May 27, 2011 09:06 PM UTC

Ryan Call Doth Protest Too Much, Fearing Brandon Shaffer Edition

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• by: Colorado Pols

It’s a funny thing about all this clamor and staged hand-wringing over whether, or when, Colorado Senate President Brandon Shaffer plans to start a run for the CD-4 seat presently held by freshman GOP Rep. Cory Gardner–as FOX 31’s Eli Stokols reported Tuesday:

Looking to keep the pressure on Senate President Brandon Shaffer following last week’s statement from a top Democrat that he was planning to run for Congress, Colorado GOP Chairman Ryan Call sent Shaffer a letter Tuesday asking him to “break his silence.”

…Republicans have mercilessly attacked Shaffer over lawmakers’ failure to re-draw Colorado’s congressional district lines during the just-ended session at the Capitol.

That battle, now headed to the courts, stalled when Democrats and Republicans were unable to compromise on a map…

Specifically, Republicans took aim at Shaffer, who they suspected of trying to gerrymander the Fourth Congressional District, which includes his home town of Longmont, so it would be more favorable to him and a potential campaign next year.

So, we’ll start with the obvious thing we’ve said repeatedly when this silly allegation has come up: every Democratic proposed redistricting map drew CD-4 with a significant GOP advantage. What’s more, Shaffer, like House Speaker Frank McNulty, wasn’t even a member of the Joint Select Committee on Redistricting–yet it was McNulty who scotched his party’s maps in favor of his own, remember? Has anybody accused Shaffer of anything even remotely equivalent?

After you dispense with the only material allegation being made against Shaffer, the rest of this is just childish hectoring. It’s the spring of an off year, the midterms were barely six months ago. The world can wait until the summer or fall for these campaigns to begin. It seems like this is some kind of payback for the way Democrats attacked Bob Schaffer in the fall of 2007, but the problem then was Schaffer himself doing the announcing and un-announcing.

So once you cut through the noise, what’s left if the only real allegation here is baseless hypocrisy? Why would well-adjusted adults, who have their jobs because they’re considered to be smart like Ryan Call, waste their and the media’s time biting at Sen. Shaffer’s ankles?

If you don’t see where we’re going with this, you haven’t been watching the news this week.