Buck stature zooms as Colorado GOP delegates celebrate his candidacy

LOVELAND– If GOP U.S. Senate candidates Robert Greenheck, Steve Barton, and Cleve Tidwell are having any effect at all, it is to make Weld County D.A. Ken Buck look like a major candidate, and maybe he is. Candidate Jane Norton didn’t even show up and was not nominated by the delegates here, leaving Buck as the overwhelming crowd favorite. Of course, had Norton thought she could have won, she would have been here Saturday.

Another over-the-top tea party message, brought to you by ALG

The petition delivered Monday by the Tea Party of Southern Colorado to the offices of U.S. Rep. John Salazar and U.S. Sens Mark Udall and Michael Bennet was a garbled screed signed by nearly 300 people. In the section reprinted by the Pueblo Chieftain, the petition warns of future “enslavement” and “forced submission” and “dictatorial bureaucracy.” There are a few commas but there isn’t a period to be found in any of that bit. The signatories are seeking to encourage their lawmakers to oppose health reform legislation, but 66-year-old Jerry Denney, the author of the petition, says it’s not about health care; it’s about socialism.

“This health care bill isn’t about health care. It’s about the destruction of the constitutional republic we’ve lived in for the past 200 or so years.”

Sources: Romanoff planning primary challenge to Bennet for Senate seat

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.

Undeclared U.S. Senate candidate Norton receives national nod, frustrating right bloggers

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…

Beauprez makes it official on 2010 GOP Senate bid: ‘It won’t be me’

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…

Conservative blogger says Beauprez out, Norton in for 2010 Senate race

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.

Polling guru says Colorado Senate seat more likely to switch parties

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…

Colorado conservative candidates come together in rarefied air of Beaver Creek

Beaver Creek, the anti-Aspen of Colorado ski resorts for its relentless cozying up to conservatives, once again hosts the ski-to-the-right set Saturday for the Eagle County Republican’s Lincoln Day Dinner fundraiser.

The longtime mountain retreat of the late Republican…

Early Bird Special: Andrews blows an Obama gasket, Senate crowd swells

Yglesias thinks it’s time to trash the Monday holiday tradition and switch to three-day weekends that start on a Friday. “I think it’s the difference between a weekend that psychologically feels like it has two Saturdays and a weekend…

Ritter makes it official that he’s already made it official: He’ll run again in 2010

Even though he filed paperwork in March to run for a second term, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter dropped the news Friday morning on 850KOA that he’s running for re-election next year. “We have more work to do, and I’d like to be able to do it through 2010,” Ritter said, according to the Associated Press.