May 10, 2010 06:00 PM UTC

Jane Norton - Sex, Politics and a level playing field - is the pot calling the kettle black?

• 18 Comments
• by: H-man

If your lawyer was sleeping with the judge, and the other side hired one of his law clerks, you wouldn’t complain about the other side hiring the law clerk, would you?

How bright would you have to be to understand that might draw attention to your lawyer sleeping with the judge?

You wouldn’t want to embarrass the lawyer, call the judge’s impartiality into question or make you look sleazy for hiring somebody that you knew was sleeping with the judge.

Apparently, you would have to be brighter than the Jane Norton campaign.

Last week, Ken Buck announced the hiring of Kay Rendleman.  She was the Chair of the El Paso county GOP and has significant experience in grassroots organization going back to the Ronald Regan campaign of 1980.  El Paso county is considered a critical county in Republican primaries and Buck beat Norton there 41% to 33% in the March caucuses.  

A person in the know, with no dog in the fight, Muhammad Ali Hasan, who is running for State Treasurer, assessed the hire on this site as follows:

Kay is terrific

This is a great pickup for Ken Buck

I’ve gotten to know Kay Rendleman very well – we announced our State Treasury campaign at the GOP HQ in El Paso, in addition to the many events we’ve attended in El Paso County – Kay has done a terrific job there – not only does she command the respect of the GOP, more importantly, she is a very good organizer and manager

Again, this is a great pickup for Buck and exactly what their campaign needs at this time.

The gracious or classy thing for the Norton campaign to do would have been to thank her for all of the volunteer work she has done for all Republicans and to wish her well, much like Ali did.

Instead of congratulating Kay or thanking her for the unpaid, thankless job of county chair, the Norton campaign had two of their El Paso county co-chairs, Chuck Broerman and Rep Mark Waller interviewed by the Colorado Springs Gazette, go negative on her.  Neither disclosed their relationship to the Norton campaign.  Both whined about the timing.  Broerman put it as follows:

Broerman said he’s disappointed that Rendleman picked sides in a primary race, something that’s taboo for party officials who are supposed to sit on the sidelines until party members pick a nominee.

“It puts Ken Buck and his campaign above any of the other campaigns,” Broerman said

It is not exactly a well kept secret that Norton has a senior staff person working on her staff who is the “fiancé” of the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, Dick Wadhams.  http://www.tonysrants.com/colo…

Wadhams has been dismissive of the significance of the relationship telling Rossputin “Wendy Evans is a professional woman in her own right and is entitled to work for whomever she wants”.  

That is clearly true, but it is also true that while the lawyer is entitled to sleep with the judge if she wants, what does that tell you about the judge and the party that employs the lawyer who they know to be sleeping with the judge?

To paraphrase El Paso County Co-chair of the Jane Norton for Senate campaign, Chuck Broerman, It puts her campaign above any of the other campaigns.