March 04, 2010 08:31 PM UTC

Romanoff Campaign Morphing Into Mike Miles 2004

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• by: Colorado Pols

We wrote last week that the U.S. Senate campaign of Democrat Andrew Romanoff had officially jumped the shark when he used the name of 2004 Senate hopeful Mike Miles in a fundraising email. Our point at the time was not that Miles is a bad messenger in and of himself, but that it was disastrous for Romanoff to publicly align himself with someone whose Senate campaign was a hopeless disaster; Romanoff is certainly of a different political pedigree than Miles, but he can’t afford the image that he is running a race — like Miles ran in 2004 — that has no hope of succeeding.

Well yesterday, Romanoff’s campaign sent out an email from supporters Polly Baca and Ramona Martinez that continues the drumbeat that they are mad at President Barack Obama for supporting Sen. Michael Bennet, etc., etc. Here’s a snippet:

We are alarmed that this long standing tradition has been violated by the current National Democratic Party and our current President, whom we both supported for election.  It is inappropriate and unacceptable for national Democratic Party officials and the President of the United States, who is the titular head of the Democratic Party, to engage in Democratic primaries.  Colorado Democrats have the inalienable right and intelligence to select their own candidate for the highest political position in the state without interference from our Democratic leaders in D.C. who are supposed to be supportive of our local parties and candidates.

Perhaps Romanoff and his supporters are correct in that Obama shouldn’t be getting involved in Democratic primaries, but what’s done is done. This obsession over Obama helping Bennet is practically the only thing you hear from Romanoff and his supporters anymore, and it is eerily reminiscent of the 2004 Senate race.

When then-Attorney General Ken Salazar entered the Senate race in March 2004 and subsequently began racking up endorsements, supporters and big checks, Miles supporters were beside themselves that the “Democratic Party,” and their particular bogey man, Party Chair Chris Gates, were supporting Salazar instead of letting the process play out.

The conspiracy allegations were silly and juvenile (not to mention without evidence), but they became both the fuel and the flame out of the Miles campaign. Instead of a race focused on solid campaigning and issues, virtually all you heard from Miles and his supporters was about the unfairness of big bully Democrat power brokers who supported Salazar when they should have remained neutral.

The very same thing is now happening with the Romanoff campaign, which has become obsessed with complaining about Obama’s involvement in the race rather than focusing on campaigning, fundraising and delivering a solid message to the 99.9% of primary voters who don’t give a rat’s ass about this insider squabbling. Should the Democratic Party remain neutral in a Democratic primary? The answer isn’t important, because the campaign is asking the wrong question. We could count on two hands, and maybe a foot, the number of people who are truly interested in listening to that discussion.

Focusing on Obama’s support of Bennet is also baffling for another reason: Democrats still like President Obama, and Bennet is surely pleased every time he sees an email from Romanoff’s campaign reminding people that the President endorsed his opponent. Yeah, it sucks that President Obama endorsed your opponent. But why the hell do you keep talking about it? Hey, did you hear? The President has endorsed Michael Bennet. Isn’t that horrible?

As we’ve said over and over again, this race has a long way to go before the ballots are counted. But unless Romanoff starts really doing something different — something besides complaining about insider squabbles and PAC checks — then this has all the makings of the 2004 primary that Salazar won with 73% of the vote.