September 26, 2009 12:35 AM UTC

Dick Wadhams, Comeback Kid

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• by: Colorado Pols

From the Colorado Independent:

For the Colorado Republican Party, it’s time to party like it’s 2010 at Keystone ski resort starting this evening.

According to the Denver Post, state GOP members are practically giddy about their chances to reclaim the governor’s mansion, Democrat Michael Bennet’s U.S. Senate seat and who knows what other key races in a red wave that will sweep the state next year and wash away Blue November of 2008.

The biggest indicator of the coming Rojo Revolution? Democratic Secretary of State Bernie Buescher’s loss to Republican Laura Bradford in the state House District 55 race last November, at least according to Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams.

“Even in the midst of that horrible election of 2008, [Gov.] Bill Ritter’s vulnerability was already evident,” Wadhams told the Post. Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer fired back that Buescher’s former district in Grand Junction is 2-to-1 Republican and a traditional GOP stronghold: “If that is the district they want to look at as a model for 2010, please, by all means, do it.”

In fact, the then-incumbent Buescher, the presumptive speaker of the House had he been reelected, lost to Collbran businesswoman Bradford by a scant 583 votes…

We would also have looked for a better “indicator”–as the Independent notes, Buescher’s story is more remarkable for the number of times he was elected to represent an overwhelmingly GOP stronghold, hardly a bellwether Republican pick-off.

(long pause)

Is there a better indicator, though? We haven’t come up with anything.