First, nearly everyone who has worked on the campaign for more than the last month or two will both look and act like something from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” minus the fancy dance moves. We are burned out. Beyond burned out. If you try talking to us we will look in your direction, struggle mightily to comprehend the sounds we hear you making, and then say something back we hope relates in at least in some distant way to what you just said. Typically our unconscious comprehended the question, and unless it relates to something not campaign related (like, “How are you?”) we can usually give an intelligent answer — but only because by this point the campaign has taken over all of our brain cells (save those we need to move beer from a bottle to our mouths).

Having lived and breathed the race for what seems like several lifetimes, something about feeling the end at hand causes staffers to want the whole thing to just get done with already. You know how the general public gets fatigued with all the political stuff? Well, multiply that by a bajillion and you’ve got a taste of how it feels on the inside.

Luckily, the final days of a (close) race see people from across the country descend from on high to lend their expertise — and energy — for the final push to the finish. More importantly, the massive inflow of volunteers who truly believe the world will become a better place if your candidate wins inspire those of us who lack the energy and enthusiasm we started with. They are the ones who power us through to do our jobs and do them well those last few days.

So we do. We work our tails off like we’ve never worked before. With every fiber of our being and with the last remnants of our soul we pour everything we have into that long, last, grueling fait accompli. We swear we will never, ever do this again.

Fin.

The election ends. One candidate stands victorious, the other not so much. Congratulations go around among the staff, from the candidate, to the candidate, to the other side, from the other side — after all, no one else knows, I mean really knows, what you’ve gone through like your opponent and their staff. Despite the bad feelings and occasionally even the hatred generated over the course of a campaign, like Rommel in North Afrika you still share a sense of camaraderie and respect for the other side.

Unless it’s a blowout. Then you just hate the bastards who schooled you so badly.

Either way, win or lose, the day after a campaign leaves a gaping hole in the hearts of campaign staffers. We now find ourselves blankly wandering around an office that less than 24 hours earlier barely contained the passion and energy and soul of a campaign at the very peak of its purpose. In one night that thing — that beast that consumed every bit of our lives for what seemed like an eternity — ends.

Now what? Now we polish our resumes, hope for a job with the administration or the congressional office or some action group in need of the unique skills of a campaign hack. Should we succeed in landing one of these jobs we inevitably find the pace boring and begin longing for the daily adrenaline rush of a close race. The bad memories of long nights, yelling bosses or candidates, and the general dysfunction of a campaign begin to fade. We remember the camaraderie, the excitement, and the feeling that what we’re doing on a daily basis helps make the world a better place.

Then maybe, just maybe, we sign up for another campaign.

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.

It’s the same line he’s used before — about how 2010 is really the year the GOP bounces back in Colorado. Yet Wadhams has also recently came under fire for trying to run two critically important posts this cycle at the same time, serving as both chairman of the state party and U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer’s campaign manager. “Dick can carry a heavy backpack, but you can’t put two heavy backpacks on him,” said former Republican U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis in a Denver Post story that was following up on a Colorado Independent exclusive in which McInnis claimed he could have beaten Democrat Mark Udall and also predicted a GOP bloodbath come Tuesday.

Wadhams has a history of taking on two jobs at once — maybe even three. Back when he became state GOP chair, Wadhams also took the unusual step of assuming the duties of executive director as well. He relinquished those duties in March when he officially took over Schaffer’s campaign, but many believe he had been pulling the strings at Schaffer HQ for months before.

Wadhams also said in his Channel 4 interview, “There’s a national headwind out there; there’s no doubt about it, and we’re running into a headwind, but we’re going to do well.” This falls into the “blame early” category.

Perhaps if he had spent more of his time focused on state legislative races as chairman instead of the higher-profile Senate race, Wadhams wouldn’t have to lower expectations or place blame. After all, this is the guy who several years ago took down former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (who, incidentally, will make a campaign swing through Colorado on Sunday).

It remains to be seen whether GOP leadership will blame the headwind or an overstretched Wadhams for what the polls say will be a very unhappy Election Day for Colorado Republicans.

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.

Democratic consultants James Carville and Paul Begala recently wrote an article in the Huffington Post about their ground rules for the blame game that will inevitably take place should Republicans lose on Tuesday: “Here’s the most important thing about finger-pointing: you have to start early. If you’re a Republican who wants to avoid blame for the current meltdown, you cannot afford to wait until after the election is over.”

Apparently McCain and Palin both got the memo.

Earlier this week Palin defended the $150,000 McCain’s campaign spent on updating her wardrobe, saying: “Those clothes, they are not my property. Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I’m not taking them with me.” Not exactly the message a senior McCain aide said Palin had received from the campaign.

Palin went even further off script when she said in an interview with ABC News that she would like to remain a national political figure should the campaign, er, not win next week. From CNN, here’s the question: “What happens in 2012 if you lose on Tuesday, would you simply go back to Alaska?” And Palin’s response: “Absolutely not. … I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we’ve taken, that … that would … bring this whole … I’m not doin’ this for naught.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, dumbstruck, said: “That’s not supposed to be something that you say. You’re supposed to say, ‘Well I’m not looking ahead. I’m looking only ahead to Tuesday.’ Those are the talking points that you’re supposed to be saying. But she’s obviously blunt and she’s looking ahead if something were to happen on Tuesday that she wouldn’t be happy with.”

And the McCain campaign? From CNN’s Dana Bash: “There was a long pause and I just heard a ‘Huh,’ on the other end of the phone.”

For their part, McCain’s folks unleashed a torrent of abuse onto Palin this week, with an anonymous staffer calling her “a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. … She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

Campaign staffers also pretty much admitted Palin couldn’t handle the job of president in another CNN story:

Two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep [Palin's] press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.

They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain’s record.

“Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic,” said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the “hardest” to get her “up to speed than any candidate in history.”

Barack Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, has occasionally veered from his talking points as well, most notably when he recently told donors at a Seattle fund raiser that the world will “test” Obama within the first few months of his presidency. “Watch,” said Biden, “we’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

In the end, though, the second guy or gal on the ticket rarely has much of an impact on the election. Going back to Roger Simon’s article in the Politico, he quotes Lee Atwater as putting the 1988 Dan Quayle effect at 2-3 percentage points. However, Bush “survived his bad choice by winning the election on his own. McCain could do the same thing. But his campaign’s bad decisions have not stopped with Sarah Palin. It has made a series of questionable calls, including making Joe the Plumber the embodiment of the campaign.”

Ouch. Certainly the Palin pick has not helped McCain in quite the way he’d hoped, despite the enthusiasm she generates among his conservative base. For McCain to blame his loss entirely on her, though … well, he’s the one that brung her.

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.

Wurzelbacher hit the campaign trail today with McCain’s VP pick Sarah Palin, saying at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, that a vote for Obama “is a vote for the death of Israel.” The Nobel Prize winners, on the other hand, didn’t even mention “the other guy” (McCain), but did outline their disdain for President Bush’s science policies: “The government’s scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk.”

Incidentally, as reported at our sister site the Washington Independent, Wurzelbacher did not serve in the military despite Palin’s glowing claims to the contrary at an introduction earlier today in Bowling Green, Ohio.

h/t Salon.com’s War Room.

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.

The delay of this decision until after the election could work out especially well for Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave. Musgrave’s opponent, Betsy Markey, filed suit on a claim made in the majority of Musgrave’s TV spots — that Markey abused her position with Sen. Ken Salazar to get plush government contracts for her business. Salazar has said of these ads, “It makes me want to throw up.”

Musgrave’s latest spot, showing an actress that looks remarkably similar to Markey hooked up to a lie detector, was eviscerated by the 9News Truth Test: “TRUTH: This is false… TRUTH: This is false… TRUTH: This is false as well… TRUTH: There’s no evidence indicating Markey intentionally ‘falsified’ information to gain government contracts… TRUTH: This is an opinion.”

Musgrave filed suit against Markey for calling her a liar and for a line in one of Markey’s spots: “[Musgrave voted] to let lobbyists wine and dine her.” Unlike Musgrave, Markey only used this attack in one ad and has not centered her entire narrative about Musgrave around this point.

Both suits rely on a Colorado statute, not federal law, that makes it a class 2 misdemeanor to “recklessly make … any false statement designed to affect the vote on any issue,” according to the Reporter-Herald. Under federal law candidates, unlike interest groups or 527s, have a First Amendment right to say whatever they want to in campaign ads. Should Abrahamson decide that one of the parties in the 4th CD did in fact violate Colorado’s law, we could see it tested in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.

The gathering will include a “who’s who of conservative leaders — economic, national security and social,” and will take place regardless of who wins the oval office next week. Either way, McCain’s nominee for vice president will feature prominently in the discussions:

If the Arizona senator wins, the discussion will feature much talk of, “How do we work with this administration?” said the attendee, an acknowledgement that conservatives won’t always have a reliable ally in the Oval Office.

Under this scenario, [Sarah] Palin would be seen as their conduit to power. “She would be the conservative in the White House,” is how the source put it.

Should McCain lose next Tuesday, the conversation will include who to groom as the next generation of conservative leaders – a list that will feature Palin at or near the top.

Apparently no one’s told this group that Palin’s current approval ratings don’t exactly make her look like a popular potential leader. According to poll-tracking Web site FiveThirtyEight, while she had a three- or four-week honeymoon after her selection, “Palin has not proven to have much staying power.” Her net favorable rating from a wide variety of polls averages out to +1, which the site calls “pretty much a disaster for a candidate who’s (sic) calling card is supposed to be her likability.”

Palin’s popularity with the group meeting in Virginia, though, does signal the strategy Republicans will likely pursue following what looks to be the second consecutive election with strong Democratic gains. The Politico story argues the party will not pursue a moderate agenda, but instead return to the core conservative values of “small government, a robust national security and unapologetic social conservatism.”

This could lead to a colossal struggle within the Republican Party between the moderate wing and conservatives. Tuesday the Colorado Independent broke a storyon former Colorado Republican U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis’ blaming his party’s move to the right for their expected losses in November. “Most of the races we’ve lost in the last six years are two reasons: one, money, and two, the candidates we put up,” McInnis said. “Generally, people in Colorado don’t like somebody who’s radically to the right or radically to the left.”

As Republicans prepare for 2010, one of these two sides will likely emerge victorious in their battle for the soul of the party. If McInnis is right, should those meeting in Virginia have their way it could prove disastrous for the GOP.

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.

McCain rally
First, a video from the liberal group ProgressNow Action, shot as people walked past a line of protesters while heading into the McCain event in Denver on Friday, including a young girl aping a monkey:

Of Obama, other members of the crowd said things like, “He’s got a rag on his head,” “President Hussein,” and “He’s Osama.” At least the “socialist” and “communist” comments they uttered attack Obama’s policies, not his race or his completely fabricated ties to Islam.

Obama rally
At the Obama rally on Saturday I found five conservative protesters manning a line with tens of thousands of Obama supporters waiting to get in. The first man I spoke with, Bob, would not give me his last name for fear of reprisal. Bob had a sign reading, “Obama’s new-tax [sic] plan is welfare”. He said he made the trip out that day because, “They came to our rally so I figured I’d do them the same honor.” Fair enough.

When I asked Bob if anyone in line had said something to him, he replied, “Yes, but I get louder than they do.” Most of the comments, according to Bob, were along the lines of, “Do you make more than $250,000 a year?” referring to Obama’s tax plan in which only those earning more than that would see an increase in what they pay. Bob also said that occasionally an Obama volunteer would offer him a sticker or a sign — “They do it to make fun of me.”

After hearing about some of Bob’s more interesting theories (did you know the economy was just as bad under Clinton as under Bush?), I talked with a very nice group of young men who created the Web site BadChange.com. I have to admit, it’s very a catchy name for an anti-Obama site. The group fights “for the protection of the sanctity of all human life, especially those who have no voice … we believe in upholding the sanctity of human life in all circumstances.”

Scott Fisher, one of the creators of the site and their “main media guy,” told me some Obama supporters had accused him that day of being “racist, which I don’t understand. I’d vote for a black president if he stood for what I stood for.”

A heated debate
Modern democracy developed in large part to substitute for civil war — read about the “dams and dykes” of Thomas Hobbs’ The Leviathan for reference. It comes as no surprise, then, that tempers become heated and cooler heads often do not prevail at political rallies.

When I talked with Bobby Clark of ProgressNow Action about their video, he said the McCain campaign had people going up and down the line telling folks not to respond to the protesters. The Obama campaign, as far as I could tell, focused their energy elsewhere.

At least no fist fights broke out, though that one McCain guy in the video did punch a cardboard cutout of Obama.

Incidentally, in the roughly 30 minutes I spent interviewing protesters at the Obama rally, the most offensive thing I heard was from a woman shouting at me, not them: “What is it like talking to an empty head?”

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.

Step one: Before you head to the polls, print a sample ballot to take with you, using JustVoteColorado.org’s “Build Your Ballot” utility. This will drastically reduce the amount of time you spend in the polling booth pouring over the longest ballot in the country, making life better for you and those waiting in line behind you.

As you fill out your sample ballot, should you have any questions about the long list of referendums and initiatives, you can learn about them from the official, government-approved Blue Book.

Now that you’ve printed out your sample ballot, you’ve got to figure out where to take it. I strongly recommend early voting, just in case you have some sort of personal emergency on election day or, you know, have to pick up the dry cleaning or something. Despite a plethora of election-related scandals, the secretary of state’s office has put together a comprehensive database on early-vote locations. Find your early-vote location by clicking here.

Finally, when you get to the polls, make sure you have a government-issued photo ID with you; a Colorado driver’s license or passport will work. If you run into any trouble, previously mentioned JustVoteColorado.org has set up a hot line to help you out. Call 1-866-OUR-VOTE, and a team of experts will make everything all good. Program that number into your cell phone right now, just in case: 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Finally, if you’re a complete Luddite and insist on voting on Election Day, Google has compiled a list of all the polling places in America and can show you on Google Maps how to get there from your home. But seriously, vote early instead. All the cool kids are doing it.

To Review:

1. Build your ballot at JustVoteColorado.org.

2. Find your early-vote location or Election Day polling place on the Secretary of State’s Web site.

3. Bring your ID and add 1-866-OUR-VOTE (687-8683) to your cell phone in case you have any trouble at the polls.

And that’s it! Congratulations on doing your part to make America a better place.

Worried about whether you registered to vote in time? Check your status on the Secretary of State’s Web site, and if you still have any questions, contact your local county clerk and recorder. Heard about the “check box” controversyand want to make sure you’re kosher? New Era Colorado, whose board I serve on, has put together “a searchable list of over 22,000 voters who have a voter registration status as ‘incomplete.”

Have another source you prefer? Add it in the comments!

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.

From CNN:

“Sen. Obama’s grandmother Madelyn Dunham has always been one of the most important people in his life,” spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

“In the last few weeks, her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious. It is for that reason that Sen. Obama has decided to change his schedule on Thursday and Friday so that he can see her and spend some time with her,” Gibbs said.

The interruption will cause Obama to cancel Thursday events in Madison, Wisconsin, and Des Moines, Iowa. He will do an event in Indianapolis, Indiana, Thursday morning before leaving and will return to the campaign Saturday, Gibbs said.

Michelle Obama will fill in for her husband on Friday at previously scheduled events in Columbus and Akron, Ohio, his campaign said.

“Toot,” as Obama called her, is his only surviving parent. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Sen. Obama’s mother died at age 54 of cancer. His maternal grandfather and his father are deceased.”

Unfortunately, my job as a political commentator requires me to say this: Obama has enough of a lead in most swing states that this short break should not hurt him much in the polls. If anything, seeing a man in his position abandon the contest for the most powerful office in the world to spend time with his grandmother brings an air of humanity to the guy. It reminds us that even our presidents are still only human — even Barack Obama.

Colorado Independent’s blogumnist (blogger-columnist) Jeff Bridges has worked in Democratic politics for the last 10 years, serving as communications director for two congressional races in Colorado and two governors races in the Deep South. Bridges also worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., with a focus on military and small-business issues.