July 13, 2010 03:35 AM UTC

Ritter's Gamble

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• by: oldbenkenobi

Bill Ritter had three choices when he filled the Senate vacancy:

A. Pick a place-holder, then let the voters fill an open seat in the next election.  

B. Pick an established Colorado Democrat, someone tested and reliable who has a base.  

C. Gamble on an unknown.

Group B makes the most sense if you have a deep bench and want to give one of those people a head start.  And the bench was deep — four outstanding candidates spring to mind: Romanoff, Hickenlooper, Kennedy and Perlmutter.  But Ritter gambled.  The elephant in the room is: Why?  Why pick an unknown when there were several excellent knowns?    

With Bennet, Ritter and the Democratic establishment have attempted to disenfranchise Democratic Primary Voters by:

1. Picking a guy who had never been elected to anything, a guy without a base.  

2. Trying to keep Romanoff out of the race and seeking for Bennet a free pass-through to the general election.

3. Using Organizing for America, which should be out fighting for progressive causes, to fight for one side in a Democratic primary.

A political base is more than just a political asset, it is evidence of earned loyalty, paid for in blood, sweat and tears.  Like political capital it is built on votes and years in the trenches.  The Bennet appointment was an end-around, a shortcut, the elevation of a person to the highest political position in the state without making him go through all the hard work most people have to put in before they make it to the U.S. Senate.  This was an unearned appointment.

Some accuse Romanoff of thinking he is entitled to the seat, yet all Romanoff has ever said is, “Let the voters decide.”  Ironically, it is Bennet who brandishes entitlement.  Remember Bennet’s line from the debate, “I love you, and I just wish you were running a primary against one of the people causing the problems.”  That’s a line spoken from entitlement.  This is my seat, why are you running against me?  But it is not Bennet’s seat.  He has never been elected.  One of the Bennet campaign’s favorite lines is that we should elect him because “he has not committed a fireable offense.”  Another line of entitlement.  You have to be hired — elected — before you can be fired.  We are deciding whether to hire Bennet, not whether to fire him.  There is a big difference.

When Ritter appointed him, Bennet acquired the only political base he has ever had, people who are inclined to support the Democrat appointed to the seat.  I understand their inclination but I urge them to rethink their support.  Bennet’s new base increased as more people moved toward him before Romanoff entered the race.  Bennet did not sway the bulk of his supporters after years of hard work. Only the people in Group B have earned that kind of loyalty.  On an even playing field, Romanoff beats Bennet.  On an even playing field, Bennet would not even be in this race.  He is only in the race because he was appointed.

We know Obama loved Bennet for Education Secretary.  Then out of left field he gets appointed to the vacant Senate seat.  What a coincidence!  We know Ritter solicited suggestions from the public…and nobody suggested Bennet.  There was a rumor going around, a positive rumor, that Ritter consulted all the Democratic party elders and asked them, “Who best embodies the qualities we need in a U.S. Senator?”  The only named party elder in the rumor was Senator Harry Reid.  This alleged polling of party elders came up with the highly improbable result: Michael Bennet.  So according to the party elders, Romanoff, Hickenlooper, Kennedy and Perlmutter don’t have the magical qualities? Ridiculous.  Obviously this rumor is good for Bennet and Ritter so it stands to reason that one of them (or one of their supporters) started it.  Then it raced around town like wildfire in the vacuum created by the lack of any honest explanation from Ritter.  

But let’s assume it’s true for a moment.  If Ritter consulted with party elders, including Senator Reid, then he surely consulted with the White House too, didn’t he?  You don’t consult all the party elders and skip the biggest elder of them all, do you?  Was there any contact between Ritter and the White House regarding the Bennet appointment?  It is a very simple question.  Would some reporter, if there are any left, please ask it?  I’m an Obama fan and supporter but WE choose our Senators, not the White House.  Hubris is the most likely explanation for why the White House seems to have treated Colorado’s Senate seat like a cabinet position.  Ritter and the White House both need to come clean.  Voters have the right to know the truth, and better now than in October.  

Why is Bennet getting a free ride from the press on this and other issues?  Maybe because Post owner/publisher Dean Singleton decided in February that Romanoff had not gained enough “traction.” He made this decision three months before Romanoff crushed Bennet at the Colorado Democratic Assembly.  Or maybe the Post can’t find time to apply a critical eye to Bennet because they are too busy dissecting Betsy Markey’s t-shirt designs and Romanoff’s website header.  In the recent intern scandal, the Post simply accepted the Bennet campaign’s explanation as fact and asked no more questions.

That elephant remains in the room.  Every voter in Colorado knows the Bennet appointment doesn’t pass the smell test.  You think that won’t manifest itself at the polls in November?  The mystery is why Bennet, Ritter and Obama were and continue to be oblivious to all this.  The Republicans have one argument this election season, the anti-incumbency, anti-Obama argument.  Romanoff as nominee vaporizes their argument and then co-opts it.  Bennet, on the other hand, enhances it — he is perceived as Obama’s pet project.

Bennet talks a big game, about all the things he’s going to do if we elect him.  He’s been in office for a year and a half.  Remember the fierce urgency of now?  Bennet’s motto is more like: “The timid complacency of a strongly worded letter.”  Bennet’s “message” is vacuous (see my diary Bennet’s Cliche Cavalcade) and his “leadership” on the public option was a joke (see my diary Leadership, Romanoff v. Bennet).  

Romanoff, in contrast, is about the fierce urgency of now.  He attacked TABOR, championed Colorado schools, and ran for Senate despite the establishment’s attempt to keep him down. Romanoff said “No” to the establishment. That’s what we need.  Bennet says “Yes” — to Wall Street, the health care industry, and an emphatic yes to the current campaign finance system.  

Ritter gambled and we got a dud.  We are not obligated to keep him.  Ritter owes us an honest explanation but we are not prisoners of Ritter’s decision, not yet.  We can still make our own.