It’s Nasty In Colorado This Primary Day, NPR, August 9, 2010, by Liz Halloran, photo montage of Denver courtesy of Wikipedia, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Voters in four states will go to the polls Tuesday and pick their party’s fall candidates, but perhaps no races are being watched more closely than the primary contests for governor and the U.S. Senate in Colorado. There, the expected has taken a back seat to the astonishing.

Plagiarism? Check. Gender politics? Check. Charges of Wall Street coziness? Check. Competing presidential endorsements? Check. Bicycle-sharing as a United Nations plot? Check. Selling house for campaign cash? Check.

Add to that the last-minute gubernatorial candidacy of an independent party spoiler in the name of former five-term conservative Rep. Tom Tancredo, and the political situation in Colorado is “pandemonium,” says Denver-based pollster Floyd Ciruli.

GOP’S Dimmed Hopes — For Now

That the chaos is largely playing out in the Republican contests doesn’t bode well for a party that had viewed the state as highly promising territory.

Party leaders had great hopes this fall of picking up the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Michael Bennet and of recapturing the governor’s office being vacated by one-term Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter.

Bennet, the former Denver school superintendent, was appointed to the seat in January 2009 after then-Sen. Ken Salazar was tapped by President Obama to become interior secretary.

“I thought that the Republicans here had a very good chance to take back a significant amount of the political landscape they used to control out here,” Ciruli says. “And up until early June every poll consistently showed that they had a 5-point generic lead statewide — whatever the matchup.”

“But it’s now all up in the air here,” he says.

What Happened?

Democrats, as they do nationally, looked increasingly vulnerable in Colorado.

The ailing economy is local voters’ top issue, and one that doesn’t favor the party in power. Statewide unemployment is north of 8 percent.

And Obama, whose win in Colorado with 53.7 percent of the vote in the 2008 presidential race suggested a political swing away from the GOP, has seen his approval ratings in the state plummet to 38 percent.

Colorado Republicans had recruited candidates who, on paper, looked strong — from former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton for Senate to former six-term Rep. Scott McInnis for governor.

Both now are in dead heats with party upstarts.

Senate Race

Norton, endorsed by Arizona Sen. John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential candidate, is battling Ken Buck, the Weld County district attorney and a Tea Party favorite endorsed by emerging conservative kingmaker Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

(Buck, however, may have alienated some Tea Party adherents recently when, in a private conversation with a Democratic operative, he was recorded saying: “Will you tell those dumb asses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates when I’m on the camera?”)

Buck, who was referring to those who question whether Obama was born in the United States, has also mixed it up with Norton over footwear.

In videotaped comments from a gathering of conservatives, Buck was shown answering a question about why party members should vote for him with this: “Because I do not wear high heels,” but “cowboy boots, they have real bulls- – - on them.”

Buck defended the comment as a response to Norton ads that question his “manhood.”

Polls show Norton, who made some hay with the high heels comment, with a slim lead. She has raised more than $2.87 million for her campaign; Buck has raised $1.26 million.

Obama Vs. Clinton?

The Democrats’ Senate contest pits Obama-endorsed Bennet against Andrew Romanoff, who secured former President Bill Clinton’s endorsement — and recently sold his house to infuse cash into his insurgent campaign.

Romanoff, a former state speaker of the house, has used a series of hard-hitting and controversial advertisements — criticized as unfair by some in the party — to link Bennet with Wall Street interests.

Bennet, a lawyer and businessman who served in the Clinton administration, was also the subject of a recent New York Times article critical of the way he structured school funding as superintendent in Denver, where the financing terms have now become a financial drain. Bennet’s campaign has dismissed the criticism.

Though Clinton has not been on the campaign trail for Romanoff, he recorded a pitch for the candidate that will be sent as a robo call to potential voters in the final hours of the hard-fought campaign. The popular former president’s endorsement has given the challenger some credibility, says Joannie Braden, a Democratic consultant in Denver.

“Bill Clinton is a very popular Democrat and I think it was a meaningful endorsement,” Braden says.

Obama has recorded automated calls for Bennet that started last week.

And though the pollster Ciruli says that Obama’s endorsement is increasingly seen as a wash among state voters, Bennet has a huge fundraising edge: $7.7 million raised as of July 21, compared with the $1.9 million raised by Romanoff.

Bennet holds a slight lead in the race.

“It’s tight sneakers,” Braden says of the Romanoff-Bennet contest.

The downside for Democrats, strategists say of the historically expensive race, is that no matter who emerges from the negative campaign will be covered with that bitter residue. ….

Read the full story, including information about the governor’s race, here.

See Tom Tancredo Hands Colorado to Democrats, KicK: Making Politics Fun, August 9, 2010, by Rack Jite.

UPDATE: "Colorado Senate Contests:" Dan Balz handicaps the very competitive Colorado US Senate primaries. — 5:50

"Midterm Elections 2010: Colorado Senate Race Gets Rocky:" Audio news on the US Senate race in Colorado from CQPolitics. — 4:58

See today’s article Bob Swern on Economic Incompetence as a separate page. An expose on business and economic incompetence featuring Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, Chris Whalen and Yves Smith. Daily Kos and Evans Liberal Politics, August 9, 2010, by Bob Swern.

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