October 22, 2010 08:50 PM UTC

Buck Campaign Makes Strategic Move: Don't Let Buck Talk Anymore

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck was scheduled to appear with Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet on “The TODAY Show” this morning. According to a press release from the Bennet campaign, Buck canceled the 5:00 a.m. appearance (yes, that’s 5:00 a.m. Mountain Time) due to a “scheduling conflict.”

It’s probably pretty unlikely that Buck’s scheduler accidentally double-booked the candidate at 5:00 in the morning, but in fairness to Buck’s campaign, there’s really not a good excuse for the likely real reason: Because Buck is absolutely killing himself this week seemingly every time he opens his mouth, just letting him talk to Al Roker would be too dangerous.

In fact, it’s fair to say that Buck may very well have lost the election this week with his double-whammy of comments that started with comparing homosexuality to alcoholism and then continued with an affirmation that global warming is a hoax, which Buck’s campaign has been desperately trying to clarify. As we discussed yesterday, Coloradans are holding onto their ballots thus far, which makes this a pretty terrible time to be offending voters.

Buck’s campaign has been spinning out of control all week, reeling from one misstatement after the other, so it makes good strategic sense for his campaign team to just try to stop Buck from talking altogether. Given his silly mistakes this week, Buck is either rattled, or not ready for such a big spotlight (or maybe both); either way, there doesn’t appear to be any net positive left for Buck in sitting down with reporters, even if they only ask softball questions.

It wouldn’t surprise us if Buck just sort of quietly slips away from public view until Election Day. It says a lot about the candidate himself that we would probably advise the exact same thing from a purely strategic perspective — it’s a sad state of affairs when your candidate has a better chance of winning an election if he just stops talking altogether.