February 26, 2010 03:14 PM UTC

Bennet's Cliche Cavalcade

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• by: oldbenkenobi

The Democratic power structure is pulling out all the stops as they ram Bennet down our throats.  But how do the voters feel?  Here’s how I feel: disgusted with President Obama, Mark Udall and others who think they can make this decision for us.

Peacemonger’s sig line says he/she has reached overload on the political bs.  Clearly he/she has been reading all the Bennet emails.  By the way, thank you Obama for giving Bennet your email address list.  It makes me feel good about supporting you.  According to his emails, Bennet is an “outsider” and has “real world experience.”  He’s no “career politician”!  Just the latest in a greatest hits cavalcade of campaign cliches from the supposed agent of change.

But let’s look at Bennet’s claims.  First, the “outsider.”

Bennet was educated at an elite private high school in D.C., St. Albans.  His grandfather worked for FDR.  The outsider’s father was an aide to VP Hubert Humphrey, was head of USAID under Carter and later became President and CEO of NPR.  His brother is editor of The Atlantic.  Bennet went to Wesleyan College in Connecticut. Then he went to Yale Law School in CT.  Soon thereafter, his father became President of Wesleyan.  

I don’t think MB is an outsider in CT or DC.  Remember Bennet’s debate line to AR: “I love you, and I just wish you were running a primary against one of the people causing the problems.”  I could ask him a similar question.  Why not go home to CT and take on Lieberman?  We’ve got a deep Democratic bench in Colorado.  CT is obviously hurting in that regard.  Bennet could put all his East Coast money to good use out there.

After Law School the outsider got a job as Counsel to the Deputy AG in the Clinton Administration.  At the time, his dad was an Assistant Secretary of State.  But then MB moved to Colorado.  Maybe he’s just an outsider in Colorado.  Maybe this is when he became a community organizer and so endeared himself to Obama?  Nope.  He got a job (probably by answering an ad in the classifieds) as a managing director for Phil Anschutz.  Not bad for an outsider!  By then he was firmly seated on the executive position gravy train.  He was a wunderkind, the flavor of the month.  And that is why the School Board hired him as Superintendent.  As so many organizations do, they went for flavor over substance.  They went with the ultimate insider instead of looking for someone who would be the best fit for DPS.  Ritter then made the same mistake.

Now let’s look at that “real world experience.”

The phrase itself insults our intelligence.   First let’s ask, if the real world is outside politics, what is politics?  The make-believe world?  And if the real world is outside politics, why does he want so badly to now join the world of make-believe?  Why doesn’t he want to stay in the “real” world?  The “real world experience” claim is pure campaign bullcrap.  Does Bennet have any original ideas?  I’d like to hear one or two before we make him the Senator from Colorado for the next 30 years.  He claims he is all about change but he’s setting a record for campaign cliches.  He sounds no different than every other politician we’ve ever had.  

If we want change, change we really can believe in, we need to move away from the cliches and toward substance.  Romanoff offers substance.  He has a proven record of tackling Colorado’s toughest problems.

Let’s get back to Bennet’s real world experience.  When he came to Denver, he went to work for Phil Anschutz.  In other words, he devoted six years of his life to helping a rich guy shuffle his money around.  This is our new progressive hero?  His crowning achievement: he combined three struggling movie theaters into a theater chain supercorporation.  Just what this country needs, more supercorporations!  Again, this is our new progressive hero?  Have you been to the movies in the last ten years?  I know you have.  It sucks.  All the great theaters are gone.  Is there any wonder why the companies he “saved” nearly went bankrupt?

Here’s my message to Andrew Romanoff.  You showed great courage in getting into this race.  You are the only Democrat out of many who are qualified who had the guts to give the voters a choice. Keep fighting!

Research from wikipedia and Bennet’s campaign website.  I am not associated with the Romanoff campaign.