“The solution to bad government isn’t more government,” he said on a stage filled with supporters. “Across the state I have seen the frustration among Republican voters…. We rallied on April 15th against spending. We said ‘Don’t let the government take over health care.’ We said ‘ Secure the borders.’ … They heard us but they ignored us. But in November, we will be heard.”

Buck’s daughter introduced him to the crowd as the AP reported Buck winning 51 percent of the vote to 48 percent, with roughly 60 percent of the precincts reporting.

“People ask me all the time, ‘Why should my dad be senator?’ I say, ‘Because he’s cheap.’ He has a gross Velcro wallet that he’s had for 20 years. He’ll have it for 20 more years. We need someone like him in Washington.”

Buck’s son, a student at West Point, called in to congratulate him on the victory.

Buck said he wanted to work to rebuild a future for his children and children throughout the country. Indeed, he echoed a Ronald Reagan-style theme, one that has been cropping up on the campaign trail and on talk radio, suggesting that the tone in Washington is defeatist and weak and that, in effect, it could be “morning in America” again after the GOP notches victories in November.

“The message we’re getting from Washington is clear. The message from the [Obama] administration is that we’re not special, that we’re the same as other countries. But that’s not what I learned in school. I think we’re an exceptional country,” he said, and the crowd responded with an extended cheer.

“I’m Ken Buck and I hope you’ll work with me to make the kind of history our children and grandchildren can be proud of.”

Throughout the night here, as primary vote tallies flashed on big video projection screens, Buck supporters cheered whenever the rolling tallies showed Sen. Michael Bennet leading his Democratic primary opponent, Andrew Romanoff. Bennet appears to have won by nearly 10 percentage points.

Buck later told the Colorado Independent that general election voters will have a clear choice. They’ll be choosing between a “Colorado conservative and a Washington liberal.”

He said Jane Norton had been extremely gracious in conceding the race and that he didn’t see any lingering split among Colorado’s conservative voters – that is, between the tea party and the mainstream Republican party.

“When people understand the differences between Ken Buck and Michael Bennet, Republicans will unite and we will be able to reach out to unaffiliated voters. The contrast between a Colorado conservative and a Washington DC liberal is going to be stark for voters come November.”

He said his victory wasn’t strictly about the tea party and its support for his candidacy but about more general frustration on the right.

“People are frustrated with Republicans going back to DC and voting one way and then coming back here and campaigning in Colorado a different way. Unfortunately, while Jane Norton hasn’t been in DC and doesn’t have a voting record, she was associated with that group of people who have done that in the past, and so so I was able to, as an outsider, as a county district attorney, I was able to capitalize on that, and that became an important issue.”

Yet Buck’s victory is an unmistakable victory for the tea party here. In Colorado, the tea party has been more widely embraced and at least as organized as it has been anywhere else in the nation. Tea party leaders were in attendance in significant numbers at Buck’s victory party, including unabashed defeated Fourth District tea party congressional candidate Dean Madere, who told the Colorado Independent Buck won because he is a “man of the people” who “speaks plain.”

Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams was also in attendance and he was clearly relieved that this heated primary, where one of the worst things the candidates could say about each other was that they were backed by the state party and the GOP establishment, was over.

“I’m happy to be done with this neutrality stuff,” he said to a small clutch of reporters as he smiled and shook Buck’s hand.

[Photo: Ken Buck and Dick Wadhams ]

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Dick Wadhams

“Accidental senator Michael Bennet and Denver Mayor John Hickenritter want to make us like Europe. We won’t stand for that. Hear me clearly, Mayor Hickenritter, Senator Bennet, Representative Betsy Markey, Representative John Salazar—you will not make the Unites States of America just another part of Europe.”

In news from Friday‘s district assembly here, state Rep. Cory Gardner was the sole candidate of three GOP challengers to win enough votes to reach the primary ballot. The GOP race to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey has already stretched for more than a year. Loveland local Dean Madere received 20 percent of the delegate vote Friday and CU Regent Tom Lucero, who entered the race first, declaring mere months after Markey won her seat in November 2008, drew only 19 percent support. Candidates needed to win at least 30 percent of delegates to qualify for the August 10 ballot. Gardner now faces Markey alone.

As the National Institute on Money in State Politics points out, despite the fact that a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 31 percent of citizens think the two-party system is broken, only 2 percent of third-party candidates have won races in the last decade. As failed independent presidential candidate Ross Perot might say: “That’s just sad.”

No third-party candidates fare well but Libertarian and Green Party candidates have been the least successful in the last decade.

For a report published Tuesday titled “Third-Party Candidates Face Long Odds,” Money in State Politics authors looked at 6,181 third-party candidates who ran for state offices from 2000 to 2009:

Dean Madere

About 100 political parties fielded more than 6,000 candidates to run for state offices, representing 8 percent of the total candidates… Those who identified themselves as members of the Independent and Progressive Parties were most successful at the polls, while Libertarian and Green Party candidates were the least successful. Third-party candidates fared the best in Vermont, where 14 percent of the 236 third-party candidates who sought office were successful. They fared worst in California, where not one of the 392 third-party candidates won.

Third-party candidates also didn’t accrue the traditional advantages that benefit Republican and Democratic candidates. Only 23 percent of the third-party candidates who were the top fundraisers in their race were successful—far below the 82 percent win-rate for top fundraisers from the two major parties. The benefits of incumbency were also muted for third-party candidates: only 54 percent of incumbent third-party candidates were re-elected, compared to the 92 percent success rate of major party candidates.

Who is John Galt? He’s a libertarian with a small L who votes for Republicans and Democrats.

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Moore tweeted the Gardner announcement as it happened. It was scheduled for 5 pm Wednesday night.

In a blog posted earlier in the day, Moore had speculated that Brown would announce he was dropping out of the Congressional race, endorse Gardner and perhaps report he was running for a seat in the Colorado House– the seat representing District 52, currently held by Democrat John Kefalas but held by a Republican just four years ago.

According to Moore’s latest dispatch, however, Brown has announced only that he will become co-chair of the Gardner campaign, making no mention of running for state office.

Gardner was selected in the fall to join the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Gun” program, which provides training and support for promising candidates.

CU Regent Tom Lucero and Tea Party regular guy Dean Madere remain CD4 GOP primary candidates despite making poor showings in Tuesday night’s caucus and struggling to raise funds.

The four men– Brown, Gardner, Lucero and Madere– have been vying for the chance to run against Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey in the swing district.

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In the Democratic race for U.S. Senate, longtime popular state politician and former Speaker of the Colorado House Andrew Romanoff defeated appointed U.S. Senator Michael Bennet but it was no landslide. Bennet has literally been in office for a year and has never run a political campaign.Yet Romanoff won with what looks like only roughly 50 percent to 41 percent of the vote, although he won solidly in the Democratic-stronghold Denver metro precincts.

“I want to thank the thousands of Coloradans who came out tonight to show their support for the work we are all doing together to change Washington and who will join me in winning the primary in August and the general election in the fall” Bennet said in a release. “As someone who isn’t a political insider, tonight’s support is especially meaningful.”

On the right, GOP U.S. Senate candidate Weld County D.A. Ken Buck topped former Lt. Governor Jane Norton in a very close race, winning with what looks like not even 38 percent to 37 percent of the vote. But Buck won in a statewide contest despite the advantages Norton enjoys in name recognition, local and national party endorsements and fundraising support.

On the heels of an expensive TV ad campaign launched against Norton by conservative 527 groups and increasing media critiques of her spotty record as a fiscal conservative during her tenure with Gov. Bill Owens’s administration, the loss last night is another blow. The Buck campaign, which struggled mightily to raise money last quarter, is now on the rise. The Norton campaign is on its heels.

“We surprised people,” Buck said as the tallying began winding down. “Our opponent had every advantage in this race, and we have neutralized those advantages. Now, it’s game on.”

The GOP gubernatorial primary caucus results were also a wash. Six-term Congressman Scott McInnis won handily in his bid to win the nomination, but he didn’t knock out little-known Evergreen businessman Dan Maes, who Tea Party groups have tended to favor. McInnis won 60 percent of the vote. McInnis seems the inevitable nominee but that contest will continue.

In the 4th Congressional District GOP contest to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, however, the night produced a clear winner. Yuma State Rep. Cory Gardner came out solidly ahead in the four-way race, taking home major portions of the votes in the population centers Larimer and Weld County. That’s bad news for local candidates Diggs Brown, Tom Lucero and Dean Madere.

Gardner won 44 percent of the Larimer County vote and he won 63 percent of the vote in Weld County. Former Fort Collins councilman and National Guardsman Diggs Brown came in second in both counties.

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Key races to watch include the Democratic and Republican U.S. Senate contests.

Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet faces a primary challenge from popular former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff. GOP front-runner Jane Norton is battling to put distance between herself and Weld County D.A. Ken Buck and former state Sen. Tom Wiens.

GOP candidate for governor Scott McInnis has struggled for months to win solid grassroots activist support. Challenger Dan Maes will be looking to score a major boost tonight from Tea Party voters.

In the swing Fourth Congressional district, four Republicans have been jockeying for the chance to run against Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey, they are Yuma state Rep. Cory Gardner, CU Regent Tom Lucero, National Guardsman Diggs Brown, and regular guy Tea Partier Dean Madere.

Apart from the informal straw polls taken at candidate rallies over the past half year, the caucuses will be the first real test of candidate electoral strength.

In 2008, the presidential primary contests brought Republicans out in force to caucus for Mitt Romney while Democrats mobbed meeting places to weigh in on the neck-and-neck tooth-and-nail wrestling match between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.

This year, the energetic Tea Party movement has already mobilized thousands of Coloradans on the right and left, as have intense national debates over health reform and the stimulus package and bank bailouts, for example.

In 2008, roughly 120,000 Democrats and 70,000 Republicans turned out to caucus. As the Colorado Statesman reports, though, average attendance at caucuses has been closer to 15,000 for each party.

An interesting note: In Larimer County, at least, the vast majority of Democratic caucuses will be held in public schools while the vast majority of Republican caucuses will be held in churches.

Join Our Live Colorado Caucus Coverage

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Contributors can begin adding their blow-by-blow coverage to the feed beginning at 6pm Mountain Time. Updates will be aggregated into our caucus stream and will include input from politicos, elected officials, and activists. Our coverage will include updates directly from party headquarters, meaning we will be the first to report statewide results. 

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“You know, in my humble opinion, the world heats up, the world cools down, the world heats up, the world cools down. I don’t know if the dinosaurs were driving cars… It just seems to me we can’t hobble our economy with cap and trade and other nonsense like that,” he said.

Regular guy Tea Party candidate Dean Madere then stepped in to finish the thought and round it out with a comic jab at Gore.

“Dinosaurs drove the Tyrannosaurus Rexurgeon (?), I think… and if Al Gore would keep his mouth shot, there’d be a hell of a lot less hot air in this world.”

Howls erupted from the crowd packed into the high school auditorium. Uninterested students streamed out of the wing of the building across the way that houses the classrooms.

——
YouTube by Taran Volckhausen.

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Dean Madere

According to the AP, Madere is a Louisiana native who works for a heating and air conditioning company.

Friday night at a candidate forum in Loveland that also featured 4th District candidates Tom Lucero and Cory Gardner, Madere was amped up and rearing to go. He paced the stage during his reponses to questions and made much of his regular guy status.

“I’ve got some business experience,” he said at one point in a refreshingly unpolished non-spinning manner, moving on quickly to the fact that he feared the “direction the country was headed,” meaning he feared a looming government takeover and the end of liberty.

Madere absolutely would oppose health care reform and fight environmentalists– he would oppose anything that “restricts our freedoms,” he said. He would also end abortion. The crowd of 500 liked his spirit.

How seriously should anyone take Dean Madere? It’s a question conservative analysts have been considering all over again in regard to Palin.

At Politics Daily, Leslie Sanchez, head of the Bush White House Initiative on Hispanic Education, makes the argument for Palin power with the populace:

Palin will continue to be a force in U.S. politics because she addresses the anxieties and aspirations of blue-collar America in a way that connects. She “personifies a belief in a traditional America and she’s prepared to be very blunt,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said recently. “A third of the country finds that very, very compelling.”

[...]

When it comes to the tea party activists types who hunger for change, there’s no doubt she strikes a responsive chord. She is one of them, a small-town mom who climbed to the top of what Disraeli called “the greasy pole.” She comes across as unbeholden to special interests and, being from Alaska, is about as far removed from Washington as one can be. For this segment of the electorate (and perhaps others), which is most clearly not the New York-Washington elites, she is the real deal. That strength makes her both relevant and unavoidable.

Can Madere come to personify 4th District blue collar voters and climb the greasy pole? His formal quest begins on a golf course tonight, the week before Thanksgiving in northern Colorado.

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