U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
January 22, 2010 04:55 PM UTC
22 Comments
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I have always been very good at misspelling.
that such a lawsuit would be a natural for Scott Gessler. Maybe he wants to keep a low profile on that issue?
Naah. Just wait.
is on now. So you say you want a revolution?
The Supreme Court has now drawn the battle lines a little more clearly.
Big Money versus little people.
This decision has me ready to join the teabagger movement and take my country back, but I’ve heard nothing but crickets from them on this decision.
This is a Public Service Announcement. With guitar.
(Putting this in hear since MOTR hasn’t put up the jams diary yet….)
This is a profound change in electoral politics. It pits my measly hundred/thousand dollar candidate contributions against the unlimited resources of corporations. In fact, the corporations are spending the money I paid them (at the gas pump, say) to oppose my own interests!
Coupled with the conservative message machine so effective at targeting the cortexes of the Fox/Limbaugh audience, the unrelenting attack ads will drown whatever counter message the Dems can muster.
We are so screwed.
To people that have asked me why I’m so involved in politics with the invariable caveat it doesn’t make a dimes worth of difference….
and the GOP House leader thinks it’s just GREAT news:
http://www.npr.org/templates/s…
There have been Republican’s who weren’t as delighted as Boehner. McCain for one was critical on the news last night as was a Republican political strategist (name escapes me right now). I talked with a Republican who had read the full opinion and he found one potentially positive thing – it might bring the end of the 527’s as we know them. He is however contacting a constitutional lawyer to get his read on the opinion.
I’m still discouraged over the opinion but as the saying goes, stay tuned!
Yesterday we didn’t see a Supreme Court ruling, we saw law being made by the right wing five.
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
On the right hand (and I paraphrase): Michael Bennet is the preferred candidate for the Democratic nomination because he has raised big bucks. Yeah, sure, a buncha his bucks are from BankerPACs, PharmaPACS, etc., but that’s okay…
On the left hand: Bankerbucks will hasten the end of popular democracy. Votes are for sale! (That would be votes in the polling place and on the Senate floor, possibly.)
How is it that these two hands are controlled by the same Central Nervous Systems that also control keyboards contributing posts to this site? IF MB is preferred because he takes in more corporate bucks, isn’t the prospect of even more corporate bucks to be welcomed? Won’t that make MB even more compelling?
As I said to BoulderRepublican on another thread when he cited SEIU’s $60 million in campaign contributions to Obama as evidence of hypocricy among those who lament SCOTUS’ holding, there is nothing inconsistent about living in the world as it is while striving to make it better. Many people who fervantly long for a world without war nevertheless don’t consider it prudent to unilaterally disarm, not because they’re hypocrits, but because they understand the nature of the game into which they’re currently locked.
There is nothing inconsistent with advocating for stronger campaign finance reform, while simultaneously praising a candidate for raising big bucks from big money interests. One is focused on achieving what can be, and one is focused on operating within the parameters that currently exist.
Corporate dollars are spent to persuade me, “Vote for the candidate we want.” That would be, most likely, the candidate deemed most likely to vote for legislation most likely favorable to corporate interests–which may well include voting against legislation designed to protect consumers against rapacious behavior by corporations. In today’s context, we’re referring to investment banks that steered the economy over the edge, were saved, and now resist regulations that prevent going over the edge again…and again…and again. Time will tell, I predict, that these self-same banks are among the big contributors to MBennet in hopes that he will avoid, ahem, “unforeseen consequences” of new regulations that aren’t backed by the GOP (his words, not mine).
That is precisely the candidate I am going to vote against–especially at the point of the Democratic Party primary.
How else does one fight back? By backing the candidate preferred by corporate interests against the candidate who refuses to take the bribes? Let me say again: the battle of the moment is for the party’s nomination.
Party labels do not necessarily tell the whole story. Anyone can sign up to become a registered Democrat; no entrance exam needed! Strom Thurmond, to cite one example, was for many, many years a Democrat. Would you have voted for him on that basis, while wishing he weren’t a racist, segregationist bastard?
I think you just ended the conversation.
To the extent that the source of campaign contributions is an indicator of a candidate’s positions, they can be used to guide voters’ decisions. I agree with that.
But I think that extent is limited by the combination of two factors:
1) Political-economy is a non-zero-sum game, so that some policies that are to some extent in financial and corporate interests may also be precisely those policies that are most closely aligned with consumer and popular interests. In fact, I don’t think any policy that is completely antagonistic to corporate interests is ever really in consumers’ interests. Obviously, truly rapacious corporate policies aren’t in consumers’ interests, but good sound economic stewardship is.
2) big money interests spread their money around, hedging their bets. So, speaking only hypothetically (really; I do not consider this an accurate description of the Romanoff-Bennet face-off), if you had, in a primary, one candidate who was a fanatically redistributive populist (which I would consider bad for all of us in the long run), completely economically illiterate but saying what lots of people want to hear, and another candidate who was committed to the general welfare in economically intelligent ways, then big money interests would probably be giving a lot of money to the latter, who would also happen to be the better candidate, all things considered.
I want to emphasize that I’m not making any arguments about the Romanoff-Bennet primary specifically: I think they’re both excellent candidates, and would be very happy with either one of them representing us in the Senate. My only point is that drawing too clear a conclusion from campaign contributions may be misleading. Still, I accept your point that it is one factor to be taken into consideration.
I support Senator Bennet but this is tripe. First off, what is he proposing? Nothing but some vague generalities. Second, what can you do in law here? Nothing as the ruling is based on the constitution.
Finally, what this really is is a means to get contact info from additional voters and potential contributors. It links to a page on his campaign site to get contact info. Nothing more.
Democrats live and die by the donations from Unions…Now, justly so, the field has been leveled.
“tilted overwhelmingly in favor of our corporate owners.”
an article in defense of corporate PAC contributions, which shows that corporate PACs significantly outspend unions in campaign contributions (see table 1), under existing laws. To “level the playing field” would have required either increasing union’s share of campaign financing, or decreasing corporate PACs share of campaign financing.
Recall that CITGO Petroleum Company is owned by PetrГіleos de Venezuela S.A. which is owned by the Venezuelan government.(Colorado Independent)
Have fun with that in November 2012.
left open the possibility of a narrowly tailored law prohibiting or regulating campaign contributions and other political speech by foreign owned corporations. I’m not defending the opinion, I’m just being informative.