The letter comes on the heels of news that roughly two dozen of Udall and Bennet’s colleagues in the Senate have signed on to a letter strongly urging Komen, the high-profile marketing firm behind the breast-cancer pink-ribbon campaign, to reverse the decision it announced this week to cease funding Planned Parenthood breast cancer screening and education efforts.

The Senate letter has reportedly drawn support from a wide spectrum of Democrats, including moderates like Montana’s John Tester. It decried the Komen decision as the latest front in the partisan political battle launched against Planned Parenthood this year that has driven moves inside and outside of government to strip funds from the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.

“It would be tragic if any woman– let alone thousands of women– lost access to these potentially life-saving screenings because of a politically motivated attack,” the letter reads.

The support the letter has garnered reflects the increasingly high-level pushback Komen has received this week. News outlets have reported the intense back-and-forth that erupted in the wake of the announcement as it unfolded and as it played out on the internet, where supporters and detractors have waged furious social media messaging battles.

Denver Komen is one of select foundation affiliates across the nation that have asked for a waiver from the controversial decision to cut Planned Parenthood funds and has made the case in its public statements for its continuing to fund Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM), pointing to the vital role the embattled organization plays in fighting breast cancer here.

PPRM provides distinctly cost-effective service for Komen. Its Front Range clinics were responsible for 19 percent of all the breast cancer detected through Denver Komen funding last year and it received only $125,000 or 4.3 percent of the $3 million Denver Komen awarded to nonprofits spread across the region, from Douglas County just south of Denver north to the Wyoming border.

Komen also notes that the state budget this year was slashed for the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program provided by the Women’s Wellness Connection Program, leaving nearly 5,500 women in Colorado without access to services and opening the door to nearly 90 cases of cancer. In such an environment, Komen suggested, cutting off Planned Parenthood funding would be irresponsible.

There is no word yet on whether members of the U.S. House will weigh in formally on the Komen funding question. Calls to members of Colorado’s delegation were not immediately returned.

Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette is the head of the Pro-Choice Caucus and has been a lead critic of the often specious attacks on Planned Parenthood launched on Capitol Hill this year.

Indeed, although Komen has said its decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood was not motivated by abortion politics, it cited as the cause a controversial congressional investigation launched by Florida Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns into twenty years of Planned Parenthood finances. Komen said that its new grantee criteria preclude funding any organizations under investigation.

Yet the Stearns audit of Planned Parenthood was spurred mainly by anti-abortion activists working off of a largely discredited Americans United for Life report brimming with lurid accusations that, for example, Planned Parenthood abetted human trafficking and child prostitution operations.

DeGette, together with California Rep. Henry Waxman, denounced the congressional investigation as “unwarranted” and as a legalistic cover to “harass and shut down an organization simply because Republicans disagree with the work that it does.”

“We are aware of no predicate that would justify this sweeping and invasive request to Planned Parenthood,” Waxman and DeGette wrote in a letter to Stearns last September as the investigation was being proposed. “It would be an abuse of the oversight process if you are now using the Committee’s investigative powers to harass Planned Parenthood again. Your fervent ideological opposition to Planned Parenthood does not justify launching this intrusive investigation.”

In a Thursday call with reporters, Komen CEO Nancy Brinker walked back reference to the Stearns investigation. The Washington Post reports Brinker said the decision not to continue funding Planned Parenthood “had very little to do with the ongoing congressional probe” but was based primarily on the fact that some Planned Parenthood clinics do not provide mammograms.

“We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

Northern Colorado Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains clinics will continue to draw funds, as will clinics in Texas and Southern California, Binker said, because “they are the only provider” of breast health services in the areas they serve.

News outlets and blogs have pointed to the fact that national Komen leadership has been tilted recently by a growing number of hardcore pro-life executives and board members, such as Senior Vice President Karen Handel, who came on last April after running as an anti-Planned Parenthood candidate for governor in Georgia’s Republican primary, and prominent Komen Advocacy Alliance board member Jane Abraham, who is also general chairman of the anti-abortion lobbying organization Susan B. Anthony List.

Leadership at Susan B. Anthony includes former arch-social conservative Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave. The group has played a key role in the effort to “defund” Planned Parenthood nationwide. This year it kept a running state-by-state scorecard tracking the roughly $60,399,000 in federal and state funding stripped from Planned Parenthood affiliates in eight states.

“Our efforts during the federal budget fight gave Planned Parenthood a black eye,” the organization boasted.

The Atlantic reported today that sources inside Komen are beginning to confirm that the new policy cited to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood– whether ultimately tied to on-site mammogram services, congressional investigations or something else– was adopted specifically to cut off Planned Parenthood and that that effort was spearheaded by anti-abortion personnel led by Handel.

Ties among Komen executives and Congressional Republicans are sure to be scrutinized in the coming days.

Komen board member Jane Abraham’s husband, Spencer Abraham, for example, may draw looks. He was Energy Secretary under George W. Bush and last year joined Republicans in the House, including House Energy Committee member and Planned Parenthood investigator Cliff Stearns, in denouncing the government program that guaranteed loans to Solyndra solar panel company. Abraham’s law firm recently teamed with Florida law firm Roetzel & Andress to form DC-based lobby shop Abraham & Roetzel, which has offices in Columbus, Ohio and Tallahassee, Florida.

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains told the Colorado Independent this week that the Denver Komen affiliate has been a “strong advocate” for the work Planned Parenthood does in Colorado.

More than 80 percent of PPRM patients have no health insurance and 62 percent live at or below the federal poverty line.

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Anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List this week launched a video campaign against President Obama based on the administration’s move to shore up family planning services in New Hampshire. Social conservatives on the state’s executive council earlier stripped $1.8 million in federal funding from Planned Parenthood affiliates there. New Hampshire officials informed the Obama administration that, in failing to provide key women’s health services, the state was violating federal law.

In the 49-second video, an animated Obama appears drinking and smirking at a bar party:

He was the most popular guy at the party. Big smiles and tall tales. But the longer he stayed, the less he’s liked. First, the small businessmen left him. Then, union workers, college kids, and soccer moms. But through it all, one friend has stuck with Barack Obama: the abortion providers. And his dedication knows no bounds. For them, he promised to shut down the entire federal government. Threatened to slash Medicaid for the poor in Indiana. Even offered to pay for abortion clinics in New Hampshire…with our federal tax dollars. Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood. They won’t stop…until America turns off the music.

Responding to requests from New Hampshire officials, the federal government recently committed to paying Planned Parenthood of Northern New England to provide the mandated family-planning services New Hampshire lost after the executive council vote.

According to the Associated Press, state health officials asked the feds to step in after they failed to find contractors to provide all the non-abortion family-planning services offered by the state’s six defunded Planned Parenthood clinics. Reuters reported that it was the state’s Department of Health and Human Services commissioner who alerted the Obama administration that the state was violating federal rules that required family-planning services be provided statewide. Roughly 4,000 New Hampshire women had their health care services “disrupted” after the executive council initially canceled Planned Parenthood’s contract in June.

Former Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, an arch social conservative Republican who lost to Democrat Betsy Markey the year Obama was elected to office, joined SBA List as a spokesperson after her defeat. Musgrave often appears in states where the organization is waging political battles. President Marjorie Dannenfelser has called the federal actions in New Hampshire “government by fiat.” SBA List has raised funds on the message that encouraging states to restrict uninsured women’s access to family-planning and reproductive-health services will reduce abortions.

The group has shaped family planning policy debate among the 2012 GOP presidential candidates. Several of the candidates have signed the group’s controversial anti-abortion-rights pledge.

As of June, the Susan B Anthony List Inc. Candidate Fund had banked roughly $13,000.

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The coming debate in the Colorado House Judiciary Committee on same-sex civil unions bill SB 172 will center on Republican arguments for and against the legislation. The debate scheduled to take place under the Dome in Denver Thursday will underline the dynamics shaping the larger national debate on gay rights– a debate that now pits Republicans against Republicans because Democrats and Independents have already made up their minds on the matter.

As expected, Denver Senator Pat Steadman’s bill passed out of the Democratic-controlled Senate late last week. With all of the Senate Democrats signed on as co-sponsors, their support was a foregone conclusion. Yet the bill picked up the support of three moderate Republican lawmakers whose opinions about protecting families and securing individual rights and liberties clashed with their colleagues’ views about the threat the bill posed to traditional one-man-one-woman marriage.

“Fundamentally, as a Republican, what I have to look at is: Does [this bill] fit my core beliefs?” said Durango Republican Ellen Roberts last week, leading GOP support for the bill in the Senate. “I believe strongly in protecting individual core rights and liberties.”

Berthoud Republican Kevin Lundberg led the GOP opposition. “Marriage is not an institution that anyone of us in this room has established. Indeed, it is the Supreme Ruler of the Universe who established it,” he said, warning that passing the bill would lead Colorado to “abandon the family unit as a foundation of human society.”

On the ground

A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that national support for gay marriage is now at 53 percent, with solid Democratic and Independent support. Although the poll found that Republicans support gay marriage at only 31 percent, that’s an uptick of 8 points since 2006. What’s more, support for civil unions is much higher among all these groups than is support for gay marriage.

In libertarian-leaning Colorado, it’s no surprise that support for civil unions among Republican and Independent voters is high. A 2010 poll commissioned by gay rights group OneColorado and conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner showed that 61 percent of Colorado Republicans and 84 percent of Colorado Independents support civil unions. Independent voters make up a third of the electorate in the state.

“Support for civil unions is emerging as a mainstream position in the Republican Party,” said Brad Clark, OneColorado executive director. “More and more, conservative leaders are recognizing that civil unions for gay and lesbian couples adheres to a core conservative principle: the less intrusion into personal liberty the better.” Clark was referring to local leaders like Senator Roberts but also to national figures like Dick Cheney, Laura Bush and Cindy McCain.

On the committee

The members of the Republican majority bloc sitting on the House Judiciary Committee don’t seem like the kind of conservatives who would be persuaded by Laura Bush or Cindy McCain, however. Nor do they seem to much reflect civil-unions-friendly Colorado.

Three of the six committee Republicans are Colorado Springs social conservatives, and Loveland Rep. B.J. Nikkel was once an aide to arch social conservative Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave.

Nevertheless, consistent media coverage of the debate in the legislature over the bill, clear shifting Republican- and moderate-voter opinion on the issue across the state and the bipartisan Senate support for the bill may have an effect.

“The Senate vote clearly gives the bill more momentum,” Democratic House sponsor Mark Ferrandino told the Colorado Independent. “That’s 20 percent of the [Republican] caucus. That makes a strong case for a full floor vote in the House.”

GOP House Speaker Frank McNulty has said on several occasions that he is committed to giving the bill a fair hearing. Ferrandino has also said he believes he has enough Republican votes to pass the bill in the House and Republican representatives have begun to go on record as supporters.

On Friday, most of the GOP members of the Judiciary Committee told the Denver Post that, like McNulty, they’re also committed to “giving the bill a fair hearing,” even if they are personally opposed to civil unions.

Committee Chairman Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, told the Post he opposes civil unions but that he is “certainly hearing from both sides” on the issue.

Rep. Mark Barker, R-Colorado Springs, said he also was committed to a fair hearing, before adding that he was a Southern Baptist.

Nikkel said she hadn’t read the bill but of course she would also give it a fair hearing.

On the family

Ferrandino told the Independent the family argument is the one that’s gaining traction with House Republicans.

“It’s the eloquent case Ellen Roberts made on the [Senate] floor for the bill that will sway them,” he said.

Roberts said Steadman’s bill reckons with the reality that unmarried gay and straight Colorado couples are committing themselves to one another and raising families. She said that, based on her experience as an estate and divorce attorney, she believes the state government has left glaring holes in the laws intended to govern family life. Unmarried Colorado partners, gay and straight, should be able to draw on insurance policies and collect worker compensation, for example, they should be able to arrange for alimony and child support and make official child custody and visitation arrangements.

Ferrandino said House Republicans wouldn’t be persuaded by gay-rights libertarian arguments. “Nah, that won’t do it,” he said.

“It will come down to the fact that this bill adds important protections for families. When you look at civil laws, they’re there to protect kids.”

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Former Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave hosted an internet conference with anti-abortion rights activists and lawmakers Tuesday focused on efforts to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood. Musgrave was joined by Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who explained that earlier in the day she voted to shut the government down because the compromise budget resolution that will keep the government running includes funding for Planned Parenthood and “Obamacare.” Bachmann, a controversial figure and a Fox News favorite, was one of only 91 members of the House to vote “no” on the resolution. All seven members of the Colorado Congressional delegation, including Colorado Springs conservative Doug Lamborn and Fourth District freshman Republican Cory Gardner voted in favor of the resolution.

Bachmann explained that she in effect voted for the government shutdown because she believes abortion is the “watershed issue of our time” and that she’s prepared to fight “eyeball-to-eyeball” to defund Planned Parenthood in the next continuing resolution in two weeks.

The “Defunding Planned Parenthood: Urgent Nationwide Webcast,” was hosted by the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, which Musgrave joined after Colorado Fourth District voters backed Democrat Betsy Markey in a 2008 landslide.

“We shouldn’t have one red cent go for Planned Parenthood,” Bachmann said, describing the opportunity to shut down the government as a rare opportunity for abortion rights opponents.

She said that GOP leadership thought cutting all funds to the group was too controversial to include in the continuing resolution, which passed in a 335-91 vote in the House Tuesday and was approved by the Senate Wednesday by a 91-9 margin.

“For me personally, there were a few of us who voted ‘no’ on the continuing resolution… because it did not defund implementing ‘Obamacare’ because, as you know, ‘Obamacare’ will allow for taxpayer-funded abortions for the first time in history of the nation.”

The Affordable Care Act — or, as Bachmann puts it, “Obamacare” — will not allow taxpayer funding for abortion services. Numerous nonpartisan fact-checkers have called that assertion false, including FactCheck.org and Politifact.

The Hyde Amendment currently forbids federal money from paying for abortion and Planned Parenthood does not receive any federal funds for its abortion services. Planned Parenthood uses federal money to pay for cervical cancer screenings, mammographies and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, in addition to other services. The organization is one of the nation’s largest reproductive health care providers. It serves millions of American men and women. Roughly one in five American women visit Planned Parenthood at some point in their lives.

Republicans looking to strip funds from the organization say that providing any kind of taxpayer funding– to pay for cancer screenings or for utility bills and administrative costs, for example– frees up Planned Parenthood to spend its own money on abortion services and that’s unacceptable.

“The next time we vote on the continuing resolution,” said Bachmann, “we have to insist on defunding ‘Obamacare’ and defunding Planned Parenthood. My opinion is there is a point where you draw the line in the sand and you have a hill where you die on. I think this is our issue.”

“We control the spending, and we are going to have to have an eyeball-to-eyeball fight,” she promised. “At some point you have to have a knock down, drag down fight. This is it.”

She concluded, “It’s just morally reprehensible on its face to force people, for whom this is a violation of our moral conscience, to force people to pay for other people’s abortions.”

–
Additional reporting and witing by John Tomasic.

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Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District is considered a “Tier One” battleground for November. It’s the district where Democratic incumbent Betsy Markey is facing GOP state Rep. Cory Gardner. It’s one of the 30 most competitive Democratic districts in the country, according to the poll, which will come as no surprise to Coloradans.

This is the district that was held for three terms by arch-social conservative Marlyn Musgrave, who was defeated by Markey in 2008. That race was among the toughest-fought in the state, with both candidates facing criminal complaints filed against their campaigns for advertising. It was also the third-most expensive House race in the country and saw millions in outside money pour onto the airwaves.

The pie chart at the right is how Colorado’s CD4 breaks down as part of the NPR poll Tier One category and based on a self-identifying breakdown of voters:

15 percent liberal (blue)
32 percent moderate (yellow)
49 percent conservative (red)
4 percent don’t know or were unresponsive (gray)

Here’s a blurb on methodology of the NPR poll:

These findings are based on a national telephone survey of 1200 likely voters conducted in the Congressional Battleground, designated as the 60 most competitive Democratic districts, divided into two tiers of 30 districts each, and the 10 most competitive Republican districts. The survey was conducted June 7-10, 2010.

• 445 Democratic Tier 1 (MoE: +/- 4.6 percentage points)
• 445 Democratic Tier 2 (MoE: +/- 4.6 percentage points)
• 310 Republican Tier (MoE: +/- 5.6 percentage points)

Here is some of what the poll found in its Tier One districts.

• 41 percent approve of the way the Democratic incumbent is doing their job while 38 percent disapprove– but 16 percent strongly approve while 25 percent strongly disapprove.

• 53 percent disapprove of the way Obama is doing his job; 40 percent approve.

• 66 percent see the country heading down the wrong track; 25 percent think it’s headed in the right direction.

• 50 percent favor new stricter financial regulation; 27 percent do not favor additional regulation.

• 46 percent believe Bush not Obama is more to blame for the country’s economic woes; 36 percent believe Obama is more to blame than Bush.

• 59 percent believe Obama’s economic policies exacerbated economic woes rather than alleviated them; 35 percent believe Obama’s policies have prevented the economy from worsening.

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“I think that when people try to see the world through the tinged glasses of Democrat or Republican, that becomes an excuse to throw away critical thinking and duck the greatest responsibility a lawmaker has, which is to be independent and open minded and think of their constituents and country first.

“Those of you who know me know I did not come from a political background. I was a small business owner. It’s a long way from a small internet company and an ice cream and coffee shop to Congress. I have worked hard to take those business values to Congress. Values like keeping the budget balanced; don’t forget the people you serve; ultimately you, and no one else, are responsible for the decisions you make.”

Biden was in town to bolster Markey’s reelection campaign, which started just months after she was elected, when conservative Colorado University Regent Tom Lucero declared his candidacy for her seat. Markey was elected in November 2008. Lucero declared in January 2009. Markey has been under fire by a host of conservative candidates vying for her seat in the last year, candidacies that have benefited in particular from the momentum of the northern Colorado Tea Party movement. More recently, Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin targeted Markey as a vulnerable swing district Democrat who voted for health care reform. Palin’s targeting, though, was mostly bluster; her fundraising Political Action Committee has contributed almost no money to GOP candidates.

Still, the attention Markey has received as a targeted Democrat is surely part of what brought Biden to town this week.

“When I first met Vice President Biden in 2008 in Greeley, he told me I looked too young to have three grown children and I have really liked him ever since then,” Markey said. “We have come a long way together.

“Last time I stood with Vice President Biden, the country had never elected an African American president and had never seen an Hispanic woman serve on the Supreme Court. Health care reform was a pipe dream less than two years ago.

“To people who say elections don’t matter, I say talk to the 25-year-olds who can now stay on their parents’ health insurance.

“To people who say elections don’t matter, speak to the family of Matthew Shepard who waited ten years to see a federal hate crime bill pass. [Shepard was pistol-whipped in Wyoming and died at a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, in Markey's Fourth District, in 1998.]

“Talk to the women who were denied health insurance because they had breast cancer. Or to the family driven into bankruptcy paying for life-saving operations that their insurance wouldn’t cover.”

Biden stood next to Markey on stage during her remarks.

“A certain former governor of Alaska has put Congressman John Salazar and I on a list of targeted races for 2010. I wear that as a badge of honor, but it is also disheartening.

“When did hope and change become a bad thing?”

Minimum donations for the event, which was also attended by U.S. Reps. Ed Perlmutter and Dianna DeGette, were $150. Biden spoke in Longmont earlier in the day at an event open to press and public.

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Doug Hoffman

Some of Shaftan’s arguments, summarized by Weigel:

- Dede Scozzafava’s endorsement of Owens — which the Democrats sought while Hoffman notably did nothing — “hurt with independent voters.”

- The Hoffman campaign was too focused on Scozzafava and “should have shifted the attack to Owens once she fell into third.”

- The presence of outside groups for Hoffman “may have backfired to a slight extent” because it “emphasized Hoffman’s poor grasp of local issues.” Shaftan singled out freewheeling FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey for some blame here, as Armey dismissed the local issues that tripped up Hoffman as “parochial issues.”

- Hoffman’s attacks on earmarks also backfired, because it was “turned around as an attack on Fort Drum,” a huge employer in the district.

- Hoffman should have nailed Owens as what he turned out to be — a key vote for health care reform.

Shaftan’s poll is here:

NY-23 memo

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Musgrave, a former 4th District Republican U.S. Congresswoman who lost to Democrat Betsy Markey last year and now works for the pro-life activist organization Susan B. Anthony List, told the New York Times that party leaders in Washington should take the message of the campaign and the election seriously, that the Party base should not be taken for granted. “Don’t just assume we’re yours,” she said.

“This is probably the most amazing coalition-building I’ve seen in a long time — probably decades,” said Marilyn Musgrave, a former Republican congresswoman from Colorado who now works with the Susan B. Anthony List and came to New York to campaign for Mr. Hoffman.

On Tuesday morning, Ms. Musgrave stood in frigid weather for several hours outside a state office building in downtown Watertown with a group of home-schooled students passing out blue fliers that read, “Doug Hoffman shares our values!”

The battle in New York likely reverberates through Republican Party leadership across the country, including here in Colorado.

Marilyn Musgrave

Yesterday, arch-conservative state Sen. Dave Schultheis, who made a show of backing the Conservative Party’s Hoffman over the Republican candidate, announced he would not be running for a second term. His would-be primary opponent Tom McDowell, however, took little comfort in the news. McDowell told the Colorado Independent that conservatives of Schultheis’s ilk were stubbornly wrecking the party. The single-mindedness on abortion in Schultheis’s case, for example, he said, amounted to Republican “fratricide.”

Schultheis is “too in love with single issue inspired fratricide. I expect that his wing of the party will try to put up someone else, but that candidate will have to carry Schultheis’ fratricidal baggage.’”

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During my years in the Legislature, I have purposely never sought a leadership position, as I believed my role was to stand firmly against every temptation to moderate my conservative views for greater acceptance by the caucus,” he wrote. “As a result, I felt free and unencumbered, to hold high the banner of each and every conservative principle that Republicans say they believe in … and to do so without compromise.

Schultheis has served in the Colorado House and Senate since 2000. In February he outraged Democrats when he said he planned to vote against a bill to require HIV tests for pregnant women because the disease “stems from sexual promiscuity” and he didn’t think the Legislature should “remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior.” Schultheis proceeded to cast the lone vote against SB 179, which passed 32-1 and moves on to the House.

State Sen. Dave Schultheis, a Colorado Springs Republican (Photo/Bob Spencer, The Colorado Independent)

“HIV does not just come from sexual promiscuity, it comes from many other things — contaminated blood, for one,” fired back one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Lois Tochtrop, after Schultheis spoke on the Senate floor.

“What this bill will do and why it’s so important to test the woman when she is pregnant — if she is HIV-positive, treatment is started immediately to protect the baby, the unborn baby,” the Thornton Democrat, who is also a nurse, said.

Listen to Schultheis and Tochtrop here.

Schultheis last week signed onto a letter with Colorado conservative lawmakers Sens. Scott Renfroe, Kevin Lundberg, Greg Brophy and Rep. Kent Lambert endorsing New York Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over “liberal Republican” candidate Dede Scozzafava.

The Republican establishment should stop supporting candidates that merely call themselves Republicans to get elected, and whose actions then undermine principled Republican legislation. We should represent our loyal Party members better by heeding their warnings against compromising Republican principles. Unlike Scozzafava’s views, the Republican Party Platform is pro-life, pro-capitalist, and pro-traditional marriage, and is opposed to radical leftist groups like ACORN.

Schultheis Republican primary opponent Tom McDowell was moved to run against Schultheis for the way he said Schultheis’s single-minded focus on abortion was hurting the party, amounting to Republican “fratricide.”

I oppose him, said McDowell, “because he’s too in love with single issue inspired fratricide. I expect that his wing of the party will try to put up someone else, but that candidate will have to carry Schultheis’ fratricidal baggage.’”

The primary might well have echoed the front range 4th Congressional District race last year, where moderate Democrat Betsy Markey unseated social conservative Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave.

Schultheis’s statement:

After considerable deliberation, I have decided to forgo running for my second and final four-year term as a Colorado State Senator representing Senate District 9. I will, however, continue to serve out my current term, which culminates at the end of 2010, concluding ten years of political service for the citizens of Colorado. This has been an extremely difficult decision for me, as I love the challenge of serving the best interests of my constituents on legislative matters, by steadfastly advocating for traditional, conservative values, which I know to be the best overall values for the citizens of Colorado and the nation.

After much prayer and discussion with family members and close friends, I have come to this decision in order to spend more time with family, including my five rapidly-growing grandsons. As is common knowledge, the responsibilities of political office are extremely demanding on one’s time and schedule — often to the detriment of time spent with family and friends.

Having served to the very best of my ability since 2001, first in Colorado’s House of Representatives for six years and now in the Colorado State Senate, I have consistently attempted to uphold Conservative principles to the best of my ability, even when it was difficult to do so. I remain convinced that those principles are essential for a society whose citizens value freedom, liberty and personal responsibility.

The citizens of Senate 9 District deserve a strong, unwavering Conservative to be their Senator; it is an important responsibility that I have taken very seriously. While I have been honored that the voters have had faith in me over these years, it has always been my view that if there were others who could fulfill those duties with the same level of passion for Conservative principles as I, then I could direct my efforts to other areas; there is so much to do to reclaim the vision of our Founding Fathers. There are now individuals standing in the wings who can and will passionately and consistently carry that mantle.

During my years in the Legislature, I have purposely never sought a leadership position, as I believed my role was to stand firmly against every temptation to moderate my conservative views for greater acceptance by the caucus. As a result, I felt free and unencumbered, to hold high the banner of each and every conservative principle that Republicans say they believe in…and to do so without compromise.

It is with a great deal of gratitude to the citizens of Senate District 9, and a strong sense of personal accomplishment that I move forward to meet future challenges.

God bless you, the citizens of Senate District 9 and of Colorado.

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In such an environment– one that includes the New York Congressional race where Colorado social conservative Marilyn Musgrave campaigned for a Conservative Party candidate over the local GOP candidate– Wadhams may find it difficult to maintain message. So far, GOP candidates for the top Colorado spots– Michael Bennet’s U.S. Senate seat and Bill Ritter’s seat in the Governor’s mansion– have been avoiding social issues and emphasizing fiscal conservativism. Can that strategy last?

Dick Wadhams

Registered Republicans still outnumber Democrats in Colorado but in the last five years, Democrats have won both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats, three U.S. House seats, the governorship and majorities in both houses of the state Assembly. But Colorado is not suddenly Massachusetts.

As NPR reported Monday, the only way anyone wins in Colorado is by appealing to the nearly one-third of the voting population that remains unaffiliated, and this is no secret to Wadhams.

Wadhams senses opportunity. He’s already crafted a message focused on fiscal responsibility that is designed to appeal to unaffiliated voters.

“They seem to be very concerned about the massive spending proposals of the Obama administration,” says Wadhams. “They’re very concerned about the deficits.”

Yet Wadhams has reportedly thrown his weight behind the high-profile candidacies of Sen. Josh Penry and Jane Norton. Penry is running for governor and Norton for U.S. Senate. But the records of Penry and Norton both suggest they are more likely to advance a social-conservative agenda than their more moderate rivals Scott McInnis and Ken Buck.

In the present environment, where Penry’s state Senate colleagues are moved to draft a letter in support of “real Republican” Doug Hoffman, based in large part on Hoffman’s stance on social issues, it may not be long before Penry and Norton are forced out of the fiscal conservative closet where Wadhams has in effect been keeping them.

How long will grassroots Republicans and far-right activists like Marilyn Musgrave and Michelle Malkin allow Jane Norton to continue with the kind of vague pronouncements she made last night in Greeley:

Norton said if she’s nominated and elected to the Senate, she would work to bring back values of Republicans by bringing people back into action.

“We don’t need over-government, over-taxes, over-spending and over-regulations. We do not want government control of our health care,” she said.

Norton promised to restore values of the individual, the rights of individuals and the responsibilities of people.

“We will not compromise our values and principals,” she said.

More significantly, how long will the state’s key unaffiliated voters tolerate this kind of dog whistle evasion on matters that may deeply affect their personal lives– matters like contraception, abortion, marriage, sex ed curriculum and the viability of K-12 public education?

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