same kind of lock.
--Cross post from Progress Now Action, from the New Environment Colorado reports
Coloradans deserve clean water. But Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and Bob Schaffer have consistently taken the side of polluters in opposing stronger protections for our waterways.
Republican sources in Colorado and Washington say that the National Republican Senatorial Committee plans to pull out of the state by next week, an acknowledgment that its independent expenditure resources would be better spent on defense elsewhere.
Earlier this week, the NRSC withdrew its advertising from the Louisiana Senate race.
The NRSC is still helping Roger Wicker in Mississippi and incumbents Norm Coleman in Minnesota, John Sununu in New Hampshire.
AN NRSC spokesperson said that advertising decisions are made on a week-to-week basis and declined to comment further.
A spokesperson for the state party said that the ads were running in the state on Friday.
Human life needs to be protected at every stage, beginning at the single-cell stage.
Colorado's Personhood Amendment (Amendment 48), which defines life as beginning at fertilization, goes to voters in November.
"A founding principle of Focus on the Family - and a driving belief of Dr. Dobson's - is that all human life is sacred and that life begins at the single-cell stage of human development," said Carrie Gordon Earll, senior bioethics analyst at Focus on the Family Action. "Amendment 48 articulates this belief and challenges us to declare the inestimable worth of all members of the human family.
It's been a challenging (non) campaign for old Bob Schaffer, what with looming indictments, forced abortions, Jack, and Mt. Macaca.
But even a candidate without any (stated) position, who once helped someone else do something about earmarks (maybe) and piss-poor geography skills, still needs a campaign slogan.
For those unable to attend the Republican convention (or those in attendance who want to relive it), here's Bob Schaffer's acceptance speech. Posted on Slapstick Politics
This is the first half. Part 2 is after the jump.
UPDATED TO ADD: Mark Udall released a new 30-second TV spot about "a better way to protect America," which began airing today. It's also after the jump.
Bob Schaffer's ties to Bill Orr, convicted yesterday in a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud the federal government, spent the night as the lead stories on Talking Points Memo and its sister site, TPM Muckraker. But at home in Colorado, news outlets paint a different picture, perhaps a result of what Colorado Pols reported last week:
... Dick Wadhams has gone even further than usual in trying to persuade news outlets to ignore the story, going over the heads of reporters directly to managing editors in a preemptive attempt to keep it from exploding into yet another damaging scandal.
Denver Post business columnist Al Lewis lumps Schaffer with Orr's other victims, in an attempt to wring sympathy for the former congressman, who trusted friends and political associates a little too much.
Any penny-ante huckster can con a few suckers with a fuel-additive scam.
William Orr conned Congress.
He also shafted Bob Schaffer, GOP candidate for Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat.
Lewis goes on to recount details from Orr's trial, including the defense theory that the Feds were out to get him because he dared sue the EPA over other, unrelated fuel testing requirements. Returning to Schaffer, Lewis lays blame squarely at the foot of Schaffer's trusting nature:
Schaffer, who served on the board of Orr's congressionally funded National Alternative Fuels Foundation, is not saying a peep.
His spokesman, Dick Wadhams, said Schaffer was not paid for his nearly six months of service beginning in October 1994.
"As soon as he was alerted to the problems, he resigned from the board," Wadhams said.
Schaffer joined the board at the behest of his longtime political associate Scott Shires, a notable GOP operative.
Shires pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in the case. His sentencing is slated for June 23. He faces up to a year in prison and a $25,000 fine.
If Schaffer and the members of Congress who put up the $3.6 million earmark are indeed Orr's victims, it's hard to imagine how they could be such easy marks.
Lewis continues, other reporters weigh in (or not), and there's a poll after the jump.
Republican Party Chair Dick Wadhams is really mad that he can't get the press to do his bidding, so he's resorted to bullying and threats in hopes of getting the media to pretend his candidate for Senate, Bob Schaffer, doesn't have any warts at all. Wadhams and Schaffer shamelessly attacked and belittled a blog reporter a few weeks ago, and Wadhams just recently did the same thing to a reporter for The Grand Junction Sentinel.
Newspaper editors and political reporters don't need a calendar to tell them that it's an even-numbered year. Even-numbered years are election years. We can tell that because those are the years when we get complaints from politicians and their handlers. It's as predictable as Rick Wagner staking out a position to the right of just about everybody else.
We got a couple this week, and I think they are instructive. One was nothing more than a political handler trying to bully a reporter, the other a legitimate question about why we failed to do something. One was ugly, the other a genuine discussion between people who saw the same thing differently.
First the ugly.
Early in the week Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall proposed the government quit stockpiling gas in the strategic petroleum reserve.
Reporter Mike Saccone, as any good reporter would do, called Udall's opponent to get a response. Republican Bob Schaffer is very seldom available. He called Dick Wadhams, Schaffer's campaign manager. I don't think he ever even got to tell Wadhams why he was calling. The minute Wadhams got on the phone he launched into Mike, telling him he was a biased reporter, that he's taken cheap shots at Schaffer and asking when we were going to do the same thing to Udall. I listened to the tape of the conversation. Mike seldom got to complete a question. Every time he tried Wadhams interrupted with yet another complaint about Mike and/or our coverage. He did manage to ask Wadhams for specific instances of biased reporting or cheap shots and Wadhams provided none.
The exchange was amusing. I don't know what Wadhams was trying to accomplish other than to try to get our reporter to go easier on his candidate in future stories. Whatever it was it will have no effect whatsoever on how we cover the Senate race. We'll continue to cover it as completely and fairly as possible.
This has always been a part of Wadhams' repertoire - to attack reporters either directly or through a surrogate in attempts to shame them into reporting more on his opponent than on his own candidate. It worked well when he did it through the use of bloggers in the 2004 South Dakota defeat of Tom Daschle, but it doesn't appear to be working in Colorado, where conservative blogs don't really have the reach or the respectability that they may have had in other states.
There's a fine line between strategy and flat-out rude bullying, and Wadhams has definitely crossed that line. Here's hoping reporters around the state don't fall into the trap of Wadhams' intentional belittling and end up turning over their lunch money to him.
Jeremy Pelzer of PolitickerCO.com interviewed Bob Schaffer and Dick Wadhams last week and almost immediately hit a roadblock when he asked Schaffer about the Marianas controversy.
Schaffer: Why don't you take the opportunity to substantiate your comment just now?
PolitickerCO: Sure, sure. This is just -well, what is your take on the controversy? Why don't you fill me in?
Schaffer: Why don't you describe the controversy?
PolitickerCO: The controversy?
Schaffer: Yeah.
PolitickerCO: Well, just what's been in the papers, and there's a whole series of things - and I'm not asking you so much to talk about the controversy itself, but how's it's played out and what the reaction's been in the media and -- that's what I'm going for.
Schaffer: Well, the Denver Post has a hard time arriving at a factual and truthful representation of a 1998 event (Editor's Note: Schaffer visited the Marianas in August of 1999). And that probably causes controversy for the Denver Post. Maybe you should take it up with them.
PolitickerCO: Just trying to get your take on it. Just trying to get your take on it.
Schaffer: I'm not sure what "it" is. I'm asking you to describe that.
A post on a GJ Sentinel blog today, that will likely be published as a letter-to-the-editor, claims that GOP candidate Bob Schaffer is right on the issues:
This is another case of Bob Schaffer, our next senator from Colorado, being on the correct side of an important issue.
Bob is very articulate and very knowledgeable on the issues. Bob knows our Constitution and our history as a nation.
Being the curious sort, I thought to research this myself. How 'right' is Bob? Answers after the jump...
An anti-abortion group is blasting Bob Schaffer, Republican candidate for a Colorado U.S. Senate seat, over his defense of human rights conditions in the Northern Mariana islands, an American territory where allegations that factory workers must undergo forced abortions are common.
Colorado Right to Life accused Schaffer of closing his eyes to reports from Chinese workers on the islands about forced abortions.
"The pro-life movement will no longer give a pass to candidates like Bob Schaffer who look the other way when Chinese women are forced to abort their children," said Steve Curtis, spokesman for the group and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.
"At best Schaffer was negligent investigating coerced abortion in the Mariana Islands," he said. "Worse, he has voted for permanent normal trade relations with China, rewarding the regime that forces women to abort their children."
Schaffer, who visited the Marianas in 1999 while in Congress, said allegations of forced abortions were among the things he looked into on that trip.
"I absolutely did not look the other way on this issue," Schaffer said, saying he interviewed "dozens" of workers and met with local religious leaders about the topic.
A 1998 report by the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs found squalid living conditions for foreign workers in the Marianas.
A statement given to investigators from a Chinese woman showed what happened to workers who got pregnant.
"According to Miss Y, if the company found out a worker became pregnant, they would fire her and return her to China where she would be 'forced to have an abortion.' Knowing this, workers who became pregnant either tried to self abort or find someone in Saipan to perform the abortion. Some women ran away and hid so they didn't have to have an abortion."
"I found the reports credible," Schaffer said. "I've not seen them refuted."
Schaffer said during his visit he tried to determine how often abortions occurred.
"In five days, I did not observe a forced abortion or meet anybody who had any knowledge of them," he said, adding that no subsequent examples were ever brought to him.
You've got to love that last quote: "I did not observe a forced abortion." Really, Bob? Nobody did a forced abortion in front of you? Well, then, if you didn't see it with your own eyes, it must not have happened, then. This response is Schaffer's weakest yet, probably because his own conservative base is now the one leveling the hard questions.
It was only a matter of time before social conservatives took notice of the Schaffer/Abramoff scandal's obvious and troubling implications for them. If anything, continued silence on the matter would have opened groups like Colorado Right to Life to accusations of turning a partisan blind eye on an issue that couldn't be more central to their mandate.
Democrat Mark Udall today announced that he had raised a campaign-record $1.45 million for his Senate campaign in Q1, leaving him with $4,236,532 cash-on-hand.
johne at SquareState has a new diary up that, I think, truly ends Bob Schaffer's Senate campaign.
It includes documentation of a one hour meeting between staffers of Jack Abramoff and Schaffer's staff. If this is not refuted it is a pretty clear argument that Schaffer knew Abramoff.
It also has a horribly heartbreaking memo about a 15 year old girl forced to perform in a nightly sex show for ten months. This is going to make people recoil at the thought of Schaffer.
Again please go here for the whole piece. The documents are killer. With each day we see Schaffer being brought closer and closer to Abramoff
How bad are things for Bob? A Technorati search shows no blogs defending him. None. Control of the Senate could come down to this seat and the right-wing blogosphere is the dog that didn't bark in their silence.
And for those that think Bob Schaffer can still win click here.
And the bad news keeps on coming for Bob. What's amazing is there is no real damage control coming from the Schaffer campaign. Their whole approach seems to be refuse to talk about it and it'll go away.
That approach worked so well for Allen's "Macaca moment" that I can see why Dick Wadhams is choosing to follow the same playbook here. (Do you get the feeling that instead of a playbook Wadhams may just have a playsheet?)
Major update below In addition, Bob you can clear this up a lot if you would please answer 3 basic questions about this.
Just before boarding a plane to the Mariana Islands in 1999, then-Congressman Bob Schaffer announced he was embarking on a fact-finding mission to get to the bottom of repeated allegations of labor abuse in the American protectorate.
"I plan to walk right into those factories and living quarters to see for myself what conditions exist," Schaffer said in a news release in August of that year.
What he didn't say was that the trip was partly arranged by the firm of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who represented textile factory owners fighting congressional efforts to reform labor and immigration laws on the islands and who was being handsomely paid to keep the islands' cherished exemptions.
Schaffer and his wife stayed for free at a palm-studded beach resort and, besides factories, also toured historical sites and met with clients of Preston-Gates, Abramoff's firm, according to a copy of the trip's agenda archived in Schaffer's congressional papers.
He left believing that allegations of widespread abuse were largely unfounded - blaming them on Big Labor's efforts to shut down a booming textile industry allowed to use the "Made in USA" label but dependent on tens of thousands of imported workers.
In a recent interview with The Denver Post, the Republican candidate for Colorado's open Senate seat described the protectorate's guest-worker program as a "model" lawmakers could use as they overhaul the U.S. immigration system.
"At its base it is a union fight that has been taking place there," Schaffer said in a recent interview about what he found on the islands. "I insisted that it be a real investigation, which it was," he said, noting that he visited more than 20 factories and found serious problems in only one. [Pols emphasis]
As the uncomfortable questions were hammered home by Post reporter Michael Riley, Schaffer campaign manager Dick Wadhams notably failed to help his client.
