The self described “regular guy” from Loveland, Dean Madere, a member of the Glenn Beck-inspired Loveland 9/12 project, is formally announcing his candidacy tonight to represent Colorado’s 4th congressional district. He’s looking to rally the anti-Washington / anti-politician pro-Sarah Palin voting bloc. In the wake of the Going Rogue Palin book-release whirlwind, Madere might enjoy a well-timed bump.
According to the AP, Madere is a Louisiana native who works for a heating and air conditioning company.
Friday night at a candidate forum in Loveland that also featured 4th District candidates Tom Lucero and Cory Gardner, Madere was amped up and rearing to go. He paced the stage during his reponses to questions and made much of his regular guy status.
“I’ve got some business experience,” he said at one point in a refreshingly unpolished non-spinning manner, moving on quickly to the fact that he feared the “direction the country was headed,” meaning he feared a looming government takeover and the end of liberty.
Madere absolutely would oppose health care reform and fight environmentalists– he would oppose anything that “restricts our freedoms,” he said. He would also end abortion. The crowd of 500 liked his spirit.
How seriously should anyone take Dean Madere? It’s a question conservative analysts have been considering all over again in regard to Palin.
At Politics Daily, Leslie Sanchez, head of the Bush White House Initiative on Hispanic Education, makes the argument for Palin power with the populace:
Palin will continue to be a force in U.S. politics because she addresses the anxieties and aspirations of blue-collar America in a way that connects. She “personifies a belief in a traditional America and she’s prepared to be very blunt,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said recently. “A third of the country finds that very, very compelling.”
[…]
When it comes to the tea party activists types who hunger for change, there’s no doubt she strikes a responsive chord. She is one of them, a small-town mom who climbed to the top of what Disraeli called “the greasy pole.” She comes across as unbeholden to special interests and, being from Alaska, is about as far removed from Washington as one can be. For this segment of the electorate (and perhaps others), which is most clearly not the New York-Washington elites, she is the real deal. That strength makes her both relevant and unavoidable.
Can Madere come to personify 4th District blue collar voters and climb the greasy pole? His formal quest begins on a golf course tonight, the week before Thanksgiving in northern Colorado.
