CO-04 (Special Election) See Full Big Line

(R) Greg Lopez

(R) Trisha Calvarese

90%

10%

President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Biden*

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%↓

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

90%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

90%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

(R) Ron Hanks

40%

30%

20%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(R) Deborah Flora

(R) J. Sonnenberg

30%↑

15%↑

10%↓

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Dave Williams

(R) Jeff Crank

50%↓

50%↑

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

90%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) Brittany Pettersen

85%↑

 

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

(R) Janak Joshi

60%↑

35%↓

30%↑

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
October 06, 2010 12:24 AM UTC

GOP Validates Progressive Critique In Powerful New Ad Against Bennet

  • 33 Comments
  • by: davidsirota

NOTE: We’ll be discussing this ad and taking your calls about it on AM760 Wednesday morning from 7am-10am. Tune in – and call in.

A few months ago, I appeared on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now to discuss the Colorado U.S. Senate race. During that appearance, I reiterated what I had been saying on AM760 in the weeks leading up to the Democratic primary: namely, that Democrats risked losing the Senate seat if Michael Bennet was their nominee because Republicans would be able to run a left-right campaign against him. Specifically, I said they would be able to use his shady Wall Street/Denver Public Schools deal to flank him on the populist left.

Now, in the final stretch of the campaign, they are doing just that in a new statewide television ad:

With Denver Public Schools both the biggest school district in Colorado and my own personal school district, I extensively reported on the original story behind these allegations. You can see examples of that coverage in the AM760 podcast archives, or here and here. In short, this is far more than a political campaign-season story – this is a story that quite literally threatens the education of my soon-to-be-born first son.

Which, of course, is why this Republican ad is so predictably powerful. Regardless of whether you are a hard-core Democrat or a partisan Republican, and regardless of the fact that this ad comes from an insipid 527 group, the substance in these charges is very important and has very serious real-world consequences outside the realm of soulless political junkies and the politics-as-sport crowd – a crowd which is, not surprisingly, disproportionately overrepresented on this site (for partisan Democratic denialists, see Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Gretchen Morgenson’s expose on the DPS/Wall Street deal here if somehow you don’t believe this is a hugely substantive issue. Or, see how even the Bennet-backing Denver Post’s editorial board acknowledged just how “risky” the deal was and how the Times’ report was a “compelling case” against it).*

Obviously, I am not excited at the prospect of Senator Ken Buck, nor am I advocating voters support Buck over Bennet. But I am saying that this was entirely predictable – and that this is exactly what the Democratic Party gets when it uses its top-down Beltway and Colorado Establishments to crush progressive primary challengers and ignore inconvenient truths about candidates’ problematic records.

Remember – that’s exactly what happened here in Colorado. The White House and the D.C. Democratic Establishment lined up for Bennet and against former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, despite Bennet’s shady record as DPS chief and despite his troubling ties to the financial interests who made big money off his DPS deal. That support was the whole difference in the primary, as Romanoff narrowly lost, despite being hugely outspent and outgunned by the national Democratic Party. Had the party stayed out, he likely would have prevailed – and Democrats would have a Senate nominee here who wouldn’t be susceptible to a devastating left-and-right attack on his record.

Certainly, any Democratic nominee would have been hit from the hard right on issues like taxes, spending and regulation. But because of Bennet’s record and his connections to the Wall Street faction of his party, he is now – clearly – wide open to being attacked from both his right and his left, thus allowing the Republicans to  portray themselves as the true economic populists.

That leaves progressives in Colorado mostly with bad news, but also with a sliver of good news.

First, the bad news: Because of Bennet’s record, Republicans will be able to pretend to be protect-the-little-guy populists when in reality they are anything but. Yes, the idea of Ken Buck as some sort of anti-Wall Street populist is laughable to those who are watching this race closely. But for a casually interested independent voter (ie. the majority of voters in this election), the image may seem perfectly credible in comparison to Bennet and his record.

Now, the tiny sliver of good news: When Republicans embrace a progressive-themed criticism of a Democratic politician – even if that criticism is entirely motivated out of opportunism and unprincipled hackery, it provides bipartisan credibility to the underlying questions being raised. To put it in Colorado 2010 election terms, when the national Republican Party says we should be worried about Michael Bennet’s DPS/Wall Street deal and about his too-close-connections to Wall Street, the Republican Party is effectively validating the overall progressive critique of DPS-like Wall Street schemes and politicians’ penchant for being too close to financial industry interests.

This, then, helps create political capital for progressive policy changes – for instance, perhaps for state legislation to ban municipalities and school districts from putting taxpayers into the hands of Wall Street’s predatory lenders. Or, perhaps for stronger campaign finance laws that prevent politicians from raising cash from the industries they do favors for.

Sure, you can call this pie-in-the-sky thinking. But I’m under no illusions – I’m not stupid enough to think Republicans are serious in their criticism of Wall Street. I am, however, far-sighted enough to see that the parameters of the public policy debate matter. When Republicans validate progressive themes, no matter what the GOP’s motivation, that helps legitimize those themes for the long haul.

That this may hurt the Democratic Senate nominee in Colorado was predictable. Maybe the “We Know Better Than Voters” Democratic Establishment both in Colorado and Washington, D.C. will take that under advisement in a future election.

* NOTE: Watch the comments section here – I predict there will be lots of carping, personal attacks on me, etc., but not one single factual refutation of anything stated in this post, or in the articles cited. Additionally, be on the lookout for head-in-the-sand Bennet sycophants (again, disproportionately overrepresented on this site) to insist that Buck is parroting attacks from Romanoff – the preposterous assumption, of course, being that Romanoff is somehow responsible for the DPS/Wall Street story, not Bennet’s actions and/or the New York Times Business Section. This assumption is more than silly – it posits that the Republican Party has no opposition research staff and therefore wouldn’t have found this story on its own. The assumption is also grotesquely anti-democratic – it suggests that Democratic primaries shouldn’t be an informed debate about candidates’ public records, and that negative parts of candidates’ public records should be withheld from primary voters for the sake of party unity.  

Tweet
Share

Comments

33 thoughts on “GOP Validates Progressive Critique In Powerful New Ad Against Bennet”

  2. I’m not stupid enough to think Republicans are serious in their criticism of Wall Street

      Be honest.  You’re plenty stupid enough to believe that, as well as believing that your constant uber-left whining about moderate Democrats will ensure ultimate Democratic victory.

  3. You have a marvelous gift of exaggeration, like when you exaggerated about how many years you had resided in Colorado, until it was proved otherwise.

    Romanoff lost by nearly 9% points and over 30,000 votes. That is not a narrow loss.

    We had an election–Democratic primary voters made their decision. Most Romanoff supporters I know are working to get Bennet elected and aren’t intent on bashing the process just because it didn’t produce the result they hoped for.

    Is there any particular reason you have such a vested interest in trying to continue to divide Democratic supporters besides your own ego driven agenda? Let me help you here–the answer is no, David. No, you don’t.  

  4. The D establishment in CO, at least as measured by the party insiders lined up for Romanoff.

    And you have left out a large problem with a potential Romanoff general election – he was too left to carry carry Colorado.  Not really, but in the primary.

    Single payer healthcare, bankruptcy reform and other consumer protections, no PAC money (unless it cam efro mt he DSCC)  and on and on.  He could have done any of those in the House, but did not. But he campaigned on them in the primary and it would have glued him to 38-40% in the general.

  5. I, David Sirota, thought up something that I thought up first a few months ago on my radio station that I host with me.

    I, David, me, Sirota, am smart enough to know that I think that progressives are great and I represent their (no! my) views to the best of my ability as only I know how to do since it is me.

    Thank me for reading this diary. If you would like to hear more about me and my thoughts that I believe in my mind, please contact me at itsallaboutme.com

    Even when it’s about you, it’s about me, unless it starts about me, then it’s about me always,

    David

  6. As stated in other posts and in print for those who care to do the research, the story has two sides to it.  That Karl Rove and his allies chose this side to promote is predictable.

    I don’t remember anyone suggesting Democratic primaries shouldn’t be an informed debate.  Actually, there were informed debates — and Senator Bennet won his primary fairly convincingly.

    This would be a great time for you to start working with your legislator on laws to prevent the so-called abuse here.  Seems like that would be more progressive than rehashing a primary that is now in everyone’s rear view mirror.    

  7. Please, don’t ever call yourself a progressive again. You are a progressive like an ambulance chaser is a lawyer. Technically, sure, but in every meaningful way, you’re just a lazy bombthrower who worships antagonism above all else.

    David, how do you respond to the fact that all the media outlets in the state have said this is a bullshit attack? Does the GOP’s use of lies to attack Bennet feel better to you because your guy did it first?

    Whatever keeps your ratings above the crazies on KNUS, right?

      1. From this site whose commenters almost exclusively represent the politics-as-sport crowd? Absolutely right that’s what I’ll conclude. That crowd has a self-interest in suppressing inconvenient truths – and therefore screams like a stuck pig when those truths come out.

        1. Of course, to put it another way, your headline could have read:

          Romanoff Attack Ad Presages Right-Wing Smear Job Against Bennet

          Those inconvenient truths do provoke a lot of stuck-pig screams, don’t they?

          1. Insisting the New York Times reprinted a Romanoff “attack,” rather than acknowledging the New York Times wrote a solid independent story, proves my exact point about partisan blindness. It’s such a preposterously ignorant claim to insist that the Business Section of the New York Times takes orders from Andrew Romanoff or his supporters, it’s hard not to laugh out loud to see such a claim being made.

            I mean, that claim is straight up funny, as is the further implied assumption that the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee didn’t already have this story from reporting done throughout the local press prior to the Senate race.

            If you believe both of those suggestions, then you are so far gone, so far deluded, so utterly mindless, that any discussion is truly unproductive. I’d have a more substantive conversation, frankly, with the wall in my office than with someone who believes those assumptions.  

            1. I’ve written elsewhere today that the Republicans had this exact ad scripted out last winter. I can vouch for that, because a top Republican operative read me the script back in January. Romanoff just played into their hands by getting it out there first. Point Romanoff!

              As to your other straw man arguments, who said the Times reporter takes orders from Andrew Romanoff? Is that what you’re claiming before knocking it down, because it’s not what I said.

    1. Production-value wise, I’d argue that it may actually be better, because it really boils the issue down in a very succinct, easy-to-understand way. The question is whether voters will actually believe the laughable idea of Ken Buck as anti-Wall Street populist. I can’t answer that – and sure hope they don’t. But it is an open question.

      1. it doesn’t need to build Buck up.  In my view the ad is not to give people a reason to vote for Buck, he is not even mentioned.  He does not need to be seen as the guy to tame Wall street abuses.  It is to give people another reason not to vote for Bennet.

      2. Christopher Hitchens also called himself a progressive, before during and after he went off the deep end endorsing George W. Bush.

        Which stage do you think you’re at in the Hitchens saga?

    1. the Rove ad will be as effective as its Romanoff counterpart. Since the Romanoff version of the misleading right-wing faux populism attack managed to help him lose the election, we can only hope.

  10. As predicted in the post, after 21 comments there is not a single factual refutation of anything stated in the post, or in any of the articles cited. Lots of noise – ie. personal attacks, screaming, whining, moaning, etc. – but not a single factual refutation of anything stated.

    Quite telling, really.

    2. What do you expect people to say in response, besides that your opinions are wrong to the extent they’re based on facts and not a combination of seething resentment over losing a primary and a controversy-seeking ratings grab?

      One obvious place where you’re factually wrong is the notion that because Bennet beat Romanoff, it gave Republicans an opening to attack him from the left. Republicans are quite happy to attack from the right, from the left, from a hole in the ground, from the top of an ivory tower, from the CEO’s office, from the swimming pool, from pretty much anywhere.

      Any Democrat who ever said “Let’s do this or not do this because it will prevent Republicans from criticizing us” is wrong. Nothing insulates anyone from criticism, and this year’s immigrant-hating Republican gang would have been quite happy to attack Romanoff’s support of a special session on immigration, just like they’ve been attacking Democrats as beholden to big banks.

      PREDICTION: Sirota will not respond to my criticism in any substantive way and will continue to attack Democrats as Ken Buck’s useful idiot until after the election, when he will finally be able to complain righteously from the minority for great ratings.

      1. Precisely.

        Sirota’s seen what a big electoral defeat did for Glenn Beck and he wants some of that. And he’ll do what he can to make it happen.

  11. can be found by Googling “dps-bennet-editorial-pension-deal-denver-post.”  Sorry about directing eyeballs to the daily, but the results are interesting (and better than sending viewers to the Cherry Creek News – which I’d forgotten about until today).

    The first three items that come up detail both sides of the deal and, as late as last month, claim that DPS is earning “high ratings on the pension debt.”  Maybe it wasn’t a great deal and maybe it was, but at least there are some legitimate hows and whys.  Believe what you want.

    Also interesting, on July 30, the daily paper blogs that the Romanoff campaign is handing the GOP ‘a shank’ with the DPS-themed ad.  After reading about it again today, it seems like kind of old news.  Just sayin’.

  12. Yes Bennet has weaknesses. If Romanoff won he also had weaknesses. So saying “I told you so, you should have voted for Romanoff” doesn’t carry any weight. If Romanoff had won then he would be getting pinged for his weaknesses that Bennet pointed out and you could make the same argument.

    As to weaknesses, there are legit weaknesses and then there are complicated situations where you can claim most anything because the facts are so complex. This is in that second category. Was the DPS deal sensible at the time? Most of us have no idea – we don’t have the financial background to make that call. Unfortunately it’s easy to write a 30 second spot that cherry picks a couple of points to paint a negative picture.

  13. Then attacks the Pols when we don’t all fall at his feet and chant in unison about how brilliant he and his diary is. Typical.

    Anyone catch that the only one who enjoyed his hit piece was a conservative? Nothing says progressive politics like conservative admiration.

    RedGreen summed Sirota up perfectly:

    Sirota’s seen what a big electoral defeat did for Glenn Beck and he wants some of that. And he’ll do what he can to make it happen.

    David,

    How does helping to elect an extreme conservative Republican like Buck for 6 years help Colorado, the nation, or the Democratic Party? Or does control of the Senate not matter to progressives?

  14. Reading through your analysis I find very little wrong with it.  You are correct to point out that Bennet is vulnerable from both sides, but in fairness, I’m not sure that Romanoff wouldn’t have been also.  He was certainly more a candidate of the people but I doubt that there were no bombs to throw at him as well.

    The one assertion that I would take issue with is the suggestion that this ad represents a validation of the progressive anti-wall street theme.  As I view the ad, I see mainly an accusation that Bennet is crooked and was giving sweetheart deals to friends in the industry that have now paid him back big time in contributions.  

    I see where you’re coming from regarding validation of the progressive position but I don’t think it plays out that way ultimately as the goal isn’t to build Buck up, but rather tear Bennet down as a crook.

  15. The DPS pension deal was high risk, high gain. Period.

    It was absolutely legitimate for Romanoff supporters to criticize  how Bennet  engineered the deal.   It is also perfectly legitimate for the Republicans to run an ad criticizing how Bennet engineered the deal.

    Are you arguing that Romanoff should not have questioned the deal?  That is crazy.  Are you arguing that the republicans were not smart enough to know about the pension swap without Romanoff?  That is crazy.

    It is politics.  You pays your money and takes your choice.

    If the economy had not collapsed, Bennet would be looking real good.

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

220 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!