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*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
November 12, 2010 10:17 PM UTC
13 Comments
It was pretty obvious early-on that Buck wasn’t really trying to raise money himself and that he would be relying on outside groups to do most of it.
how great a strategy was that? not, i’d say.
And $3.8 million is pathetic. The last three US Senate victors raised $11 million. I’d say that’s the standard if you want to win–barring any changes in any campaign finance laws/SCOTUS rulings.
That Buck paid for his field operation out of his campaign. But that was probably all NRSC money.
There are some races where you just don’t learn a lot by comparing the fundraising numbers, and this is one of them. At the end of the day, Buck had about the same amount of money available to him as did Bennet. Buck, and others behind him, didn’t spend it as wisely, perhaps, but the reason Buck lost was not about money.
Don’t take this as a whiney rant, but as an objective (as possible) analysis. People have posted how Bennet overcame the odds to defeat Buck and the “wave” against Democrats.
Well something had to propel Bennet ahead? I think we can all agree that it was not Bennet’s voting record, charisma, or good looks. Sure Buck gave the libs some gaffes to work with, but every Republican will. The Dems will always find a way in.
The turning point in my opinion was how the Dems were able to exploit Buck’s statements. They ran ad after ad after ad and on and on and on. But it worked, barely, but successul none the less.
Well the ads had to come from somewhere and somehow and that somehow was money. So I would argue if Bennet did not have the money to slander Buck than it would have been a different story and Buck would have ended up with around 100,000 more votes.
Now if it was Pols point that money would not have changed anything on the Buck end of things it is probably true. Buck allegedly had a lot of cash in the reserve towards the end, but it was obvious Buck would not spend much on responding to the Bennet attack ads. So money on Buck’s side was probably not the missing ingredient.
in a short treatise from you that explains just how you get “slander” from “exploit Buck’s statements.”
Elections are won in the center. Every time Buck opened his mouth, he gave centrist voters the willies.
You asked: “explain[] just how you get ‘slander’ from ‘exploit Buck’s statements.'”
I asked him basically the same question in his diary about Amendment 62. Crickets.
See, No2Brains wants to think Buck lost because of (a) Dem nefariousness, rather than because (b) Buck’s actually expressed views were distasteful to 1% too many Coloradans. So he’ll keep asserting and believing the former rather than the latter, despite a lack of any support — kind of like BJ’s belief that evolution is a lie. If you just repeat your shit, and ignore contrary facts, the world can be a nice, comfy place where you get to believe whatever you want. You never get past the mental age of about 11, but that’s a small price to pay.
This is a lose-lose post for me, but I will try one more time against my better judgement. On the one hand I give my opinion and I am accused of whining and blaming the loss on other things. On the other hand you guys will just disagree with my opinion and try to blow it out of proportion, but I am a glutton for punishment so here goes nothing.
23% sales tax
Yes Buck considered the idea and thought favorably about it. So what was my personal problem with the Dem ad? They left out a big part. The dems portrayed Bucks belief as the sales tax would be in addition to the current income tax. Seems misleading to me.
Social security
Buck favored social security reform which basically consisted of slowly amd carefully weaning future generations off of social security. Dems played the remarks as Ken Buck is going to cancel social security checks as soon as he was in office. Apparently we can no longer discuss this issue without being accused of being against the elderly.
Birth control
Somehow being pro-life somehow got twisted into being against birth control. I imagine it is in regards of being allegedly in favor of amendment 62( I never heard him or saw where he endorsed so back off) I will take your word that he did. I don’t think a lot of people fully realized what it was, but I never heard Buck say he wanted to make abortion illegal, or more importantly birth control, such as IUD’s, RU486 etc. So why so many ads with women saying he was against it? If Buck was so against them surely there is footage of Buck repeatedly saying so and lecturing us about how bad they are, but there isn’t because he does not believe that way.
Dems followed Buck for around a year. That is a long time and a lot of words, questions, and phrases. This is where I think the deception comes in. If you disagree fine I don’t care, but the left through ads and other media outlets painted a picture of Buck as the following.
That at every event he was actively saying he wants to raise taxes(not true), take away social security immediately (not true), and ban birth control (completely false). I feel that the left had to dig deep to find these statements and be able to then work them into the context added that I mentioned above. Do both sides do it? Yes to a certain extent. Does that make it right? Not in my opinion.
So we have statements mostly out of context and then they took them one step further to complete the “extreme” picture of Buck. They managed to make people fear that the second Ken Buck became senator that automatically abortion and birth control are illegal, taxes go up, and social security does not exist. Does anybody honestly believe that would have been the case? No, but that is how it was sold to the electorate.
Fair and honest? Not in my opinion! Both sides do it? Sure but I would argue to differing degrees.
What do we do about it? Hell, who knows! It is what it is.
This is why you still aren’t being taken seriously. Here’s an article to help you out.
http://coloradoindependent.com…
For the last time, LAWS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Sorry for yelling, but it doesn’t seem to be getting through to you. That is, oddly enough, why Buck pulled his support. So it seems the reason you didn’t notice Buck saying anything dumb is because you weren’t listening to him. At all. Way to vote.
I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Exaggeration and insinuation does not equal slander. Buck was in favor of a 23% sales tax, so saying so isn’t slander. Buck did, in fact, express support for amendment 62, which would have limited birth control. Therefore the ad was not slander. Buck said repeatedly that, if it was up to him, all abortion would be illegal except to save the life of the mother. So again, not slander. Buck said, repeatedly, that he favored privatizing social security. So regardless of the time table, saying that he was in favor of it is not slander.
Saying that Buck was a muslim who isn’t a US citizen, without any proof of such a thing, would be slander. But we all know the right would never stand for something like that.
is that the fiscal conservatives hate what the social conservatives are doing to “their” GOP.
Your number crunching is interesting Sandra, but it isn’t the whole picture. There was an awful lot of outside money doing Buck’s anti-Bennet dirty work that is not calculated into your numbers. To be fair, there was some union and DSCC money on Bennet’s side, too. The campaign’s money is only part of any picture, but it usually does loosely mirror what others give on the outside, as well.
Or rather, that was true before the SCOTUS ruling allowing foreign donors to pour money into the outcome of American elections. Now, the Republicans will continue to get a disproportionate amount of help from big business and wealthy investors outside the US. There is a lot of stake in 2012. We cannot let the GOP stack the Supreme Court, or this ruling will never be overturned. If it is not, I fear neo-feudalism.
As for Buck, Buck lost because his mysogynist side was revealed. Plain and simple.
He still has a pending FEC case.