CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
February 16, 2010 06:07 PM UTC
49 Comments
for Bennet has been disproved by this episode.
Had Colorado Pols not promoted the diary w/video about Pat Caddell, I would have had no idea about who the guy was or what he had said about Environmental issues.
Thankfully, this website pointed this out, and supporters like me emailed/called the campaign to demand an explanation.
Andrew Romanoff and his team listened and parted company with Caddell, perhaps also not realizing how toxic this guy’s comments were.
If Colorado Pols was really ‘Bennetpols’ they would have sat on this story until a later time heading into the primary to promote a story like this, when it could have caused more damage.
Thanks for getting Romanoff supporters alerted to this issue and resolving it early on, and thanks to Team Romanoff for listening to the will of the Colorado voters.
Having Pat Caddell working in this race would have been bad for Democrats at all levels, not just Romanoff.
But I appreciate your comment, and your valiant attempt to be gracious to the Dead Guvs.
If everyone involved in this primary developed a less… how to put this… unbelievably nasty attitude toward one another, it would go a long way to unifying the party when the primary ends.
but doing something about it. We may disagree, to the bitter end, on the judgment involved with this hiring, but I genuinely appreciate that you went immediately to the source for an answer.
I believe I posted the first diary on Romanoff’s appointment of Caddell, Trippi and Lake a couple hours after the announcement:
http://www.coloradopols.com/di…
I’m not the most astute observer of the national scene, and my interest in the race is journalistic rather than partisan, but even I noted somewhat cattily in the diary that Caddell was “probably best known as the token Democrat frequently deployed by Fox News to rip Democrats” and provided a link. I think it’s stretches credulity to suggest that somehow the Romanoff team wasn’t familiar with Caddell’s recent history. And if they weren’t, that suggests something else.
For being there first with the right analysis.
Kudos for that, Bob.
And as I noted above, what it suggests is not very flattering, no matter which scenario you are buying here.
And so gentle.
If Colorado Pols hadn’t made his scumbag comments a public issue, he’d still be on the campaign and Romanoff would still be touting his “insightful, strategic thinking.”
Welcome to Politics 101, folks. Feel cynical yet that your Boy Wonder is turning out to be just another opportunist politician?
Are we really expected to believe Romanoff is such a stupid, incompetent candidate that he didn’t vet his own inner circle? Or is he a naive candidate that has to be so managed that he’s in a bubble, surrounded by paid staff that purposely tell him nothing? Which scenario is it, folks? Because it can’t be both and neither option is particularly flattering. Neither scenario paints this as a guy anyone in his right mind would want in charge of anything, let alone being our next Senator.
I am trying to give Romanoff every benefit of the doubt here (because I favor Bennet). But bringing on Caddell shows poor decision making no matter which of those scenarios it was.
Mis-steps like this can lose the primary and will lose the general.
views until he saw the post with video here on ColoradoPols is ludicrous, a completely cynical insult to our intelligence. If anything could make him look worse than taking Caddell onto his team in the first place, his completely dishonest explanation does it.
Or are we to believe that Romanoff is such a hot house flower, he never makes himself aware of what goes on in the world of the cable news media? In which case, are we supposed to be willing send Bambi to represent our interests in the up-coming tough election? Cynical liar or deer in the headlights? I’ll take neither, thank you very much.
Last month many of us had no idea who he was. I think the first time I heard of him was when he wrote an opinion article for the Wall Street Journal.
It’s not like he’s on Beck’s show every day, so you have to watch a lot of Beck to notice him. And I don’t really need my Senator watching a lot of Beck.
Respectfully, in the political world, he was very well known. He’s been on the political scene since 1976. Maybe the average Joe didn’t know him but a campaign most certainly would and it’s their responsibility to vet paid staff.
not for his whackjob personal views. And he hasn’t done anything of note since 1992.
I’m not going to spend the better part of today arguing with you but his personal views have been on air for almost a decade. It took me ten minutes to find 25 youtube videos of some of his more outrageous remarks. Perhaps I have different standards of what I expect from a candidate so to be clear, here’s what I expect–a vetting process that includes 10 minutes of googling. Is that really too much to ask, you think?
It had only been ten minutes!
I’ll admit I wasn’t paying any attention to politics before 1992, so I have no personal memory of Caddell ever being important. Probably unfair to imagine other people exhibit my temporal myopia.
for awhile. I might have exaggerated on the “better part of today,”…just a wee bit…
what are you, crazy? 😉
but I agree with sxp: before this had erupted I hadn’t even heard of Cad. Guess I don’t watch enough cable news. Actually, what I mean by that is, thank god I watch no cable news. Not having a TV has its benefits.
I went without TV for 8 years and I now have it at work but still not at home. I love not having TV. I get a lot more reading done. I’ve know about Caddell since he worked with Trippi on Dean’s campaign. Again, I wouldn’t expect the average Joe to know diddly squat about him but I would expect a campaign to fully vet their staff. They do need to meet a higher standard than you or I.
And yeah, what the hell was I thinking, giving sxp respect? What’s he done for me lately, anyway?
Caddell worked for the Dean campaign? Are you sure?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
And just for that, for making me look that up, you get no respect and you get no nickels.
But read the link for the background on Trippi and Caddell’s connection. Trippi used Caddell’s playbook for Dean’s 2004 run.
I found when I tried to google the connection, so I guessed that might be what you were referring to.
and reply to you at the same time. Therefore, I must choose to do the wise thing and go play Pacman.
sxp deserves extra respect today, for giving David shit. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it…. (I can’t give David shit; it’s like practicing tai kwan do on a teddy bear. Admittedly a teddy bear that hasn’t been washed in years, and has one eye missing, but a teddy bear nonetheless…).
…do you think you might have spent a few minutes checking his background? Youtube is free.
Is it possible that Trippi, Lake and Chadderdon, the rest of the big 4 hires announced in Jan and described by AR as “very talented and creative who obviously have a great deal of expertise,” should have known? Is it possible they too have youtube baggage?
I mean if Caddell had kicked a dog 25 years ago and no one knew, I wouldn’t be thinking it raises questions about the campaign’s vetting the way this does.
to hire Karl Rove to run my campaign for a D seat one day. He’s brilliant and won the presidency twice.
(j/k)
and you are evil.
Anyone who watches any cable would instantly recognize the face and connected views, if not the name. Even if you don’t watch Beck (I don’t) video of outrageous remarks have been all over various other cable network shows and posted on various blogs. During the past several elections he’s been all over cable, not just Fox. Certainly, regardless of all that, any active Dem pol would be completely familiar with him and his views. He’s been a major player for a very long time. Trust me, Romanoff knew exactly who and what this guy was.
put “Fox News whackjob protofascist” on his resumГ©. He used to be a reasonable guy and might still have had a reputation as such. Maybe they did a background check and didn’t find any sex scandals (for…obvious…reasons), so they figured he was clean.
I think it was innocuous.
As for “Why now?” I would guess it’s because they just hired someone to monitor the blogs (the person who registered as “RomanoffForColorado”) who quickly noticed Romanoff was getting reamed here. It wasn’t a national story that people on this blog disliked Caddell, so unless one reads all the comments on all the blog posts here, one might have missed it.
Romanoff made a mistake, but Caddell is gone. I’m inclined to move on.
are you and Voyageur all set for tonight? What time are you posting the diary tonight?
Maybe you could weigh in on my comment there. V and I are definitely doing it, and I got my ticket set aside by the Denver Young Dems. V just has to e-mail them and make a donation. I e-mailed him about it this morning, hopefully he sees it.
Move on, sure. But no pass.
AR needs to explain why he would be a better Senator than Bennet. And now that includes why his campaign didn’t know Caddell.
But I’m satisfied by Caddell’s canning.
So is this the Romanoff reply:
“How could we have anticipated that Patrick Caddell had such views?”
Brilliant strategery to invoke Bush era excuses.
Really, this stuff just writes itself.
But “cable talking head” and or the correct spelling of his name?
C’mon. If nothing else, check the guy’s facebook page, his youtube archive and ask yourself- what does he bring to the campaign, does it outweigh calling my most important endorsers “thugs”?
I’m with who ever said it elsewhere- no pass.
Geez, Google is our friend. Ten minutes. How could AR or any of the people around him CHOOSE not to know who and what Pat Caddell is?
The guy who said he would leave on the same boat with Bill O’Reilly if Hilary Clinton became president, for instance? I remember that, and I don’t even watch cable infotainment.
Yesterday’s statement from the AR campaign, on HuffPo now, containing this:
And this comment on HuffPo:
How could this be? Who’s in charge there? Why should the campaign get a pass? And how much of a pass would the Bennet campaign get if something equivalent showed up there?
any campaign is Googling the potential consultant.
In understanding the campaign’s behavior, the choices are: knowing (and hiring Caddell anyway) or being incompetent beyond credulity.
than I put it 🙂
It means that he doesn’t VET who he associates with
I don’t know who brought Cadell on the campaign but I do think that a google search probably is above and beyond the chain of command in a campaign. Most senior staff on campaigns are blindly trusted to have the most and best information and when it comes to the intersection of the internet with any part of an operation, there is an aura and mystery the campaign projects onto it and management can blindly follow anyone who acts like they know (or maybe they do know) what they’re talking about.
It didn’t take you or the members of this community long to run a search on this dweeb but why would a staffer or manager do it? They could risk their job and contradict the gospel the the almighty leaders! They would demonstrate a lack of faith in uppers. And if they did find dirt on a new hiree, they shouldn’t say anything because they would be rocking the boat and in campaigns, if you rock the boat, you’re not only pissing off the higher ups because you’re showing them how incompetent they can be, you’re also not taking one for the team which is the ultimate sin in campaigns.
In short, I think expecting the intel on Cadell to be found is a stretch– only in the sense that there is still a (basic) technological lag. Jobs are handed out by word of mouth and everyone trusts each other in the wrong ways. Practicality and efficiency are valued after superficiality and ass-kissery.
…not that I think that’s what happened here, I’m justsaying that’s been my observation.
You can classify that under the “Abilene Paradox”
A good manager thanks people for bringing them unwelcome news.
😉
There’s no such word as ass-kissery.