Coffman, Romanoff Q1 Virtual Tie, Advantage Romanoff

6 thoughts on “Coffman, Romanoff Q1 Virtual Tie, Advantage Romanoff”

1. Nice! Those awful Ken Gordon emails must be working better than I ever imagined.

   Coffman's going down in 2014…

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2. This is a huge victory for the anti-PAC folks. It's one thing when a practically unopposed Denver State House candidate wins without PAC money, but if Romanoff is able to beat an incumbent in one of the most competitive districts in the nation, it will no longer be considered a suicidal move and may lead to more and more candidates making that choice. 

   Now if we can just do something about "Independant" expenditure committees, we'll be in good shape to start reclaiming elections for the people. 

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   1. Not to take away from Romanoff's impressive haul, but:

      It's a small victory in that it's proof that a candidate who is supposed to be able to raise a lot of money can do so in spite of taking an idiotic pledge.

      For Federal races, this pledge makes some sense, especially for a candidate like Romanoff. Campaign finance limits make it so that individual contributions are maxed out at 50% of what PACs can contribute. That's not a huge, discernable difference. For every PAC max-out, you just need to get one more individual max out (or four half-max contributors, etc.)

      Where this gets extremely dangerous for Democratic candidates is at the state level, where small donor committees can max out at over 11 times what an individual can donate. For example, many of the targeted state House candidates who won in 2012 would have been forgoing nearly half their budgets if they had taken this pledge. It's just not feasible. It also remains dangerous for congressional and senate candidates who don't have the level of fundraising chops of one of the most beloved political figures in Colorado history.

      Not that Gordon needed ammo, but this gives it to him. He is going to ramp up his already insipid pressuring of candidates for statewide office to take this ridiculous pledge. Unilateral disarmament remains a bad strategy for Democrats, despite this Dog Bites Man headline.

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3. Looks like R is serious. Time to fish under my couch cushions for some change.

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4. We'll see. This is early days. If it's really mainly from relatively small donors how far can that be stretched over the long run?  How will the GOP and supporting PACs respond once they feel that while losing this seat is a serious threat it's certainly winnable for them?  They will be under no constraints. 

   I doubt that many who couldn't already be counted on to vote for a Dem against Cofffman are going to do so because of his promise to shun all PACs so I don't see how it helps him but do see him having trouble finishing if he finds himself faced with a spending level he can't match coming into the home stretch.

   I'm not exactly cheered by Gordon's role in the campaign.

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   1. At some point, is Gordon going to send out an email for his own SoS campaign? Is he even running?

      I know what you mean.

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