It’s the story you just lived so it won’t come as a surprise, but here’s what Politico’s David Catanese says today about Colorado’s epic 2010 U.S. Senate race:
Michael Bennet (Colorado, U.S. Senate)
The appointed senator’s campaign strategy of shifting the terms of debate away from the economy and onto GOP nominee Ken Buck’s stance against abortion and his controversial comments about a rape case, smelled like desperation to Republicans. But it proved to be brilliant. Bennet peeled away Colorado independents, particularly women, from the tea party-backed Republican in the waning weeks, and his well-oiled ground game reached more than 300,000 doors on Election Day alone. A 16-point advantage among women made all the difference in the senator’s improbable razor-thin victory.
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We should have added Colorado Pols to the list of 2010 winners.
Pols took sharp criticism from both sides of the aisle for their seemingly surreptitious support–or at least their outwardly optimistic analysis–of Michael Bennet’s US Senate campaign.
Even though it was virtually unfathomable at points that Bennet would be
reelected, Pols continued to promote the notion. Despite some of their other predictions being significantly off, they did correctly predict the top two races–Bennet of course being the one that was the most difficult to prognosticate.Although Pols attracted literally hundreds of campaign operatives, volunteers, sock puppets, and Google monkeys who were doing everything in their power to say just how wrong Pols was, they were the ones turned out to be dead wrong, and Pols dead right on the US Senate race.
was ever as unreasonable in their view of the likely outcome of the Senate race as in their completely inexplicable belief that Garnett had an advantage until it became quite ridiculous to stick with it. That one was the head scratcher for me. As for the Bennet race, ColPols may have had access to the Bennet internal polling which a reliable source tells me was just as dead on in this race as in the primary.
Where their view of the likely outcome of the Senate race was seemingly just as ludicrous as their view of the AG race.
And even if they did have internal Bennet polls that showed him barely winning, I don’t think that really plays into it THAT much. Lots of campaigns have lost despite thinking they were in it based on their internal polling.
not Bennet’s campaigns. Unlike Rove, Bennet’s people have now twice proved they really do have the numbers and know what to do with them: Keep any hint at over optimism under their hats to avoid any level of complacency from entering their supporters heads, attack with gusto (taking a lesson from Rs), and put together a relentless, highly focused ground game, (taking a lesson from successful Ds). Buck was never ahead in reliable polls to the point that ColPol’s prediction there ever looked “ludicrous”, though Bennet backers had some stressed moments, for sure.
??? . . . Ok, I get it now!
. . . good candidate for the funniest line that gets written here today.
That Romanoff lost due to the fact that he lied about his own record, he lied about Bennet, and that he has no chance of beating Udall in another hateful , disgusting run in 2014 (John Kennedy thinks it’s in 2012)
It’s over. It’s been over for quite some time. If they want to be sore losers, let them, but don’t be a sore winner–to be perfectly honest, it’s a lot more annoying.
…but for the sake of argument, don’t you think it’d be nice if our politicos had to live in constant fear of a Romanoff challenge from the left?
That could be, like, his thing! He’ll repay his house, challenge Udall, mortgage/sell it, lose, repay it, challenge Bennet, mortgage/sell it… (rince, lather, repeat).
the most bitter of the AR diehards have nothing on you, do they? And your guy (mine too) won! You might want to consider anger management therapy.
showing that most readers believe Politicos analysis favored Ken Buck.
since Bennet could not, I reckon, have peeled as many independent voters away from her. May the Tea Party thrive!
Colorado Dems were very lucky to have Dickwad and the state GOP so thouroughly screw up the two main events, no question. We should send thank you notes.
Bennet would have/could have run a different campaign, branding Norton as a Washington insider for example. Not a good thing to be this year.
Discussing anything other than the race that actually happened is way too hypothetical for me.
Doesn’t matter. The election is over and Bennet won. All these “what ifs…” don’t mean a hill o’beans.
I don’t think Jane Norton has half the brain cells that Ken Buck does. Plus, Buck did best with old white men. I’m not sure Jane Norton would have so soundly secured those votes.
and Norton would have had the majority of women. Game, set, match.
Thank you, Tea Party!
Tea Party is solidly bitter white guys?
just askin’
And, of course, the occasional cheerful nutcase.
squishy white guys too. Perhaps a majority.
included “Vote for me because I have a penis!”
(…or something like that)
The WashPost column the Fix mentions Sen. Bennet as a possible head of the DSCC. The man can raise money like no other this side of Chuck Schumer. It would be a great job for Bennet and would lead to other leadership positions. When was the last time Colorado had a Senator who was in a leadership position?
Dick Wadhams was right, there’s no doubt negative ads and the vilification of Ken Buck won Bennet his Senate seat. The ground game may have pushed them over the goal-line, but the negative ads got them into the red-zone.
The Bennet campaign was able to drive home Bucks cultural warrior extremism with a relentless narrative of his whacked out views regarding government and women. Call it negative if you want but it was an effective campaign strategy to highlight the differences between a Tea Party favorite and a Democratic centrist. Of course it helped a lot that Buck cooperated in this branding by doing teh stupid at every opportunity. Not ready for prime time is an understatement for this situation.
The Democratic GOTV ground game has either caught up to or passed the Republicans. You could sense heading into the last weeks that when Buck wasn’t pulling away he was in trouble. The Democratic GOTV effort would not have made the difference if the Republicans had nominated a more qualified candidate.
negative ads effectively, that Republicans suddenly started bemoaning the use of negative advertising. Seriously?? The party that perfected the negative ad, the party of Karl Rove, the party of Sharon Angle has an issue with negative ads?
They didn’t have a problem with Rove’s shadow group’s negative ads, or the RSCC’s negative ads, or the Buck campaigns negative ads. Those were apparently just fine.
Or is it that they have a problem with a centrist Dem using negative ads so effectively against their extreme TeaPublican candidate?
that Democrats will start incorporating Republican tactics against them.
At one time Republicans had the superior ground game coordinated through the Evangelical churches but Democrats have countered with VAN and social networking savvy to pull even or do better with their GOTV efforts. Democrats have erased that Republican advantage.
was that they went right after his abortion position. It showed absolutely no fear of the pro-criminalization crowd and a visible loss of political power of the Republican Evangelical base. They have already been 100% absorbed by the Republican Party so you aren’t fighting for a swing vote. The Republicans used them and shit on them while the Democrats realized they aren’t the majority and just hammered Buck on it. It is probably the first time in the modern era of politics that the criticism of politician’s pro-criminalization position was effective in getting the voters to repudiate the candidate. Future politicians are going to have to pause before they double down on wooing the pro-criminalization vote.
for the first time, Dems using the traditional Repub wedge issues (abortion, gay rights) against TeaPublicans with no fear of backlash. I thought the way Bennet handled the wedge issues was perfect. He turned the wedge against Buck. More Dems need to follow this example and fight for Democratic principles.
this election could have taken a clue from Bennet and gone after Gardner for supporting amendment 62 and health care criminalization even in the case of rape and incest. Gardner would have been an easy target but noooo she had to run as Republican Lite. She deserved to lose with that kind of a putrid campaign.