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March 13, 2014 01:29 PM UTC

"Buck or Gardner?" Team Udall Hopes You Can't Tell

  • 13 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: The Denver Post's Lynn Bartels:

“No matter how closely you look or how hard you squint, there’s no distinguishing Ken Buck’s ideas from Cory Gardner’s record,” Udall campaign spokesman Chris Harris said. “If Ken Buck believes it, the odds are that Cory Gardner has voted for it.”

Gardner spokesman Alex Siciliano fired back.

“No game can hide this: In 2013 we saw that Senator Udall voted in line with President Obama’s positions 99 percent of the time,” he said. “A news outlet yesterday reported that Sen. Udall was avoiding reporters in Washington, but I know that Congressman Gardner is ready to share his ideas for putting us back on the right track with all of Colorado.”

—–

A fun little quiz site rolled out today by the Mark Udall Senate campaign:

buckorgardner

"Buck or Gardner?" The site leads users through a quiz asking whether former U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck or his successor Rep. Cory Gardner made a given statement–on reproductive choice, immigration, gay rights, and other issues. We haven't tested every option, but it looks like most questions are meant to call out the fact that Buck and Gardner have basically the same position on a broad range of hot-button issues.

For those with a short attention span, you can cut right to the citations page.

Obviously, this is targeted at the inside-baseball crowd who is most of the audience paying attention to the Colorado U.S. Senate race right now. But it serves a valuable purpose for the insider and pundit class to see what Udall's campaign is getting at here: the reason Ken Buck was pushed aside in the GOP Senate primary in favor of Gardner is that Buck is considered too far right to win. Buck's known-commodity status, which helped him in early polling, became a liability for Republican strategists counting on a clean break from "Tea Party" losers in 2014.

The problem is, as Democrats hope to drive home between now and Election Day, Gardner is just like Buck.

Comments

13 thoughts on ““Buck or Gardner?” Team Udall Hopes You Can’t Tell

  1. I'll start by agreeing with you: Ken Buck and Cory Gardner are both solid conservatives.

    But there is a difference. Buck's problem was not his conservatism, but the unpolished way he made certain points about sensitive subjects. In today's media sound bite world, politicians in both parties have to be especially careful that they don't say something that can be cut up out of context and used against them.

    Gardner has been in politics long enough to be careful how he says things. The video of Gardner supporting the Personhood petition is a perfect example. Gardner sounded calm and rational, and he's not going to lose an election because he goes to church.

    Now let's play another game: "Obama or Udall?"

    "If you like your health plan, you can keep it."

    WRONG!

    See how easy this is?

    1. Mod, this stuff is childish.

      The Dems have a Senate candidate who backed the increasingly unpopular President 99% of the time last year and they are claiming two difference candidates have similar views.  Udall has basically given Obama his vote for the last 5 years and pretends he is looking out for something other than Udall.  Pretty pathetic stuff.  But what should we expect from ProgressNow?  Reality, not so much.

  2. One question I think every journalist should ask Gardner is: Are there any environmental laws that you support? A follow up should be: Do you think the EPA should exist at all?

    As one of the fortunate who will no longer be represented by Gardner, his actions on the environment make it seem that his ideal regulatory structure is represented by China.

    I'd also like to know if he thinks that only profit should be the justification for poisioning people, land and water or if he thinks that humans can use up the resources we have because Jebus is coming to save all the right people from the mess they've created. 

  3. Now that Cory Gardner's spokeswoman says he's ready to speak openly with the press.

    1) Could he show us his health insurance policy and why it went up so dramatically  with Obamacare?  He' never provided the proof to that claim.  I expect either a) he was not telling the truth, or b) his earlier policy was pretty lousy and didn't meet even the most minimal standards.

    2) Could share with us his views on secession?  Reportedly, he supported the secession movement.  Now he wants to represent the state he was encouraging people to secede from. Weird!

    3) Could he comment on the verdicts of the killers of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, two young black men killed by CCW killers who invoked Stand Your Ground in their defense? Gardner worked for 5 years to inflict a form of that disastrous NRA-inspired fiasco  on Colorado.  Luckily he was stopped, as have been the other 4 attempts.

    4) Could he share with us his views on personhood?  Coloradoans have rejected that as way too extreme. Is he with the extreme, or the rest of us?

    5) Could he share with us why it was important for all the people in the United States to help the people of Colorado recover from the September floods, but when the people of the northeast U.S. needed help after Hurricane Sandy, the response was, in essence, "nothing doing."  Sorry, if Ilived in New Jersey, his excuses would ring pretty damn hollow.

    6) Could he explain to us how going on junkets paid for by oil executives in any way aids us here in Colorado and doesn't affect his voting on environmental or regulatory issues? The people of West Virginia are now seeing the price they paid for falling for the anti-regulartory cretans.  They weren't able to drink their water for week and are wary even now (for very good reason).

    7) Could he share with Coloradoans why his anti-environmental pro-polluter agenda really matches the views of Colorado citizens?

    8) Could he share with us how his votes on immigration match the desires of citizens of Colorado?

    9) Could he share with us how he feels about background checks on all gun buyers? Or would he prefer that criminals have the ability to go to classified ads or armslist and weapon up?  Perhaps signing on to the background check bill would alleviate our concerns about his willingness to arm criminals and other dangerous individuals.

    Yes.  Alex (spokeswoman from Gardner), we Colorado voters are ready and anxious to hear Rep. Gardner speak to these and a host of other issues.  But, please don't feed us Pablum.

    doremi

    P.S.  I have an ultra-conservative brother who is likely to lose his job next month. Interestingly, because his wife has a serious medical ailment and is unemployed, I fully expect my brother (if he loses his job) will be seeking out Obamacare for coverage because of his wife's expensive prescriptions.  Nevertheless, even though his whole family financial well-being will be saved by Obamacare (Affordable Care Act), I doubt he would ever give thanks…more likely I'll just hear more grousing about ACA and everything else Obama.  Another example, my neighbor, who has been fighting breast cancer for the last year, says "Thank You Obama!"  She was covered under individual insurance because she is self-employed.  She knows that because of her cancer she would have been canceled this year.  Additionally, her husband now, for the first time in YEARS, has coverage, which he had been denied forever because of pre-existing (but non-expense generating) condition.  Perhaps Rep. Gardner should speak to how my ultra-conservative brother (who, by the way is too cheap to donate to any, including Gardner's, campaign) should have to just "suck it up."  Likewise for my neighbor.  (If Gardner had a better idea than ACA, why wasn't he out there sharing it and working for it?  Too late to throw stones now.)

    Just asking.  Alex.  Please have Rep. Gardner speak to the questions to which we average, everyday citizens want to hear answers.

    1. I like your questions, doremi.

      For your bro-in-law, he may be one of the folks who was getting prescriptions through a discount plan, as through Walmart or Walgreens, or something similar. Because the generic drug makers have embarked on a price-fixing binge, many of the generic drugs have increased in price from 600- 6000%.

      Thank goodness for the Affordable Care Act. Because I'm enrolled, I still get my meds for just the price of a co-pay, thus avoiding the insane greed of these ALEC-linked PHRMA corporations.

    2. Now, my question, doremi, is who is the reporter to ask these questions?  Will Gardner meet the press or will he confine himself to right wing talk shows for the duration?  

  4. Wow — all three infantile bagger trolls appearing on the same short thread!  (Can you say, "coordinated effort"?)  The Udall campaign appears to have very effectively touched a nerve among these boneheads — assuming they're not the same troll with three accounts.

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