Cleve Tidwell

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.”

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 [...]

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 President Gerald Ford, Beaver Creek annually hosts the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) World Forum –- a conservative [...]

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 that psychologically feels like it has two Sundays,” he writes. Early Bird Special tends to agree.
Nonetheless, [...]

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.

With more local politicos using the microblogging service Twitter to surreptitiously feed the rumor mill, rally supporters and bash opponents in 140 characters or less I thought it might be fun to highlight the week’s best, worst or funniest message, known as a “tweet.”

And our inaugural post is a doozy too.