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January 31, 2010 06:14 PM UTC

Pat Caddell Opens New Phase of Romanoff "PUMA" Insurgency

  • 146 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

(Bumped into Monday by popular demand – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Friday, the campaign of Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff announced several new hires with a national footprint–strategist Joe Trippi of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, Celinda Lake, most recently having served as the pollster for Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley, Liz Chadderdon, a direct-mail campaign consultant, and Pat Caddell, a former pollster for President Jimmy Carter and FOX News contributor.

All four of these new staffers have a long history in Democratic politics, but not all of them can point to an especially positive history–at least not in the recent past. Mr. Trippi hasn’t had a lot of success to point to since the 2004 Dean campaign, more recently managing the spectacularly unsuccessful John Edwards: though he has a reputation as one of the most expensive Democratic consultants out there. Can Romanoff afford this guy?

Trippi was also roundly criticized last summer for engaging in “sock puppetry,” with his staff registering numerous accounts on a prominent blog to flood it with commentary favorable to Trippi’s clients (our understanding, for the record, is that Trippi was not involved with Romanoff’s campaign last December when much more abusive behavior occurred here). Celinda Lake’s last gig as Martha Coakley’s pollster is not exactly what you’d call resume-headlining. Liz Chadderdon has done good work for Democratic candidates, but also has made many appearances as the “token” Democrat on FOX News, where she freely concedes “I’m getting the tar kicked out of me.”

They’re not “A-list” consultants, at least not anymore, though they do mark a step up in terms of competency from Ken Gordon and other locals Romanoff was listening to last year as his campaign floundered. Trippi, Lake, and to a lesser extent Chadderdon bring skills as well as baggage to the table–but at least they have experience playing at the level of a U.S. Senate race.

“Democratic” strategist Pat Caddell, though, represents something else entirely.

Pat Caddell, nominally a Democrat, is well-known as an on-air pundit for the FOX News Channel. Though represented as a counterbalance to Republicans he appears opposite, Caddell ruthlessly attacked Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry during the 2004 elections–even going so far as to defend the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and claim that Democratic questions about the military service record of then-President George W. Bush reflected “the anger that’s killing my party.” Appearing on the O’Reilly Factor in the spring of 2004, Caddell famously remarked that “I think that John Kerry would have a hard time making a case he’d be better on [terrorism] than President Bush.” Caddell has claimed, among other things, that “Democratic corruption is much worse than the Republican corruption.” In 2003, Caddell asserted to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that President Bush’s infamous ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech aboard an aircraft carrier “sounded like the kind of PR stunt that Bill Clinton would pull. But and then I saw it. And you know, there’s a real — there’s a real affection between him and the troops.”

More recently, Caddell has appeared regularly on FOX News’ Glenn Beck Show, and other FOX shows, attacking basically everything the administration of Barack Obama has done since taking office. Criticizing Obama’s advocacy for Chicago’s failed Olympic bid, Caddell told Beck “in Chicago, what we’re going to have is gangster politics that will make Al Capone so happy. We are going — this is the biggest outrage ever done.”

Here’s Caddell on Beck’s show from December of last year, celebrating the results of polling showing the popularity of “Tea Party” candidates, disparaging health care reform reform as ‘pay now maybe benefit later,’ cap-and-trade as “gangster politics” (apparently he likes this term) and his conclusion–“The American people are coming for you, Congress.” Glenn Beck, by the way, agrees:

Folks, we could go on and on, the record is full of examples of Caddell harshly disparaging Democratic candidates, the Democratic party, and President Obama on a broad range of issues. It’s obviously great material for the FOX News Channel, you can see why Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck love this guy–somebody who defends “swiftboaters” and calls cap-and-trade “gangster politics” they can still call a “Democrat” is a valuable asset.

But what kind of advice will this man give Andrew Romanoff? Does Romanoff agree with Caddell, for example, that health reform is a bad deal for the American people? Does Romanoff agree with Caddell that cap-and-trade is “gangster politics putting a gun to Congress’ head?” Or that former President Bush had a better record on terrorism than John Kerry? Or that “Democratic corruption is much worse than Republican corruption?”

We kind of doubt that Romanoff would agree with many of those sentiments, but unfortunately, they are part of his campaign now. Romanoff has aligned himself with one of Democratic Party’s principal detractors, a man whose views most Democratic primary voters will find absolutely repellent, and whose greatest claim to fame is his willingness to engage in the wanton disparagement of “fellow” Democrats in the service of Glenn Beck.

That is truly stunning, but given the direction Romanoff’s campaign has been headed over the last few weeks, tapping this kind of “PUMA” angst may be the only thing he has left. Caddell’s hiring betrays a willingness by Romanoff, at long last, to do anything he believes might level this increasingly lopsided contest–even at the expense of fellow Democrats, and his own credibility.

Because we have said repeatedly that Andrew Romanoff, despite a litany of bad choices in this quixotic, self-absorbed Senate campaign, has a bright future in Colorado politics if he can somehow put a stop to the damage he is self-inflicting, we are genuinely disappointed to see this.

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146 thoughts on “Pat Caddell Opens New Phase of Romanoff “PUMA” Insurgency”

  1. Does he even care any more about what effect his campaign is going to have on Colorado?

    Maybe Bill Romjue dug up these fossils so that he could have a conference call with somebody every now and then, or maybe for Ken Gordon to feel like he’s finally entering the Big Leagues, but this consultant crew represents Washington’s  most unhirable and toxic group of “strategists.”

    Let’s face it, Pat Cadell’s chief role of late has been to go on Glenn Beck’s show and provide “liberal Democratic” legitimacy to that guy’s insane conspiracy theorizing. That Romanoff would embrace this guy shows just how far off the deep end this campaign has gone.  

    Romanoff needs to be making the argument that he can be a viable candidate in a general election, and that his campaign is more than an exercise in narcissism. He can’t raise the money to do it, and now he’s hired the nihilists of the Democratic Party who will guarantee nothing but a loss.

    Last question: The campaign’s email rolling out this new brain trust mentioned nothing about Paul Tewes or Dave Hamrick. In early December these guys were shopped to the press as the Obama-era geniuses who were going to save Romanoff from himself. Since then, nada. What happened? Couldn’t he pay them?

    1. Reading the comments in Friday’s thread I didn’t quite get this full a picture. Either Romanoff didn’t know what this guy has spent the last few years saying on TV, or (infinitely worse) he did know, in which case the entire Democratic Party is shown to be expendable to Romanoff’s ego.

      Either way, I think Fonzie is jumping the shark.

      1. to serve as Senator.  If he did know then he is apparently scrapping the ludicrous attempt to position himself as the grass roots, progressive alternative to Bennet and is fully embracing a more tea party style anti-insider rhetoric.  Problem is the insiders are Dems.  The guy in the White House is a Dem. Throw the rascals out isn’t really an option for a Dem in a Dem primary while the Dems hold the White House and both houses of congress.

        In 2008, many of my staunchly pro-HRC women friends turned against her after she stated McCain was better qualified than Obama and ran her 3 AM and Obama is clueless ad, feeling that her willingness to inflict so much potential damage on the Dem primary candidate who was ahead at the time was a bridge too far.  I wonder if such a close alliance with the despicable Caddell will give any of Romanoff’s supporters second thoughts?  

        1. The problem with that strategy is, these guys and gals are the ultimate D.C. wheeler-dealer insiders, albeit not terribly successful ones.

          The first-hand impression I’ve had recently is that Romanoff’s legislative backers are solidly behind him — they don’t feel beholden, they’re genuinely supporting him as the best possible Senate candidate. I wonder if this latest move will change that.

          1. genuinely believe Romanoff is the most talented, best qualified .  However, they also must know the score and, unlike  so many AR supporters here, most don’t despise Bennet. Not at all. In that sense, they’d be fine with supporting Bennet if AR dropped out. Don’t know how much influence the whole question of his hired help will have on our mainly fellow centrist Dem Legislators but I wonder how Sirota/Maddow and followers square this with their anti-Bennet the awful conservadem compared to grass roots champion Romanoff rhetoric.

  2. “Those are all good people that I have worked with and are friends of mine,” said Mike Stratton, a Democratic consultant, who is supporting, but not working for, Bennet. “It seems a little contradictory to me that Romanoff has said the theme of his campaign is he’s the hometown boy and he’s running against Washington. Now the entirity of his team are Washington types.”

    …  The Bennet camp is not quite so D.C.-based, with a Colorado polling firm and campaign manager Craig Hughes, state coordinator for President Obama in 2008 and a former Western states coordinator for Clinton.

    http://www.politicsdaily.com/2…

  3. Jan. 8, “strategist” Caddell had this to say on Fox and Friends: “”I think they considered using the word war is a major step forward. I was happy to hear him say it.”

  4. Why on earth does he need all these people? The big effort right now needs to be a ton of worker-bees calling likely caucus-goers and lining up neighborhood leaders for each caucus.

    All these big shots not only waste money, but they de-focus the campaign. Add in the drama with the backstory on some of these bozos and this makes Romanoff look like he’s following the GOP statewide candidate playbook – doing his best to torpedo his own campaign.

  5. Last Tuesday at an HD37 meeting, Andrew Romanoff made the point that it took “only one senator” to vote against the Nelson and Landrieu deals that singled out Nebraska and Louisiana for special treatment.  In essence, he was stating that if he had been in the Senate that he would have been that senator to vote against the health care bill.  Rather than pass the bill and fix it (Nelson later requested that the Nebraska deal be rescinded), Andrew Romanoff would have simply killed the bill.  

    Romanoff has no significant policy differences with Michael Bennet. He only cited cramdown and a concealed weapons bill when asked what policy differences he had.

    He’s so desperate that he implies that he would have single-handedly killed health care reform, and implicitly criticizes Michael Bennet for not doing so.

    Andrew Romanoff is making a fool of himself with this pathetic primary challenge.  The sooner he quits, the better for him and the Democratic Party.

      1. at his alliance with Dem-bashing Cadell. Fits perfectly. Are his grass roots supporters nuts or too deep in denial to see what their boy really is as opposed to what they’ve been buying?  What does Sirota have to say about this?

    2. if you have a quote that supports this statement, then produce it.

      He’s so desperate that he implies that he would have single-handedly killed health care reform, and implicitly criticizes Michael Bennet for not doing so.

      that’s quite a leap.

      1. His argument was that it would have taken only one senator to say “no” to Nelson and Landrieu.  In other word, he is saying that he would have done that if he were there.  Nelson and Landrieu were demanding these deals for their votes.  So, if Romanoff would have “vetoed” those deals, then the health care bill would not have passed the Senate with 60 votes, i.e., killing the bill.

        It’s no leap at all.

        It’s certainly a confusing position for him to take and I would have liked to have pointed this out to him.  But, since I felt I only had one question to ask, I chose to ask about his specific policy differences that he has with Michael Bennet.

        1. these guys don’t matter and we are going to go the route of reconciliation, which we should have done in the first place.

          The overwhelming negatives for the current health care bill is due exactly to these type of ‘back room deals’ and capitulations to the Nelsons, Landrieus and Liebermans.

          Why not oppose them, when they are sinking the vital portions of the bill.

          Had the Senate leadership taken the direction towards reconciliation in the first place, we probably would already have gotten the public option.

          Saying no to these DINO conservadems is not the same as saying ‘i am here to kill the healthcare bill’ I think the difference is in trying to water down the bill to placate these Senators who in the end are not going to be on board anyway.

          1. but it’s just not in the cards, baby.”  Austin Powers

            At the time, we had 60 votes and needed their votes to get to conference.  As noted, the blowback to Nelson from his own state had him backtracking (I’m not sure about Landrieu).  If we still had the 60 votes, these deals could have been changed in conference.  

            You should deal with the real world, unless of course, you just like to lose.

            BTW – how much money did Romanoff raise in the fourth quarter?  Tick-tock….

          2. Did you just use that term?

            Is there some measure of ideological purity someone must achieve to be considered a Democrat?

            How does Pat Caddell fit into that test?

            Fuck you.  I have my own way of looking at the world.  If it’s not the same as yours, that doesn’t mean it’s “in name only.”

            That’s the problem with you ideologues.  You’d rather complain than win an election.

          3. that he would have voted against the current health bill while storming the barricades for reconciliation?  And how is Romanoff any less centrist than those Wade calls conservadem?  And what about the snake Cadell, whose full time job seems to be playing the role of go-to Dem bashing Dem for the amusement of Fox viewers?

            Is there any “there” there in his campaign rhetoric or is it all designed to distract from the fact that Romanoff is a DLC centrist who has been a successful wheeling, dealing politician (not a thing wrong with that) most of his adult life and he just hasn’t gotten over not being the chosen one.

            I wanted Andrew to get that appointment and have never been a Romanoff hater but I’m kind of getting there now. I’m definitely a Cadell hater.

      2. or will Caddell just announce the figures on Faux News?

        “Three or four years from now, we’re not going to have a conversation about jobs and all of that kind of stuff.”  -Scott McInnis

  7. Will donors now flock to a campaign that hires a direct mail firm that has never handled a US Senate Campaign and handled only a small part of one winning Congressional campaign. ChadderdonGroup specializes in City Council races and seems ill equipped for a race of this size.

    1. Romanoff raised a total of $5,000 on ActBlue in the last three weeks and has a grand total of 19 new donors this month. Remember, this is after reinvigorating his campaign and actually getting some news coverage for staying in the Senate race.

      What I want to know — and maybe some Romanoff supporter or “strategist” can answer this, it’s a serious question — is how Romanoff parlays these new hires into a successful fundraising plan. Despite John Erhardt’s best efforts, Romanoff can’t shake the DLC mantle, and hiring Trippi and Caddell pretty much ensures he won’t get netroots backing. Since his fundraising to date has been anemic, and he’s forsworn PAC money, where does he get the money to run a statewide campaign? Before hiring these guys, it was conceivable he might tap into Be The Change networks and raise his money through small donors, but these guys effectively kill that avenue. So where’s he get the money to do more than drive around the state and attend fondue parties?

  9. …than he does if you listen to the clips.

    He’s a very opinionated guy who is obviously not happy with centrist policies.  Do we need a nation of yes-men?  Yes-men for the Dems and yes-men for the Republicans?  That’s the partisanship that I and most of the country are sick of.  The kind of partisanship that leads so many of you to blindly support Michael Bennet.  I think Ritter could have picked a random lawyer off 17th Street and you all would have blindly supported him.

    I wish Caddell would not provide fodder for a moron like Glenn Beck and the rest of Fox News but it can’t hurt AR to have someone on his team who questions the status quo.

    2. And while you’re at it, chase down some more clips. Caddell is not unhappy with centrist policies, he slams Democrats on a variety of fronts at every chance, from the left and the right. He’s particularly effective when he tag-teams the Dems with Ann Coulter.

      1. If the roles were reversed and Bennet had hired Caddell, then we would never hear the end of it.

        This is the kind of person who progressive bloggers usually rail against. Hell, they rail against pretty much any Dem going on FOX, let alone Dems who go on FOX and give the GOP their talking points. The Glenn Beck clip was especially bad IMHO.

        1. For me, it really is that simple. I understand that no candidate is perfect. But this is a move that crosses a line for me. The same people that were on here last week blasting FOX News and the “mindless” people that still listen to that network has just mysteriously disappeared, have you noticed? Just nowhere to be found to comment on this. What a shocker.

    4. You claim

      “He’s (Caddell) a very opinionated guy who is obviously not happy with centrist policies”.

      but in the same post

      “That’s the partisanship that I and most of the country are sick of. The kind of partisanship that leads so many of you to blindly support Michael Bennet.”

      Is Bennet a centrist or a partisan?  You seem to not know.  Just attacking him for being both? Geesh.



      “Three or four years from now, we’re not going to have a conversation about jobs and all of that kind of stuff.”  -Scott McInnis

  10. I said before that I was neutral in this race, but anyone stupid enough to hire Pat Caddell in this day deserves to lose, and lose big.

    It’s starting to look like Romanoff is challenging Bennet from the right. I just don’t like him anymore.

  11. Imagine if he had picked Andrew Romanoff for the vacancy, and Andrew had gone on to run in his standard unopposed-state-house-candidate amateur hour style.

    The seat would be lost already. Thank you, Gov. Ritter.  

    1. I think things would be playing out a lot differently if that was the case.

      If Bill Ritter had picked Romanoff, he would have had the year of experience in the Senate, the institutional support, the out of state money, and all of the other advantages that Bennet has enjoyed as the incumbent.

      He would probably have had a campaign manager from the outset, he wouldn’t have dreamed of thinking about jumping in the Governor’s race, he would get to run on his record rather than Bennet’s, and he wouldn’t have lost the people he did while he waited on the sidelines and his supporters started backing Bennet.

      He may not have what it takes to run an effective primary challenge, but I think he would have been an excellent candidate if he was running from Bennet’s position as an incumbent.

  12. life of me figure out why so many people who are convinced that AR will lose continue to slam him on this site.

    If he’s such a loser, why do you guys even bother posting about him?

    And please don’t give me a line about how much you ‘like’ AR.  The apoplectic tone belies such claims.

    1. and “slamming” a candidate really continue to elude you, Farrah? I know this hiring is just a kick in the teeth to AR supporters–why continue to be such a blind follower? Maybe your candidate would be a better one if you all started holding him accountable for some of his actions instead of treating him like a god, incapable of error, bad judgment or miscalculation.

      And at this point, no, I don’t like Andrew. I don’t like how he’s running his campaign, I don’t like the people he is surrounding himself with and I think he is proving to be a slick, disingenuous politician with only one goal–to move up the political ladder, no matter how many people he has to step on while he’s traveling on up.

      If he’s such a winner, why do you even bother posting about him in these threads?

      1. that he has hired anyone, so sorry, I received no kick in the teeth [much to your chagrin, I’m sure].

        Where do you come up with all this garbage: Maybe your candidate would be a better one if you all started holding him accountable for some of his actions instead of treating him like a god, incapable of error, bad judgment or miscalculation .

        And this: I don’t like how he’s running his campaign, I don’t like the people he is surrounding himself with and I think he is proving to be a slick, disingenuous politician with only one goal–to move up the political ladder, no matter how many people he has to step on while he’s traveling on up.

        Why is such a nonstarter like AR arousing so much hostility?  It’s just weird.  

        1. or at least he didn’t have to be.

          Many people on this site supported Bennet early on. They’re attacking Romanoff because they always wanted him to lose.

          Other people on this site are undecided, and are surprised and unhappy that Romanoff keeps making mistake after mistake. They criticize him because they want him to do better.

          The debate between the relatively small number of Romanoff supporters and the seemingly larger number of Bennet supporters here has been as nasty as anything I’ve ever seen on this blog, partly because they agree on so much.

          But it tends to obscure the other issue, which is why Romanoff keeps making mistake after mistake. If he’d run the campaign better, I think he could have easily defeated Bennet. But his message is all over the place, he started late, he’s intentionally handicapping himself with fundraising, he hasn’t drawn clear distinctions or demonstrated that we need to replace Bennet, and now he’s hiring asshole losers to run his campaign.

          I can’t think of anything Romanoff has done right in this campaign.

          1. as a still undecided.  where the hostility toward AR comes from baffles me.  Why he seems to be such a basket case of a candidate right now also baffles me.  But I’m still undecided.

            1. At first, I liked them both equally. The hatred toward Michael Bennet, particularly on Squirrel State, was what pushed me to Team Bennet at the start. I was even spit on by an AR supporter. I have never seen anything nasty on the Bennet side. For the most party, they are focusing on Norton.

            2. I supported Bennet because there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two on issues, Bennet has all the money and national party advantages and Romanoff is, as you say, a basket case candidate.  It just seemed like a no-brainer.  I mean it’s not like Salazar/Miles or Lieberman/Lamont. It’s two centrists in a state where you  have to be centrist to win statewide. One seemed much better positioned to win.

              But between Romanoff’s silly, issue free, self righteous campaign and now his hiring of one of Fox’s favorite token Dem attack dogs, I’ll support Bennet not just because it’s a practical no brainer but as a matter of principle. Bottom line, there may not be much difference on issues but Bennet is so clearly the grown up and, besides being really childish, Romanoff has chosen to ally himself with scum.  

    2. You ask, “Why do you guys even bother posting about him?”

      For two reasons:

      1) His primary challenge is freezing out the national DSCC from putting their money and staff resources into the state.

      2) Battling between two candidates with no apparent policy differences (although the Caddell hire is making me wonder if Romanoff is really a Democrat), means we are not focusing on the Republican candidate.  This is going to be a tough race in a tough political environment.  We need one candidate who can then define himself and attack the GOP.

  13. I’m surprised to see such thoughtless analysis of these hires. To call Joe Trippi and Celinda Lake underwhelming, less than stellar consultants is ridiculous. Andrew Romanoff has a killer, f-cking killer team of consultants working for him. I don’t think I can say the same for staff (no offense, you’re obviously fighting for what you believe in), but Paul Tewes, Joe Trippi and Celinda Lake? I wouldn’t have seen them coming on a couple months ago.

    By not giving him credit for these hires is just silly. Give credit where its due, or you might as well replace the Big Line with “Pols’ Endorsements.”

    Second, on Pat Caddell. You can align Andrew Romanoff with Pat Caddell’s somewhat radical views, it’s a great tactic being pushed by Team Bennet – В kind of reminds me of the vilification of Mark Penn. But, you’re completely missing the value Pat Caddell brings to the table: he’s mad as hell and knows how to use it. His shtick has always been to run populist, anti-establishment candidates (Biden in 72, Brown in 92) He’s a perfect fit for AR. If he doesn’t have someone like that at his side, then I don’t know what he’s doing. If MA taught anyone anything it’s that you should be running against DC.

    And, WTF is this?

    We kind of doubt that Romanoff would agree with many of those sentiments, but unfortunately, they are part of his campaign now. Romanoff has aligned himself with one of Democratic Party’s principal detractors, a man whose views most Democratic primary voters will find absolutely repellent, and whose greatest claim to fame is his willingness to engage in the wanton disparagement of “fellow” Democrats in the service of Glenn Beck.

    I pray to god the Bennet playbook is to run against Pat Caddell. Seriously, I’m sure it would be great political theatrics and I’m curious if it works.

    Lastly, do you really think these guys are charging the standard rate? I’m not sure of Tewes, Trippi or Caddell’s motivations but I bet Celinda Lake is doing this to stick it to the DSCC – they probably pulled all of her contracts with Senate candidates after the Mass. debacle. And, also, Mark Mellman, the DSCC’s pollster, didn’t see that shit coming either – there is a whole lot of blame to go around.

    C’mon Pols, give me some meat, I’m getting bored around here. Some thoughtful analysis would be great every once in awhile.

    In all honesty, I have no idea who will get my vote. I just really, really hate it when one of the few avenues for thoughtful political discourse ends up just like FNC/MSNBC.

    1. http://www.denverpost.com/ci_1…

      Did these guys bail already? They weren’t mentioned in the campaign’s email last week. They were brought on before Bill Romjue, so did he run them off the campaign in favor of this new team of “eclectics”?

      Among the high-profile partners are Dave Hamrick, a former field strategist for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, and Paul Tewes, renowned for his primary work for Obama in Iowa.

    2. That’s a brilliant general election strategy. We certainly don’t want that — let’s be honest, it’s a PAC — that bunch of D.C. insiders sullying the airwaves in Colorado this fall.  

        1. Romanoff went even further after his speech, telling The Colorado Statesman he plans to give the cold shoulder to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, if he wins the primary in August.

          “I don’t welcome the outside interference,” Romanoff said. “My campaign is going to continue to rely on contributions from individuals,” he said, eschewing PACs and special-interest donors he labeled part of an “incumbent-protection racket” in his speech.

          http://www.coloradostatesman.c…

          2. In Andrew’s world, all the politicians who accepted PAC money will just “give it back”. (He means the politicians who accepted PAC contributions after he quit accepting PAC contributions when he was Speaker.  Kind of like “not having a terrorist attack during Bush’s tenure”.)

            After all the PAC money is eliminated the blue unicorns and the red unicorns will live happily ever after.

            I’m coming to the conclusion that the Romanoff supporters just like to lose.

              1. If Romanoff posts Obama-like numbers today, then that analogy makes sense. Obama only refused PAC money because he could–he didn’t do it as a principled stand despite getting his ass kicked in fund raising.

                  1. I agree completely. I also happen to think that Andrew Romanoff took a principled stand by declining PAC contributions in the US Senate primary.

                    My point was merely that Obama had the luxury of declining those kinds of contributions whereas Romanoff and Bennet don’t. Hence my last sentence.

          5. Just like Romanoff’s job in the house was to re-elect Dem incumbents and add new Dems.  I’m sure he is justifiably proud of the job he did to promote, protect and expand the Dem majority in the state legislature. State Dems are grateful.  

            In fact, if he deserves support now for any reason, that success would be one of the main ones. What the hell is he talking about?  Building a majority is about keeping what you’ve got and adding more.  Romanoff knows that as well as anyone.  

    3. Here’s a great article on him and others that was written in 1987 (before he officially left the Democratic Party in 1988 over an argument). I’ll just quote excerpts, since it’s kind of long.


      To understand what’s wrong with Pat Caddell, take a sip of New Coke New Coke was the unofficial name of the sweeter formulation introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola or Coke.  and then a sip of Classic Coke. If you’re like me, you’ll wonder how on earth Coca-Cola thought changing the formula was a great new idea. Yet it makes perfect sense that Caddell was a marketing consultant on the New Coke campaign. It was, after all, new. A change. And Caddell is the official strategist/ pollster/Svengali of those on-the-move-and-lookin’-for-a-change baby boomers See generation X. . “Coke was very receptive,’ Scott Miller, Caddell’s partner on the Coke contract, told The Wall Street Journal before the product bombed. “It’s ironic that Pat and I have been beating our heads against the wall for the last two years with the Democratic party to get them to embrace change, and then go to corporate America and it accepts our concepts.’ The people at Pepsi must have delighted in that irony, and in the long run, if Pat Caddell is influential, the Republicans will too.

      …

      But there is an aspect to his thinking that is bad not only for his candidates but for governance. Caddell believes the key to winning contemporary elections is appealing to “alienated’ voters–that ever-growing group of mostly younger voters who are not easily identified as liberal or conservative and don’t trust government, politicians, or the parties. You can’t lure these voters with programs and stands on specific issues, so the theory goes. Rather, you must remain as uncommitted as they are. You lure them by attacking that which caused their alienation: the Establishment. Even if he were inclined to help his candidate address the nation’s substantive problems and articulate a coherent package of solutions, he’d have trouble. Caddell understands polling, public opinion, and campaigning, but his knowlege of and interest in government is scant. As a result, Gary Hart, a man with at least some substantial views on major issues, became, under Caddell’s control, open to the charge, “Where’s the beef?’ A good bit of beef was there; Caddell simply had no urge or facility for conveying it. He helped express only that part of Hart’s appeal he understood and thought was important–his youth, newness and independence from “the failed politics of the past.’

      …

      Is it really Caddell’s fault if Carter had no program, Hart couldn’t articulate his, and Biden’s a windbag? Of course not. And a president with a coherent program and message might make good use of Pat Caddell’s strategic mind. But it says something about Caddell that he has not tended to drift to people like that. If a solid candidate did manage to sign him on he or she had better be careful: Pat Caddell, in his personal behavior, is a p.r. disaster waiting to happen. He either gets his way or, well, he has a tantrum. “He’s like a lot of people who make it very young,’ Frank Mankiewicz, executive vice president of Hill & Knowlton and a Caddell ally, has said. “He’s certainly had a late adolescence.’ As a consultant to Gary Hart’s 1984 campaign, Caddell would thunder and moan and threaten resignation again and again when he felt his strategy wasn’t being followed, oblivious to how his public whining hurt the candidate. During a key fundraiser on the night of the New Hampshire primary, he stormed past perturbed potential donors and out the door, leaving Hart to make the best of a bad public scene. “You can’t believe a grown man would behave that way,’ observes a member of Hart’s campaign staff who maintains a friendship with Caddell. “He’s like a parody of some temperamental movie director.’

      He’s no less persistent when his ideas are dumb. In the 1980 campaign, Caddell urged Carter to attack Reagan as a racist and a warmonger. The plan backfired when the press made Carter’s “meanness’ a major campaign issue. “Pat would frequently come into my office with some off-the-wall idea that we needed to implement “right away,” recalls one senior White House official. “I’d usually sit there and listen and then not do anything, and the idea would usually just go away.’ Unfortunately, Caddell is such a dynamic, persuasive and relentless character that too many of his bad ideas just don’t go away.

      The last thing Caddell actually did for a Democrat was run Jerry Brown’s campaign in 1992 (where he proposed his brilliantly regressive flat tax). Back when he was a Democrat, he used to specialize in substanceless touchy-feely campaigns which more often than not backfired. He won when he had an overwhelmingly favorable environment (i.e., right after Watergate) and lost otherwise.

      Plus he’s an asshole, don’t forget that.

  14. Why don’t all of you anti-Romies come to the central committee meeting on the 4th at South High, and surround Romie, and kick him in the shins over and over!

    Maybe he’ll quit campaigning then.

    [I don’t know if he’ll be at the central committee meeting, but there are other events you can attend.  I think Be the Change has got something going soon.]

    And hey, Romie doesn’t even have body guards–easy pickins!

      1. I thought it would be amusing and fun for the posters around here to do something physical–get away from the intertubes for a while, kick a candidate they don’t like….

        1. Come around the blogs every once in a while to troll Pols. You’re not alone, there are a ton of people who do it. Maybe you could form a support group.

            1. So you mean you lurk when you’re not trolling?

              On a related note: we must have similar schedules as I’m not here all the time, but yet I’m here every time you come!

    3. It’s because I truly think Romanoff is running a terrible campaign. I want him to run a strong campaign to give Bennet some practice. This is amateur hour. And my worry is Bennet’s team will assume Norton or Buck will be equally easy to beat.

    4. either

      – AR actually answers the question on policy differences,

      – AR starts having campaign events outside of the D meetings

      – I get invited or at least not uninvited

      Until – fork please.

  15. I was watching the MMJ amendment debates on Friday and couldn’t help but think of the white male Republican cabal present there when I watched the Glenn Beck vid. The forced body language of these boys in the Senate reminded me of the bully police officers in the South during the CRE. They would exaggeratedly lean on their desks with their asses pooching out, wave their hands in the air, hi-five one another and yell across the room to deliver some terribly unfunny punch line and meet it with a hearty guffaw. After watching a snippet of Beck, I can tell they watch him and want to be just like him in any way they can.

    My analysis of the whole Republican insecurity reaction we are seeing is that collectively they are an overgrown ego whose safety (white privilege) is arbitrarily threatened. How many millennia of ingrained entitlement must these poor, fractured egos overcome before they can be the stand-up men they think they are?  

      1. but you should have seen the Senate Rs. In the light of the stained glass on the Senate floor, it was wholly holy revelations about the most basic juvenile psychology. Beautiful.  

    2. “Conservatives supported slavery, Conservatives opposed women’s suffrage, Conservatives supported Jim Crow, Conservatives opposed the 40-hour work week and the abolishment of child labor, and Conservatives supported McCarthyism. In short, all the major advancements of freedom and justice in our history were pushed by liberals and opposed by Conservatives, no matter the party they inhabited at the time.

      Conservatism is Bill Bennett lecturing you about self-denial, then rushing off to feed his slot habit at the casino. It’s James Dobson telling you that children need regular beatings to stay in line. It’s a superannuated nun rapping you on the knuckles so you won’t dirty your pants. It’s Jerry Falwell watching “Teletubbies” frame by frame to see if Tinky Winky is trying to turn him gay.

      Conservatism is everyone you never wanted to grow up to be.  -Paul Waldman

      “Three or four years from now, we’re not going to have a conversation about jobs and all of that kind of stuff.”  -Scott McInnis

  16. I never thought Romanoff would give me such a good reason to actually be sympathetic to Bennet. But here it is. And I say this after covering the guy in the legislature and having friends who are currently working for him. And really, not many people can try and disparage me as somehow being a corporatist or a moderate.

    In the end, this is just a divergence of power-a fight between those who tend to be more pragmatic and focused on winning and results, even if their candidate is not a perfect populist, and those who continue to submit themselves to a factory line of (truly selfish) purity tests, incremental change be damned.

    Well guess what? Being right ain’t enough. Especially not in D.C. And Andrew’s new team mates have shown time and time again that the pious route is how they roll, regardless of any damage (or racism, if the last presidential election is any indication) they might unleash on the party as a whole.

    But still, there are people who are just so bitter that Clinton or Edwards didn’t win, and they’re willing to bitch and moan about good policies just because of the bitterness, often siding with very right-wing elements to do so. Andrew’s new team mates are really no different from the wackos at Fire Dog Lake, and that’s quite disturbing to me. Simply, they want Obama to fail.

    Now I’m not saying this ideology applies to Andrew, or even a majority of his staff, I’m just saying it’s something to be aware of. Let’s hope these people don’t have a major influence on the campaign, otherwise the results of it could be quite ugly.  

  18. I will guess there is no more football to watch because of the scrum apparent by reading from the diary to the posts.  Good to see some rise from the Bennet supporters about Romanoff bringing in professional campaign staff.  However, it cannot compare to what will be coming from the East coast bankers once they get up and make it to the office tomorrow.  

    1. the comments on this site regarding AR’s campaign was, well, there was no campaign manager, no team, no ‘real’ players in Democratic circles.

      Now, one month later, there is a campaign manager, former Obama organizers and some actual players from the Democratic party.

      Well i guess here AR is damned if does and damned if he doesn’t.

      1. with kids just sitting around doing nothing, then it’s a rather serious problem.

        If you then hire John Mark Karr to teach that class, it would also be a serious problem, but for a different reason.  

        1. when the pols quoted a shoddy piece in the Denver Post.

          http://www.coloradopols.com/di…

          here is some fine journalism…

          And staffing woes. He has yet to hire a campaign manager after Sue Casey, a former Denver councilwoman, ended her stint in the job earlier this fall.

          And a sorry lack of attendance at campaign rallies, often billed as “Coffees with Andrew Romanoff.” The candidate doesn’t even drink coffee, a beverage he says is “just an expression for me.” Ever the self-promoter, he says his low turnout encourages intimacy. “We packed the house in Trinidad last week,” he notes weakly.

          “Ever the self promoter?”

          Um, that’s what a candidate does. (similar to this website at the top self promoting itself as more widely read than the Post)

          And ‘he notes weakly?’

          That’s just bad journalism – the writer is skewing the perception based on… what?

          But here’s what the editors here say…

          For the sake of argument, let’s say that Romanoff really has some brilliant strategy for winning this race that involves being virtually invisible. Maybe this really is all part of the plan.

          But even if that were true, and we don’t think it is, Romanoff is really handicapping his own campaign because of the storyline that has been created. As we’ve said time and time again, perception is everything in politics, and Romanoff has created the perception — true or not — that his campaign is a complete mess. That kind of perception snowballs over time, because the more potential donors and supporters hear that his campaign is rudderless, the harder it becomes for Romanoff to reach them.

          What’s the message? That there is no message.

          So now, 6 weeks later, he has a campaign manager, a team of former Obama staff, and some other political operatives – and a message of being free from influence of the wall street/banker/PAC money strings that Bennet has fundraised his money from.

          And the Colorado Pols goes on the attack, that these guys are not good enough.

          Here is how an outside Blog, Huffington post (no not my article) views these hires:

          If Andrew Romanoff’s Senate Campaign is dead, somebody forgot to tell the candidate. Romanoff, the former Democratic Speaker of the Colorado State House has hired former Howard Dean strategist Joe Trippi, as well as three other nationally prominent political staffers.

          In addition to Trippi, the Romanoff campaign also signed veteran strategist Pat Caddell, direct mail consultant Liz Chadderdon and longtime staffer Celinda Lake.

          http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

          so yes, this site attacked Romanoff or at least echoed that attack 6 weeks ago, and now that all of the parts of those attacks have been solved, as AR’s campaign is formulating, Colorado Pols now goes on the attack for not hiring the right people or the way they think it should be done.

          Where is the same critique of Bennet or his staff?

          My article on Bennet’s votes for dirty energy, against Wall Street Reform, against Cramdown and for the Fiscal Responsibility Commission were not and have not been addressed.

          So who here will?

          1. I’m sensing a theme here.

            I guess there are few other places to go when you bring on a Glenn Beck water-carrier as a senior strategist for a “progressive” campaign.  

          2. THat HuffPoDen link is clearly not crdited to you so it’s probably not yours. But It’s uncredited- which makes me think it’s the release about the release from the campaign.

            ANyhow it’s too short to be you.

            So the AR message is : no PAC money like my opponent or like he used to take.  ?

            Well, ok, I’d agree it is a message.

            It’s not a very good one, but it is a message.

          2. is one thing

            Voting against the base of your support is another.

            Who was Bennet listening to on his staff when he voted against Cramdown?

            or was he thinking for himself?

            You may have mixed feelings about who is hired by AR – but, so far, he has not done anything as harmful to his campaign as Bennet’s on Cramdown  

              1. I mean, we’ve never, ever, ever discussed Bennet’s vote on cramdown on CO Pols. It’s never come up once.

                I think I’m going to start a Post-Rock band and call it Bennet’s Vote On Cramdown.

              1. Essentially the view was that the choice was either between people getting foreclosed out of homes entirely because lenders refused to renegotiate the terms of their mortgages once home values dropped, or having judges able to arbitrate new terms to both parties in hopes that borrowers could repay something more reasonable.

                As MADCO says, it didn’t have the votes regardless of how he voted, but Bennet took a really shitty stand on it, which pissed off a lot of people around here (including a number who now support him anyway). Instead the Senate did nothing about it, and it keeps getting worse.

                1. it’s “getting worse”

                  The good news is that all top 20 cities recorded declines in foreclosure filings in the last three months of the year.

                  Sounds like it’s getting better – ie, less worse.

                  1. In the sense that more people are kicked out of their homes than were kicked out before, and more that would be kicked out in a good economy.

                    It’s like saying the deficit is going down. Great, but that means the debt is still going up. You haven’t solved the deficit problem until you balance the budget, and even once you do that you still have to pay down the debt.

                    I understand your interpretation though.

            3. Hasn’t done anything to anyone. It was legislatively irrelevant- as I have posted (and linked ) here many times.

              Cramdown didn’t have the votes to pass – even if Bennet voted for it, it would have failed.

              ANd I think he should have voted for it and he has acknowledged that 2009 legislative efforts to help people stay in their homes was a “colossal failure”

              IF you and the AR campaign want to message on this- refute Bennet’s explanation for why he voted the way he did.  His reasoning wasn’t wrong, even though he came to the wrong conclusion.

                  1. Triguardian, Triguardian, Triguardian.

                      I want you to post a naked picture of John Edwards.  I’m trying to lose weight and that ought to get rid of my appetite for months.

                      When do we start posting naked pictures of Triguardian?

                    2. Now we know what Rielle Hunter was seeing.

                      [whisper] By the way, I think that photo may have been doctored. [/whisper]

            4. Here’s how he explained the vote:

              “In my view, this particular amendment was, though well intentioned, far too broad, not sufficiently focused on the middle class, and very likely would have had the unintended consequence of raising interest rates for all homeowners and actually hurting the housing recovery[.]”

              http://blogs.denverpost.com/th…

              Despite your hope to make “cramdown” the crucible for this entire campaign, it’s far more complicated than you admit.

              Was it a good policy or a bad one? Like Bennet said, while the intention might have been good, reasonable people disagreed whether, as written, this was the way to fix things without causing worse problems.

              And the politics? The cramdown vote fell 15 votes short, and the Obama administration was signaling its opposition to this particular iteration of cramdown. (Read this thorough account of what went down: http://washingtonindependent.c… )

              You’re also forgetting cramdown was part of a bigger foreclosure package, which passed without cramdown as SB 896. (Details here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/… ) Bennet supported this bill, though he has said since that it didn’t do enough.

              1. The complaint was that he wasn’t pushing it hard enough, twisting arms of people like Bennet who were wishy-washy. I don’t think it’s quite fair to say Bennet was just doing what Obama wanted here.

                And Bennet’s explanation is what all Republicans say whenever someone wants to regulate big business in any way.

                It’s not like people can’t decide to support him anyway, but it was a really shitty thing to do to people who have life a lot worse than he ever did.

                1. is effectively the same thing as saying he’s opposing it, especially in the context of other provisions the administration backed wholeheartedly. In hindsight, you’re probably right, but in the thick of things, I’m not so sure it was clear. Do I wish Bennet had voted for cramdown? Sure. Would it have made any difference? No. Is it a dealbreaker? Not a chance.

      2. It took a little bit of tape on the monitor and scrolling up and down to find out that your reply actually (I do hope this is correct) was to my original post.  

        I think it is important to recognize that Romanoff thinks this race is important enough to bring in professional staff.   Although I do not personally know these people, I know that when you go into a battle for a position you need people who have been there before and can help you win.

        From what I have read of the diary and replies I can see a very interesting bias.  There seems to be a definite attack that is to discredit professional Democratic campaign people.  At least there is no approach to the Swift Boat bastards methods.

        But, I also seem to see many of the replies as a delaying tactic to prevent attacks on Bennet’s staff.  

        1. So far we haven’t heard one.

          And the rest of these people are fine. Sure a lot of them were involved in losing campaigns, but they’ve won occasionally too, sometimes by taking big chances. I don’t agree with blaming Trippi for Edwards’ loss, for example: Edwards was just a terrible candidate for lots of reasons. Turning him into the darling of the lefty blogosphere probably helped Edwards stay in as long as he did.

          Caddell is in a different league entirely. He’s worse than Joe Lieberman. He’s like Zell Miller. He’s anti-Democrat. I haven’t heard of anyone similar on Bennet’s payroll. Romanoff supporters should be forced to defend him just like Bennet supporters have to defend cramdown.

        2. You mean the Swift Boat attacks defended by Pat Caddell?

          Pam, all campaign consultants are not the same. There are plenty of people Romanoff could have hired (Bill Romjue is one of them!) without anyone batting an eye. Caddell is a whole other matter, and Trippi brings serious problems for Romanoff too.

          If you think any of this is a “delaying tactic to prevent attacks on Bennet’s staff,” you’re just not paying attention.

  19. Tripp is one smart guy but he has not had a win in awhile.  The last race he worked on was Brian Moran in VA’s Dem Gov Primary.

    Democratic Primary results

    Creigh Deeds 158,845 49.76%

    Terry McAuliffe 84,387 26.43%

    Brian Moran 75,936 23.79%

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