Romanoff Pushes On, Still Sans Message

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by: Colorado Pols

We’ve questioned before the complete lack of any real message coming from Andrew Romanoff’s campaign for U.S. Senate. As the campaign enters its second full month, there is still no clear message from Romanoff.

Click below to read Romanoff’s latest email sent out to supporters. It’s filled with the same vacuous stuff that his previous emails have included. “Grassroots effort,” “Meaningful and lasting progress,” and our favorite, “Real reform requires risk.” It all sounds so very…vague. And that’s not going to get Romanoff elected.

And please, we offer a simple plea not just to Romanoff, but to hundreds of other candidates: Stop using the “Not trolling for dollars on Wall Street but talking to people on Main Street” line. It’s soooo played.

“You gotta dance with them what brung ya.”

Most candidates for Congress spend the bulk of their time raising money from powerful interest groups – the same groups they’re expected to regulate once in office. No wonder so many politicians are reluctant to rock the boat. You can raise more money, and stay in office longer, by playing it safe.

That’s not acceptable, especially not now. History has handed us a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make meaningful and lasting progress on a host of issues, from health care to the economy to the fate of the earth itself. To make the most of this opportunity, we need bold leadership in the U.S. Senate. Timidity won’t do the trick. Real reform requires risk.

Click here to take action.

If we are serious about curbing health-care costs, for example, we’ll need to reform the ways in which we deliver and compensate care, so that providers are rewarded for improving outcomes, not simply for prescribing procedures and ordering tests. If we are serious about securing a higher standard of living for ourselves and our children, we’ll need to retool our schools, retrain our workforce and rebuild our infrastructure, rather than rely on financial gimmicks and foreign debt. If we are serious about safeguarding our environment, we’ll need nothing less than a revolution in the production and use of energy, so that we no longer have to spill our blood or spoil our skies just to power our planet.

Click here to make a difference.

None of these steps will be easy. But few will even be possible unless we reform our political system. Too many elections are foregone conclusions – contests in name only – or yard sales, in which public offices are auctioned off to the highest bidder. The politicians who prevail pose little threat to the status quo; their victories are bought and paid for by an incumbent-protection racket that regards democracy as bad for business.

How do we break the grip of these plutocratic potentates and reclaim our democracy? We restore the power of people. That’s why I’m writing to you today. We are building a broad, grassroots campaign, fueled by and focused on the people of Colorado. I’m proud to have enlisted more than 2,500 Coloradans in this cause, covering every county in the state.

Join us. Together, we’ll prove that you can get elected to national office not just by trolling for dollars on Wall Street but by talking to people on Main Street.

Someone once said there are two kinds of politicians in the world: those who want to be somebody and those who want to do something. I’m running for the Senate because I want to get some things done. I will not flinch from tough decisions. I will fight every day for the far-reaching reforms we deserve in health care, job growth and energy policy. And I will jam the revolving door on Capitol Hill, so that lawmakers and lobbyists can no longer form job-sharing agreements that turn public office into private gain.

If you believe, as I do, that we need to change the tune in Washington, not just the politicians who dance to it, sign up right now.

14 thoughts on “Romanoff Pushes On, Still Sans Message”

Chef says:

November 4, 2009 at 2:28 am

Andrew seems likable enough, and seems well-informed on most issues, and is certainly adored by many political sycophants and insiders alike, and is a better speaker than Bennet (which is like comparing candidate Obama’s agenda to President Obama’s agenda), but can he be as smart as he is in person and be totally in the dark when it comes to running a competitive campaign? Clueless when it comes to messaging, branding, running as the Outsider candidate, even after such a historic election?

Andrew’s chief copywriter seems so enamored with some of Obama’s key turns of phrase that he doesn’t have anything else to write about. Issues don’t exist in his world and specificity is taboo. And the candidate himself doesn’t stand on any real issues. What’s he for? He’s for everything! Yaaay! Vote for me. I wasn’t appointed, he opines, over and over again, with no other meat to offer with the starch.

I like Romanoff and have had coffee with the dude a few times. But, again, at what point does the official freakin’ campaign begin and the tentative approach stop?

But, what do I know? After all, I’m just a pastry chef and not a high-rolling big shot from DC who says they know how to run a campaign and sure enough they do – into the ground.

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longtimedem says:

November 4, 2009 at 2:34 am

…not troll. In “fish speak,” trolling is baiting fish whereas trawling is dragging a net through the water to get whatever you can. Politicians Trawl, not Troll. Andrew should know better.

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DavidThi808 says:

November 4, 2009 at 3:16 am

I’ve requested an interview multiple times – and don’t get any response at all. At least Duffy (McInnis) takes the time to tell me no.

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1. Chef says:
  
  November 4, 2009 at 3:43 am
  
  The porch light is on, but nobody’s home.
  
  Like I said, I had coffee with him a few times and later volunteered to help, online and on one of those stupid forms they pass around. No response.
  
  Either I’m not worth their time, or his outfit is so disorganized and chaotic that they truly don’t know their poop chute from a hole in the ground. I may just be a lowly pastry chef, but even chefs know how to phone bank and knock on doors, so let Andrew muddle through it while Bennet rakes in another mil from President Emmanuel.
  
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  1. The Longest Line says:
    
    November 4, 2009 at 5:16 pm
    
    I got an invite to a Bennet fundraiser that’s taking place this weekend. I haven’t decided who to support yet, so I figured I’d cough up $25 bucks to meet him (plus, it was at Eight Rivers, ’nuff said).
    
    Never heard back to my RSVP with any details for the event.
    
    Campaigns are hectic, but seriously- not writing back to people that want to give you money?
    
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    1. Chef says:
      
      November 10, 2009 at 1:31 am
      
      They don’t respond.
      
      Much as I like Romanoff as a personality, his campaign people could give a hairy rat’s behind about your or me. Disagree? Actions speak louder than words. Offers to volunteer don’t get responded to, phone calls don’t get returned. I don’t like Bennet because he stands for nothing but dinero; but Romanoff’s sloppy campaign and inept “operatives” don’t charm my socks off, either.
      
      I need all the money I can get, in case Ritter cuts my job or makes my life harder in some other way. So I’ll probably sit this one out. Neither one is worth volunteering for or donating to, in my humble, pasty chef, opinion.
      
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Voltaire says:

November 4, 2009 at 3:51 am

Verbiage such as content, well-crafted letters, even responses to requests to aid in one’s political endeavors must be fielded by an intelligent and able individual or said retinue. If Romanoff has neither, how then may he compete?

Bennet, for all his stiff insincerity, has no lack of able teenagers and wizened crones circling his every defecation and sour exhalation like crows about a corpse, and is thusly well-able to respond to requests to donate time or effort toward his campaign. Perhaps increased funding will allow Romanoff’s efforts more cohesion and intelligence; and perhaps Gerald Polis is not self-obsessed and Bill Ritter actually a kindly man with warm-hearted intent toward us all.

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1. Middle of the Road says:
  
  November 4, 2009 at 3:55 am
  
  Is that you, JO?
  
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2. Jambalaya says:
  
  November 4, 2009 at 3:56 am
  
  We can always hope.
  
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MADCO says:

November 4, 2009 at 7:48 am

AR had an organizing meeting tonight in Arap County.

So there.

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Ray Springfield says:

November 4, 2009 at 9:51 am

Just when I wrote a very peaceful reconsiliaton piece on the the Adams county event.I can’t blame him for that. He has to try and differentiate himself from Senator Bennet.

It’s well known that I believe that Senator Bennet is sincere. Senator Bennet has an excellent education and even JO had to admit that hegot good grades at Yale law school(i.e. that he is smart). He doesn’t have to expose his family to public discourse. He does so to help people.

Politics is the art of compromise. On a night in which my party took a licking, it may serve Democrats well to realize that on main street people worry about jobs and economic growth.

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1. MtSherman says:
  
  November 4, 2009 at 10:18 am
  
  I think you mean “reconciliation”.
  
  But I think the lesson from tonight is not one about not enough compromise. If anything it is about stop making excuses and get what we elected you to do done. The Republicans won where they had relatively moderate candidates going up against other moderates who were unable to articulate reasons to be elected. The Republicans lost in a conservative district where they put up a hard line “Nobama” type against a moderate.
  
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  1. Ray Springfield says:
    
    November 4, 2009 at 10:42 am
    
    I’m a horrbile typist on notes. Diaries I have to spend a ton of time to put together in readable style. I’m dyslexic.
    
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roguestaffer says:

November 4, 2009 at 11:25 am

there’s no one there yet to manage things. That may change in the near-term, but as of tonight, Romanoff still doesn’t have anyone managing his campaign.

That’s why the campaign seems disorganized; because it is.

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