Boyles writes that if the people who run the Republican Party lost three more IQ points “we would have to water them,” and then turns his ire on Republicans Scott McInnis and Maes, who Boyles says stand little chance in the November election for governor against Democrat John Hickenlooper. McInnis and Maes are in a heated two-way race for the GOP nod in the Aug. 10 primary. Tancredo is running on the American Constitution Party ticket.

“First there’s Scott McInnis, whose act of charity is to give away a dead elk, followed by Dan Maes, who said he’d take the elk. Both of these guys are as good as tapped out,” Boyles wrote.

After railing on Republicans, Boyles sets his sights on a list of usual and unusual suspects that he berates for their opposition to Tancredo’s positions in the past.

According to Boyles, his list consists of those who “hate” former congressman Tancredo. He dismisses those on the list roundly, saying you wouldn’t want to have dinner with any of them anyway. The list includes Media Matters, the Denver Post, (Post columnist) Mike Littwin, the Colorado Republican Party, Progress Now, the Daily Kos, Hickenlooper, Gov. Bill Ritter, Bob Beauprez, the ACLU, Karl Rove and “a bunch of people in Mecca after Tom said he’d like to bomb them if they struck America again.”

“How can you hate a guy that people on this list hate?” Boyles reflects. “Are you kidding me?”

Editor’s note: Due to an editing error the original version of this post incorrectly stated Tancredo was seeking the GOP nod in the governor’s race.

Republican candidate Scott McInnis reports raising $550,062 during the same time period. He raised just under $500,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009 and roughly $550,000 the quarter before that, giving him a fundraising head start of just more than $1 million dollars going into this quarter.

McInnis reported receiving donations from almost 2,000 people last quarter. Hickenlooper reported more than 5,000 total donors this quarter.

“Entering the race for governor was not a decision we made lightly. The encouragement we have received since then has been humbling,” said Hickenlooper in a prepared statement.

Governor Bill Ritter, who is not seeking re-election, raised around $4 million for his election in 2006, compared with around $3.5 million for his GOP opponent Bob Beauprez.

Hickenlooper raised about $2.2 million for his first mayoral bid in 2002. Analysts say Hickenlooper and McInnis each will need to raise between $3 million and $4 million by Election Day in November.

Hickenlooper’s campaign reports having almost $880,000 cash on hand.

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Denver pro-immigration rally 2006 (Staver: Flickr)

According to nonpartisan pollster Floyd Ciruli, however, illegal immigration merely rallies the base. He told The Colorado Independent that relative to other issues, immigration is a fairly stable policy topic. Politicians and voters know where they stand.

“Immigration holds a talk show audience, but it doesn’t move voters by any extent.” In the 2010 elections, immigration is not likely to be a big deal.

“Ask Republicans what the most important issue is, immigration will be third or fourth. It still has considerable bite for Republicans. But if you notice people who have tried to use it — [former U.S. Rep. Tom] Tancredo, when he ran for president, Beauprez when he was trying to get some advantage against Ritter — it really doesn’t seem to be a game changer.”

Pro-immigration primary stances

The top primary candidates in Colorado have laid down their stakes on the issue. Candidates can’t be expected to lay all their cards on the table in the primaries, she said, but when it comes to immigration, she doesn’t anticipate any surprises. The primaries are more about taking the pulse of party faithful, Colorado Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak told The Colorado Independent.

“We’re watching the Republican primaries to see if [voters] will continue to vote ultra-conservative by choosing [GOP gubernatorial candidate] Josh Penry or if they will instead choose a less conservative candidate such as [former U.S. Rep.] Scott McInnis.”

Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and primary challenger Andrew Romanoff both support comprehensive immigration reform and paths for citizenship. They also agree that illegal immigration is something that must be controlled.

Bennet campaign manager Craig Hughes told The Colorado Independent that Bennet supports comprehensive immigration. The senator is sponsoring the DREAM Act, which provides a mechanism for undocumented children to gain citizenship.

“Sen. Bennet is a longtime supporter of a comprehensive approach that would clear the path to citizenship, especially for deserving undocumented students who were brought here as children.”

Romanoff’s record, however, may be called into question by Latino voters, Hughes said, pointing to Romanoff’s support of the special state legislative session in 2006 that produced a number of laws affecting illegal immigration here.

Although Romanoff’s campaign did not respond to calls for comment, Polly Bacca, Colorado Latino Forum co-chair, told The Colorado Independent that she doesn’t see the Romanoff campaign facing any real difficulties on the issue. On the contrary, she predicted that Romanoff would win the primary and walk away with the Senate seat. Romanoff, she said, is a strong supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and has developed a strong following in the Latino Community. Although Romanoff presided over the 2006 special session, Bacca said Latino voters know the full story.

“[Romanoff] kept the bad initiatives off the ballot during the special session. He really worked with [the Latino community ] to make sure we didn’t get negative legislation.”

In September, Jessie Ulibarri, a Latino Democratic advocate told The New York Times that Bennet likewise enjoys deep support among Latinos.

“Senator Bennet has told us that he is willing to lose an election over immigration reform. It is comforting to have a senator with that stance.”

Anti-illegal immigration primary stances

The GOP candidates for the U.S. Senate Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck and former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton come down hard on illegal immigration.

In a discussion with The Colorado Independent, Buck’s campaign manager pointed to Buck’s record on the issue as district attorney and to the unequivocal position stated at the campaign website. Buck has called on lawmakers to tighten the borders and provide a guest-worker program to service business labor demands.

“I believe we can do that and still get serious about dealing effectively with the larger illegal immigration problem,” his site reads.

In a recent interview posted at the Square State blog, Buck reiterated his concern over loose boarder control and commented on his frustration that illegal aliens come to the U.S. and have children who are then considered citizens.

More compelling perhaps for political watchers, however, is the strong stance Buck took against presidential candidate John McCain last year as part of a PBS “News Hour” panel. Buck said McCain sold out America in the McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration bill.

“Amnesty to me is wrong, because it puts people that break the law ahead of the people that obey the law. And I think it’s a very serious moral issue that we need to grapple with. And I’m not sure I have the answer. It just seems wrong to me to put the illegal immigrant ahead of the person that’s done it the right way,” he said.

Norton has deep ties to the McCain camp. She was a leader of the McCain campaign in Colorado and many of the people at the heart of her Senate campaign are former McCain advisers and major donors. Yet, she seems to agree with Buck’s tougher tack on immigration. In a discussion with The Colorado Independent, Norton campaign spokeswoman Cinamon Watson hit all the same points.

“We have to first and foremost secure the borders and then we have to develop a temporary guest worker program that allows employers to verify workers and make sure that they are in the country legally and they are here temporarily.”

A hint at how intractable the stance is at this point came in response to a question on a so-called path to citizenship.

“You mean amnesty?” Watson asked, taken aback, declining to say more on the topic.

Poll numbers

According to an October 13 Rasmussen report on immigration, however, Americans by a 55 percent to 27 percent margin favor a policy that would welcome everyone except criminals, national security threats and welfare dependents. This even though a large percentage, 74 percent, thought the government was not doing enough to secure the borders and 56 percent felt that government policies encourage illegal immigration.

A May 2009 Benenson Strategy Group poll of 1,000 likely voters showed 68 percent of voters supported a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. That number included 62 percent of Republican respondents. Beyond that 71 percent of voters felt that illegal immigrants should become legal tax payers.

The numbers support pollster Ciruli’s deadpan assessment of the 2010 elections and, for all the carefully articulated positions and fiery stump speeches to come, the campaign managers agree.

“It’s really going to be about the economy,” Watson said.

Hughes agreed.

“There are really two dominant issues in Colorado and those are the economy and health care. Getting the economy moving again, freeing up the credit market and creating jobs is going to be a key issue for the voters of Colorado.”

Bacca said she felt comprehensive immigration reform would be “handled in the first part of next year, 2010.”

“Unless comprehensive immigration reform is not passed,” Bacca said, “immigration will not be a major issue in the 2010 general election.”

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McInnis specifically cited the GOP battle between Beauprez and Holtzman as his reason for not debating Penry. McInnis campaign spokesman Sean Duffy told the Post, “[McInnis] wants to avoid mutually assured destruction, where we are giving ammunition to the Democratic Party.”

Although Beauprez is now muddled on the past, it takes a little longer to rewrite history. The Colorado Springs Gazette reported on March 18, 2006, that Beuaprez debated Holtzman at the Denver Tech Center Hyatt Regency. During the debate Holtzman attacked Beauprez on a multitude of issues, including his failure to prevent Referendum C from passing. At one point, referring to Referendum C, which created additional tax funding for schools, Holtzman said, “Bob, if anything, this was an issue where you earned the name Both Ways Bob in all the issues that affect the future of Colorado.”

Beauprez was unable to shake the moniker “Both Ways Bob” during the election cycle.

As the primary frontrunner, he also decided to “reevaluate whether he [would] debate Holtzman again.”. He pulled out of a scheduled debate on the Saunders’ show with Holztman.

Holtzman dropped out of the race after the Colorado Supreme Court chose not to hear his case to get on the August primary ballot. It does not appear that the two ever debated again.

Edit Note: The original version stated that Sean Duffy was McInnis campaign manager. He is campaign spokesman. George Culpepper is McInnis campaign manager.

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Democrat speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff at a Denver town hall forum. (File photo/Jason Kosena)

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 43-year-old Denver Democrat has instead decided to take on Bennet.

Romanoff has offered a campaign staff position to a “veteran Democratic strategist,” the Post reports, and plans to make an announcement next month. Romanoff’s campaign could rely on supporters — including labor groups — who “pledged to back him” if he challenged Ritter.

Labor leaders have been angry at Ritter since the governor vetoed two Democratic bills backed by unions.

“It is unclear whether the same level of enthusiasm would exist for a challenge of Bennet,” the Post reports, adding that some have cautioned Romanoff against taking on Bennet when the incumbent has already raised $2.6 million through June this year.

A Romanoff challenge to Bennet could rend Colorado Democrats. U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, who was elected just months before Bennet won appointment, formally endorsed Bennet earlier this summer. Freshman U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who took over Udall’s 2nd District House seat, is raising campaign money for Bennet through a fundraising committee.

The prospect of a Democratic primary caps a week of shakeups in the Colorado Senate race, rated earlier this week among the most likely to switch parties by Democratic-leaning polling guru Nate Silver.

On Monday, former congressman and failed gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez said he won’t enter the Republican primary race the same day rumors swirled that former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton planned to jump in.

By the end of the week, Norton’s entry sounded more likely as news emerged that the National Republican Senatorial Committee was already helping her campaign. Also late Friday, reports broke that the fundraising frontrunner for the GOP nod, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, plans to drop out of the race early next week.

Romanoff topped some polls and had an active group of supporters in December when Ritter was considering his pick to replace Ken Salazar, who stepped down from the Senate seat he won in 2004 to take an appointment as secretary of the Interior in the incoming Obama administration.

In January, Romanoff handed over the gavel to incoming House Speaker Terrance Carroll after giving up his statehouse seat due to term limits. He has been a “scholar in residence” at the University of Colorado at Denver School of Public Affairs since leaving the Legislature and last year earned a law degree from the University of Denver law school.

Other Republicans in the running include Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier and businessman Cleve Tidwell. Crested Butte attorney Luke Korkowski and former state Sen. Tom Wiens of Castle Rock are exploring whether to join the field, and KOA radio personality Dan Caplis has flirted with the notion of running against Bennet.

The 2010 primary election is nearly a year away, on Aug. 10, but Democrats and Republicans will begin sorting out candidates at March 16 precinct caucuses and through an assembly and convention process that winds up in May.

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Complete Colorado, a roughly year-old right-leaning website mostly known as a news aggregator, reported yesterday that on August 17, NRSC New Media Director Vincent Harris registered two Norton campaign domain names: “www.nortonforsenate.com” and “www.janenortonforsenate.com.” The registrations list Harris as both the administrative and technical contact. Calls to Harris’s office at the NRSC this morning have so far gone unreturned.

Republicans see Bennet’s seat as a prime target. Although he has worked in government for years, Bennet has never run for office. He was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Bill Ritter when the Obama administration tapped Ken Salazar in December to head the Department of the Interior.

Ben DeGrow, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, has been all over the Complete Colorado report at his Mount Virtus blog, lamenting this kind of premature “candidate coronation process,” which he said has deflated conservative grassroots power and has ended in a string of GOP defeats.

The move by the NRSC all but confirms reports posted by the Colorado Independent early this week that Norton was poised to join the field of GOP candidates vying for the chance to unseat Bennet.

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez this week announced he was withdrawing from the race. Republicans remaining in the ring include Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, businessman Cleve Tidwell, Crested Butte attorney Luke Korkowski and former state Sen. Tom Wiens of Castle Rock. Radio personality Dan Caplis has also flirted with running against Bennet.

Norton would be the only hopeful who has run for election statewide, albeit as the running mate of popular Republican Gov. Bill Owens when he sought his second term in 2002. Since the two left office in 2007 (after Owens ran up against term limits), Norton has been the founding executive director of the Denver Police Foundation, a charity that raises money to bolster officers and public safety in general. During Owens’ first administration, she headed the state Department of Health and Environment.

To what degree her experience as a candidate with Owens makes her the best candidate to challenge Bennet and one worthy of early “coronation” is now the subject the right-blogosphere will begin parsing in detail.

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“What really was the deciding factor for us was knowing we would have to forsake, set aside, all of our family interests, everything we’ve got going on,” Beauprez said in the closing minutes of the KHOW 630 AM radio show he guest-hosted Monday afternoon. “At least this cycle, it won’t be me.”

Beauprez also sent an e-mail to supporters before the radio show and posted the news on his web site Monday afternoon.

Saying he planned to “keep my powder dry, at least for a little bit,” the former state GOP chairman declined to endorse any of the hopefuls seeking the nomination. “Not right now,” he said when co-host Craig Silverman asked whether Beauprez favored a contender. “I am virtually certain the field is not set,” he said, perhaps hinting at the rumored decision of former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton to jump into the race.

Beauprez floated his name as a possible candidate early this year and then mostly disappeared from view until recently when lackluster fundraising totals from Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck and Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier had some Republicans wondering if those two were up to the task.

Bennet, seen as vulnerable by some political observers, tallied more than $2.6 million in the first two quarters of the year, far outpacing potential challengers. Buck raised $330,000 and Frazier reported $140,000 in the three months ending June 30. Both waited until the second quarter to launch their campaigns.

None of the other potential candidates — businessman Cleve Tidwell, Crested Butte attorney Luke Korkowski or former state Sen. Tom Wiens of Castle Rock — raised money in the most recently reported quarter. The next quarter ends Sept. 30 and fundraising reports are due to the FEC on Oct. 15.

Beauprez suggested the eventual Republican nominee could have to raise $10 million, “or perhaps $12, $15 million if it gets competitive.”

Right before making his announcement on the radio, Beauprez posted a lengthy explanation for his decision not to run on his web site. After recounting a life of public service — including two successful runs for Congress early in the decade and a loss to Democrat Bill Ritter in the governor’s race in 2006 — Beauprez lays it out:

I’ve stayed involved, keeping my eyes open for other ways to make a difference. Not every opportunity is the right one though, and having been presented with the potential to serve in the United States Senate, Claudia and I considered it very carefully. However after significant reflection, I will not be a candidate for the Senate in 2010.

While there are still plenty of opportunities for the Democrats in the Senate, I believe that the Republicans are now slightly more likely to gain seats than to lose them, potentially threatening the Democrats’ supposed filibuster-proof majority.

Even though Bennet has amassed a fortune in campaign funds since his January appointment to fill Ken Salazar’s seat, Silver says the relative obscurity of the whole field means national trends — favoring Republicans these days — could make the difference.

7. Colorado (D-Bennet)
An underwhelming field all around in Colorado; nominal incumbent Michael Bennet has a net-negative approval rating, but his most likely Republican opponents aren’t liked any better. A race like this is likely to be determined by national factors, rather than local ones, and right now those factors are looking much improved for Republicans, especially in a state where Obama’s approval ratings have been poor relative to his election-day performance.

Bennet’s seat was in seventh place last month too, when Silver called it “effectively an open-seat race,” but an added upward-pointing arrow indicates Silver thinks it’s more likely to switch now than it was a month ago. Considered a safe seat when Salazar held it, Silver’s rankings have moved Bennet’s prospects steadily up the chart since March, when the Colorado seat only ranked 11th in likelihood of switching parties.

Bennet’s potential opponents include Republicans Ken Buck, the Weld County district attorney; Ryan Frazier, an Aurora city councilman; Bob Beauprez, a former congressman and failed candidate for governor; Tom Wiens, a former state senator; and businessman Cleve Tidwell.

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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 freeloading men! What we have here is the makings of either the next wildly popular American reality TV program or a Michelle Malkin series of hard-hitting investigative reports. Or both.

TYRANNIES: The militant neo-con David Horowitz Freedom Center reports that U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. — one of the true leftist members of Congress and an African-American woman– finds socialist constraint more agreeable than capitalist abuse. In a recent Congressional hearing, Waters threatened executives of banks running onerous credit card and loan policies with socialization. The Horowitz Center caught her! Waters said the word “socialization” and the Center has it on tape and is shopping it around. Read the post, though, and it’s hard to know whom the Horowitz Center is exposing with this campaign. Waters is angry at finance-sector greed. She wants change. She’s not the only American who feels that way.

THE HORSE’S ASS: It may be true. Or it may be a feint of some sort. According to Facebook and now other sources, including the Denver Post, former Rep. Bob Beauprez is being drawn to the tantalizing U.S. Senate seat presently occupied by Dem. Michael Bennet. If it’s true that Beauprez is committed to running, Coloradans will be treated to another round of world-class laff-riot campaign buffoonery.

IT’S A BOY: While the economic downturn threw men out of work, it placed more women on the payrolls. In fact, reports suggest there are more women working in Colorado today than ever before. That’s not so great, on one level, because women still make a lot less money than men. Proposed solutions: raise women’s salaries across the board and create more green-collar jobs.

COUNSELOR FREE ZONE: There has been no US Attorney appointed to Colorado by Pres Obama to date, which oddly doesn’t really seem to matter at all.

THIS AMERICAN LIFE: “They’re very food motivated, which makes them easy to train.”

Written and compiled by John Tomasic with David O Williams.

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