To this point we've been generally dismissive of radio host Jimmy Lakey's hints at running for Congress in CD-7. Radio personalities, like Dan Caplis, often talk about becoming candidates but never actually make the jump.
But it appears as though Lakey is really running, as evidenced by a recent endorsement from former Rep. Tom Tancredo. Take a look at the Tancredo endorsement email after the jump, which warns of illegal immigrants kidnapping your dog, or something, if Lakey's primary opponents (Ryan Frazier and Lang Sias) win the nomination. "The Republic is at risk!"
We joke about Tancredo's endorsement, but in a multi-candidate Republican primary, it could actually play a huge role. Lakey only needs about 10,000 votes to win a three-way race, (there are 85,000 active Republican voters in CD-7, and traditionally only about one-third of eligible voters participate in a primary) and we're guessing there are a lot of anti-immigrant GOP voters who will take Tancredo's advice on who to vote for this August. If Lakey can do even a decent job of raising money, he's got a real shot here.
Arizona Sen. and 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain today headlined a fundraising email for former campaign staffer Lang Sias in the crowded CD-7 Republican primary, dealing another blow to the rapidly-dwindling prospects for ex-U.S. Senate candidate Ryan Frazier.
Full text after the jump: writes McCain, "Lang understands, as I do, that prosperity and economic growth do not come from government bureaucrats, but rather from American small businesses, entrepreneurs and innovation...In Congress, as he has done his entire life, he will be a leader on the issues that matter most to Colorado voters, and their families."
We still have no idea who Lang Sias is, but that's even worse news for Frazier. It's not good when your opponent is unknown but still gets the bigger endorsement.
As we've done in other election years, we regularly poll our readers on various races to gauge changing perceptions. These obviously aren't scientific polls, but they do help to show how the perception of various candidates are changing. We'll conduct these polls each month and then show the results to see how the winds are shifting.
As always, please vote based on what you think will happen, not on who you would vote for or which candidate you support personally. Think of it this way: If you had to bet the deed to your house, who would you pick?
Apparently Ryan Frazier's announcement yesterday that he will run for Congress in CD-7 instead of U.S. Senate didn't go all that well. We've heard estimates of only about 30 people, half of whom were staff or volunteers.
But don't take our word for it. Here's a video of Frazier's announcement speech yesterday, and you can judge for yourself based on the crowd reaction (or embarrassing lack thereof) to Frazier's uncanny vocal impression of Barack Obama.
We've said before that Frazier is not prepared for a big race like Senate or Congress, and our analysis holds. Weak turnout yesterday, combined with some genius's idea to hold the kickoff in front of a loud and busy road, doesn't exactly inspire confidence if you're a Republican (cue sound of three people clapping).
Say this about Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier: The man has no problems with beating his head against a wall.
According to The Denver Post, Frazier will soon drop out of the race for U.S. Senate -- a race he almost certainly cannot win -- in order to challenge incumbent Democrat Ed Perlmutter in CD-7. Which, coincidentally, is also a race he almost certainly cannot win.
As we've written in this space before, Frazier made a bold move by entering the race for U.S. Senate early in the process, but all of the air quickly left his campaign when he reported an abysmal first fundraising quarter. Fortunately for Frazier, whatever money he raised in a bid for U.S. Senate translates into a congressional race, but even so, we're not so sure this is the best move for him politically. Why?
Because in a crowded Republican primary for Senate, the odds are better that Frazier could emerge as the GOP nominee than they are that Frazier could win a head-to-head battle against a popular and well-funded two-term incumbent Perlmutter. Frazier pushed all his chips on the table when he announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and pulling them back now to run for congress doesn't improve his odds at being elected -- it only reduces the size of the pot.
It would have made a lot more sense for Frazier to run against Perlmutter from the beginning, rather than attempting a U.S. Senate bid. But since he's already chosen the Senate, he might as well stay on that path. Frazier probably can't win the GOP nomination for Senate, but he also can't likely win the congressional seat in CD-7. So he might as well stick with the one that has the bigger payoff.
Quick side note: While we're on the subject of CD-7, we had to make a comment on this quick section of the story:
Frazier was elected to the Aurora City Council in 2003 and re-elected in 2007.
"I think people forget that as a city councilman at-large, Frazier represents the entire city of Aurora," said Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.
Aurora, population 319,000, is Colorado's third-largest city.
Yes, Aurora is Colorado's third-largest city, but the city is split between different congressional districts. Furthermore, city council elections in any place other than Denver, where large sums of money is spent and a lot of media attention is generated, are always generally ignored by the public. A very small percentage of people vote in municipal elections (Frazier won the election with a meager 14,645 total votes in 2007, while 41,836 Aurorans voted for Perlmutter in 2008), so being an at-large candidate in Aurora is completely irrelevant in terms of name ID. No doubt most Aurora voters couldn't name any of their city council members.
With less than a year until the 2010 primaries, it's time to start the annual Colorado Pols Polls.
As we've done in other election years, we regularly poll our readers on various races to gauge changing perceptions. These obviously aren't scientific polls, but they do help to show how the perception of various candidates are changing. We'll conduct these polls each month and then show the results to see how the winds are shifting (click to see the Democratic poll).
As always, please vote based on what you think will happen, not on who you would vote for or which candidate you support personally. Think of it this way: If you had to bet the deed to your house, who would you pick?
Rasmussen Reports decided to drop a poll into the field on Colorado's U.S. Senate race at an unfortunate time. While the poll shows that incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet is not very popular, the matchups between potential challengers Ken Buck and Ryan Frazier are all but irrelevant now that Jane Norton has entered the race on the Republican side.
But rather than focus on what the Rasmussen poll does not tell us about 2010, let's look instead at the small nuggets of valuable information that it does contain.
Bennet outpolls Buck 43-37, but trails Frazier 40-39. While giddy Frazier supporters (both of them) will no doubt point to this as proof that their man has what it takes to be the next GOP Senator from Colorado, that's not the case. Looking a little deeper into the poll shows why:
The hot rumor circulating this morning is that as-yet undeclared GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton had a deal--and now she doesn't. And when the deal falls though, you usually walk away, don't you?
As you know, evidence that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was preparing to devote resources to Norton's campaign--which would have had the effect of severely debilitating primary opponents--caused a major backlash among the Republican rank-and-file last week. By Friday, the situation had gotten to the point that the leading (declared) GOP candidate, Weld County DA Ken Buck, was widely reported to be getting out of the race.
Today, though, everything has changed--Buck is defiantly staying in the race. Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams, who everybody we've talked to believes was intimately involved in the NRSC's backroom commitments to Norton, is running away from this debacle as fast as his denials can carry him. The GOP activist base, now sensitized to what almost happened right under their noses, will be watching for any further shenanigans--and they've used this opportunity to remind leadership in no uncertain terms what they think of "RINOs" like Jane Norton.
So where does that leave her?
Frankly, it depends--if an agreement for Norton to enter the 2010 Senate race was contingent on clearing the primary field for her, as it was for 2008 Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, she's now got a very good reason to reconsider. Or she could decide to stay and fight. Given that Norton has been floated as a potential candidate for higher office for years, and has always declined, it wouldn't shock us if she ultimately decided not to run for Senate.
The word we're getting--we'll remind everyone that it's only a rumor, though on good authority, and people do change their minds regardless--is the backlash of the last few days was considerably more than she bargained for.
Republicans have lately been dropping in and out of the U.S. Senate race like it's a student council seat, so we thought it time to take a new look at what's what now that we're past the 12 month mark until the primary.
Former Congressman Bob Beauprez will not run for the U.S. Senate, he said in an email to supporters this afternoon.
"Having been presented with the potential to serve in the United States Senate, Claudia and I considered it very carefully. However after significant reflection, I will not be a candidate for the Senate in 2010," he wrote.
His decision leaves four GOP candidates: Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, Evergreen businessman Dan Maes and Cleve Tidwell of Denver. Last week, the Denver Post reported that former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton is also looking at entering the GOP field.
Let's face it: Beauprez isn't running because he looked around, considered various staffers, and finally realized what we'd been saying for a long time. He. Can't. Win.
It's no secret that Beauprez has been wanting to get back into politics since 2006, but he's still way too much damaged goods.
Meanwhile, Jane Norton's Senate bid is basically a lock at this point. Everybody's talking about it. Democrats we've talked to this evening seem awfully confident, like they know something we don't know. That's likely to be the case for a majority of Colorado voters, a good percentage of whom probably think her first name is Gale. Though to be fair, voters could think her first name was "Ken," and it's still a positive for her. Name ID is name ID, especially in a GOP primary--and general election--where nobody knows anybody.
And for all the buzz about "salvation," we kind of doubt Ken Buck sees it that way--and he's probably the one extant candidate we're not writing off yet.
UPDATE: We omitted Cleve Tidwell from our original post. We regret the error. Deeply.
Former State Senator Tom Wiens is apparently moving towards taking a shot at the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.
When Wiens announced that he wouldn't run again for the State Senate last year, it was widely believed that he was clearing his plate to make a run for Governor in 2010. That never materialized, of course, and since then we've heard repeated rumors that all was not well with Wiens' personal financial situation--as indicated as well by a Denver Post story last week.
We're not surprised that other Republicans are now looking at the U.S. Senate race after less than inspiring early runs (and fundraising) by Weld County D.A. Ken Buck and Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier.
If Wiens is in a good personal financial position to make a serious run for U.S. Senate, he shouldn't have much trouble moving to the top of the GOP list. Buck is the favorite at this point, and barring a huge fundraising turnaround in Q3, Frazier's campaign is pretty well D.O.A., so there is a definite opening on the Republican side for a candidate with better name ID and a stronger background like Wiens. In a Senate race that should be more competitive than it appears thus far, perhaps it was only a matter of time until a more realistic GOP candidate came along. Whether or not that candidate is Wiens remains to be seen.
One of the criticisms of Republican Ryan Frazier and his bid for U.S. Senate is that he is far too inexperienced politically to run for one of the top jobs in Colorado. Nowhere is that more evident than this long-winded, nonsensical fundraising email (full text after the jump) that Frazier recently sent out.
This is the beginning of the email. No, seriously:
Dear Friend of Freedom,
My name is Ryan Frazier. I'm asking you to join my team as we work to take back Colorado's U.S. Senate seat. For liberty! For solutions!
Friend of Freedom? For liberty? For solutions?
This is without a doubt the silliest campaign email we've seen in a long time. Next time, Ryan, you might have someone else read these things before you hit 'Send.'
We've been hearing talk about this for weeks now, and most Republicans we have talked to have all but laughed it off. But the Rocky Mountain News reports that Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, the goofball in the laughably-staged picture at left, somehow believes that he could be a strong Republican candidate for...wait for it...U.S. Senate.
Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier is seriously considering a run for U.S. Senate in 2010, testing his ability to raise the millions of dollars needed to challenge Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.
Frazier, a black Republican, has met with GOP movers and shakers in Washington, D.C., and Colorado.
"There are a lot of options I need to look at and a lot of things I need to consider before I make a definite decision," he said.
Financing a campaign is among those considerations.
"I'm going through the motions and paces right now to see if I can raise the money," he said. "I think we can put together a winning campaign. I'm moving in that direction."
As we said earlier, most Republicans we've talked to have basically laughed this off. Frazier barely won re-election to the Aurora City Council a few years ago - the idea that he's ready for a jump to the U.S. freakin' Senate is downright silly.
On the plus side for Democrats, Frazier would be one of the few candidates Republicans could nominate with lower name ID than Democrat Michael Bennet. And labor unions would absolutely tee off on Frazier, who was the public face behind the soundly-defeated Amendment 47, or, "Right to Work."
Aurora City Council member Ryan Frazier, one of the front men for the anti-union "Right to Work" ballot initiative, is getting beat up on Aurora cable TV over a scandal surrounding one of his votes on the city council -- a vote that appears to have been bought and paid for. The ad is below:
