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July 26, 2022 10:53 AM UTC

Of Unicorns and Senate Candidates

  • 9 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Six years ago, Colorado Republicans nominated little-known El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn to be their nominee for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet.

A few months after winning a competitive Republican Primary, Glenn confidently compared himself to a “unicorn” owing to his self-impressed political beliefs and campaign style.

“I am the human equivalent of a unicorn,” Glenn told The Durango Herald in September 2016.

Glenn would go on to lose the 2016 Senate election by a nearly six-point margin in a race that wasn’t nearly as close as the final numbers would suggest. Bennet and Democrats made relatively-little effort to go after Glenn, whose only real ad spending came in the form of a bizarre spot showing him working out in a gym.

Bennet is running for re-election again in 2022, and once again the Republican candidate for Senate is embracing a comparison to a unicorn. The campaign for Senate candidate Joe O’Dea has been thirstily promoting a new story from Axios that includes this line:

Joe O'Dea
Republican Senate candidate Joe O’Dea, second from left

“O’Dea is a unicorn for the GOP at a time when its voters prefer MAGA-aligned candidates.”

What, exactly, makes O’Dea so unique as to be called a political “unicorn”? O’Dea is pro-life on the issue of abortion — these are his own words — and is very open about saying he would have backed all of the recent conservative Supreme Court nominees that paved the way to overturning Roe v. Wade.

O’Dea says he isn’t following the Jan. 6 House committee hearings; he doesn’t hold Donald Trump responsible for the insurrection and would vote for Trump again in 2024. O’Dea believes that we should not enact even modest restrictions on firearms and assault weapons, and he is a full-on Climate Change denier.

In fact, the only thing that makes O’Dea different than most Republican candidates is his penchant for riding a horse to a sushi restaurant.

As we’ve written repeatedly in this space, O’Dea should have won the GOP Primary against Hanks, a far-right blowhard who had virtually no money in his campaign coffers. O’Dea is not as batshit-crazy as Hanks, but that doesn’t make him a political “unicorn” — it just means O’Dea is a standard Republican candidate in Colorado.

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9 thoughts on “Of Unicorns and Senate Candidates”

  1. I have a more basic question – what is O'Dea offering the voters? To date he's been very careful to say as little as possible. So at present his approach seems to be – "vote for me and then once I'm in office you can discover what I'll do – if anything."

  3. I thought I might have missed something, so searched "O'Dea" on the CPR news site. 

    The last article headlining O'Dea was June 28, announcing his win.

    I may be wrong, but NOT having something that gets the attention of the largest newsroom operation in the state for nearly a month seems a questionable campaign strategy to me. 

      1. It did work for Claire McCaskill, and it has worked for others.

        But after 2016, we all should have recognized that the risk in elevating a screwball candidate is that the screwball might win. (I know I learned that painful lesson after 2016.)

        BTW, Doug Mastriano seems to be making progress pulling traditional Republicans in PA back into the fold. 

        GOP warms to Doug Mastriano in Pa. Senate race – WHYY

        As governor, he would be able to appoint the secretary of the commonwealth, and he would be responsible for certifying the electors in 2024.

        Be careful what you wish for.

         

        1. To me there is also a serious ethical component. People give money to candidates to support their message and their platform. I for one had no idea they were just dumping my money into their future opponents' campaigns.

            1. Good clarification. All the same it is money raised by the democratic party fund raising apparatus, ostensibly under the guise of supporting democratic candidates.

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