Bob Beauprez

While serious discussion of immigration policy reform has been generally avoided for the past year, the politics of immigration have weaved their way through the health care debate as a pet topic on the right, spurring some of the most heated exchanges in blog comment threads, at town hall meetings and, of course, in a joint session of Congress in September, when South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson broke U.S. House decorum by shouting out “you lie” and waving a finger at President Obama for denying that national health care legislation would provide free coverage for illegal immigrants.

Huh? Stating that he was confused by Scott McInnis’s decision not to debate Josh Penry in the primary race to become the GOP Gubernatorial candidate, Bob Beauprez told the Denver Post that he didn’t recall debating primary opponent Marc Holztman. “Whatever damage was done, It never came out of a debate,” he said. But Beauprez [...]

Former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff is readying a primary challenge to incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

Supporters urged Romanoff to mount a primary challenge to Gov. Bill Ritter, whose surprise appointment of Bennet left some party activists angry, The Denver Post’s Michael Riley and Christopher N. Osher report, but the 44-year-old Denver Democrat has instead decided to take on Bennet.

Raising ire among state conservative bloggers, the National Republican Senatorial Committee appears to have already chosen a favorite in the race to challenge U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet for his seat in 2010. With as yet no clear front-runner in the primary race, the NRSC is poised to throw its considerable weight behind undeclared candidate and [...]

Putting to rest a recent round of speculation, former U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez told radio listeners Monday evening he will not seek the Republican nomination for next year’s U.S. Senate election in Colorado. Citing a reluctance to emerge from a comfortable retirement, Beauprez said he and his wife “kinda realized we liked what we’re doing,” [...]

Prominent conservative blogger Ben DeGrow writes Monday afternoon that former U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez won’t be taking on Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet next year.
But that doesn’t mean the crowded field of GOP challengers won’t be growing. Former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton has decided to join the race and will announce her plans next month, [...]

Tagging the contenders “an underwhelming field all around,” FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver lists the Colorado Senate seat held by Democrat Michael Bennet as the seventh-most-likely seat to change hands in the 2010 election . Silver’s August rankings reflect a “fairly major shakeup,” he says, adding that 10 seats — including Bennet’s — are more likely to [...]

Dug up fresh, daily.
QUEENS AND COPS: In the war over welfare benefits in these recession-ravaged times, there’s even more than usual at stake. Neighbors and coworkers are ratting out suspected abusers of the system. Welfare agents follow up on tips. They come knocking and then root through bathrooms in search of signs of cohabitating [...]

The question must be asked: Is Chris Cillizza high? At the very least, the prominent Washington Post political blogger, whose The Fix column is a must-read inside the Beltway, is cruising along at such an altitude as to call into question whether he knows what’s going on down here in fly-over country.

In Cillizza’s Friday Senate Line, he accurately frames next year’s Colorado Senate race, where appointed neophyte Michael Bennet is a virtual unknown who can’t dodge major issues, like the Employee Free Choice Act, forever. But there’s no sign of a credible Republican challenger, able to raise the big bucks and storm a state that’s been trending increasingly Blue. But Cillizza so clumsily blurs the details, we wonder whether whoever has been feeding him his Colorado scoop has been on vacation.

Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck became the first official Republican candidate aiming to unseat U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, the Democrat appointed to the seat in January after Ken Salazar stepped down to become secretary of Interior. Buck, who has been making noise about running for months, made the announcement on his BuckforColorado.com Web site Tuesday morning.