[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ow badly is the Republican National Committee pining to defeat swing-state Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet next year? Very, very badly.
A fundraising email today from the RNC suggests the level of desperation / chomping at the bit that clearly has stricken the defeat-Bennet team in Washington. The email takes off from the unfolding Hillary Clinton email story and stretches wide and thin like a Boulder Bikram yogi to troll the first-term senator.
To put this in perspective: This email is an attempt to hit Bennet on a Hillary scandal that’s not yet a scandal based on weeks-old media speculation that suggested that Bennet might be on a list that might exist somewhere (Hillary’s homebrew server?) of potential running mates for a presidential candidate that will very likely but maybe not decide to declare her candidacy sometime soonish!
Context: Bennet has fast become a player in the Senate. He’s a moderate bridge-builder from an important purple state who has a low-key way of knowing where the ball is, where to run it down and when to let it roll. Bennet’s is a kind of refreshing anti-charisma charisma. In Tea Party year 2010, he won an incredibly tight race and last year he ran the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Last month, the Washington Post ranked his seat fifth on a list of ten of the most competitive in the Senate for 2016. His former Democratic colleague in the Senate, Mark Udall, lost last November in a very close race to up-and-comer Republican Cory Gardner.
So, yes, no stretch will be too far a stretch from now until next November.
He hasn’t exactly been endearing himself to the Left here recently. I understand his Keystone stance on one hand, but after watching Udall get destroyed by running a cowardly and weak campaign, I don’t know why Bennet is throwing away his base.
Maybe because he’s a hack and his relationship with Ritter got him in the Senate in the first place. But, bottom line is he’s going to have to come up with something to get us excited.
Senator Bennet is going to have a hard time getting support from progressive Democrats as well. He supports cuts in Social Security through Chained-CPI and he just voted to override President Obama’s veto of the KXL pipeline. He is anti-labor. The only time that he votes progressive values are on a very few social issues. He has the big money behind him but there is a lot of dissatisfaction among the rank and file Dems in the state.
I’m still trying to figure out why he was chosen to head the DSCC for the last election cycle when many of his votes favor the GOP. His office never follows up about vote(s) like XL, Halliburton loophole, SS cuts and more. He is a nowhere man.