U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
50%
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
November 17, 2006 03:20 AM UTC
37 Comments
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With the Republicans out, no more appointments are forthcoming, so, where’s he going to next? Anyone have a legitimate idea as to where he goes from here?
Log Cabin Republicans, to repeat what I’ve said before.
He has the qualifications….he’s republican, he’s…. well you know the rest…
Oh nevermind.
attack on Ed as a defender of corporate interests and the citing of Ed’s work on a bankrupt insurance company and then it turned out Ed was actually a hero to the policy holders for trying to help them.
In a word: Stupidity
What was the attack on perlmutter’s daughters?
that his daughters were so appealing that the countered ROD’s youthful good looks. A tongue-in-cheek suggestion I believe.
Not necessarily that they countered the “youthful” thing, but there was a big contrast between the “feel good” ads. Ed’s featured him as a father with his daughters, talking about issues. He was able to paint himself as the solid middle-class family man. Rick on the other hand talked about how he was a nerd and wasn’t really as young as he looked (with a short shot of he and some anonymous woman going for a stroll thrown in at the end.)
I think the (R) by Rick’s name hurt him a lot more than this particular issue/self-presentation, but I know that more than once I canvassed U’s who said, with no prompting whatsoever, “Oh, Perlmutter…isn’t he the one with those darling girls?”
the family angle right from the start. If you recall on primary night Ed made a point of responding to Rick’s request for several debates by saying he had to get his daughter off to college–highlighting the “life experience” issues between him and Rick.
about the life experience thing. I think it was no wonder to people that a 30 ish rich young unmarried male Republican with no kids would want to cut social security. ROD has none of this so-called life experience to guide him – and I think people who do have this experience thought he couldn’t adequately represent them.
He failed to earn the blessing of nrcc and club for growth. Say what you want to about these groups, but this cycle, where they played together – they won.
So ask the deeper question of why Rick never managed to live up to the expectations of his backers and why they failed him, as well, in the end.
My answer: Beauprez tanked that district and anyone in the same party of Both Ways was sure to go down hard.
The Club for Growth boasts often of its successes as to the number of candidates it endorsed that won but that’s a rather bogus statistic. What they typically do is endorse candidates in SAFE Republican districts to try to win the primary with their candidate.
O’Donnell’s seat was not, however, within the norm as to how the CFG typically chooses its endorsees. That seat was too evenly divided among R’s and D’s.
In Rhode Island, the Club for Growth took a different approach. As it said on its website, replacing Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee with a Democrat “wouldn’t be much of a loss . . . as he would vote the same.” So, there they were willing to sacrifice an incumbent Republican U.S. Senator by endorsing Republican Stephen Laffey in the primary–and spent $1 million trying to unseat Chafee. In Rhode Island, however, it is the case that the National Republican Senatorial Committee was actively campaigning against the Club for Growth’s candidate; however, the equivalent House committee did not, so far as I know, ever campaign against O’Donnell in the primary. I could be wrong on that.
….screwed over ROD and his Congressional aspirations!
I think the R next to ROD’s name is what killed him, but that does bring up an interesting query. CD-7 is divided almost evenly between Rs, Ds and Us, so had Rick put up an even fight, in theory the election should have been 50-50. But, because of outside negative influence by republicans, I believe the dems had an advantage out of the starting gates. My curiosity is, how many points would Perlmutter have won by had neither candidate done anything to harm or help himself?
I would claim Ed still would have won by 53 – 47, or in other words, democrats were spotted 6 points just for coming out in 2006. Anyone else have an over/under?
He is a Republican!
> Here’s a guy who had everything–boyish good looks, a composed public speaker, a hot girlfriend, and a resume loaded with cherry appointments courtesy Governor Owens.
HOW ABOUT THE ISSUES???
but that isn’t really accurate. If he had simply once said that Social Security ought to be privatized or something like that I don’t think it would have hurt him as much. But he said it was unAmerican. That kind of statement brought up every bad feeling floating around about Republicans just now. The whole “with us or against us”, “why do you hate America”, arrogant, faith based legislation attitude.
I do think he would have lost anyway, but the unAmerican comment cost him those last few point that turned it into a pasting.
1) Ed ran a really good, tight campaign – won strongly in a tough and expensive primary, and didn’t skip a beat when O’Donnell came off deck
2) Democratic leaning district in a wave election cycle
3) O’Donnell turned out to have more embrassing skeletons in his closet than anybody could have imagined. It was like t-ball for Ed’s campaign. O’Donnell sets them up, then gets dutifully clobbered.
4) Ed is in touch with the district and the people chose him on that basis.
O’Donnell faced a perfect storm of problems. Multiple problematic issues from his past, a really strong and appealing Democratic opponent, and the eventual abandonment of his own party due to the problems with other GOP candidates in the state as well as his own poor chances. The only thing he ever had going for him were deep pockets, and they pretty much squandered that. The Bush photo ops probably didn’t help much either.
I was repeatedly shocked to hear people on this blog insisting that it would be a 2-3 point race right up until election week. I guess they thought that ‘nails in the parking lot’ stunt was just what O’Donnell needed to connect with CD-7.
That’s funny, isn’t it? Most of the polls leading up to the primary had Perlmutter and Lamm neck in neck; most of the polls leading to the general, while not that close, were also not very wide. Ed beat each of them by double digits. (Disclaimer: I didn’t pay too much attention the last two weeks, so if the polls showed Perlmutter widening his lead by a lot, I’m unaware of that.)
I think that either A) People were intentionally projecting a close race just to post something interesting, or more likely, B) Out of the many polls that showed Perlmutter with a strong lead (in both elections), critics tended to cite the polls that showed a closer contest. Everybody wants an interesting race I suppose, and although everybody wanted Ed to win in the general, I never got the feeling there was a lot of love for the guy on the blogs.
In the Lamm race, there were several polls that showed Ed with an enormous lead right before the election, internal and public, but by then the spin and poll talk was out of control and nobody knew what to believe. Even old CoPols had it pegged as a dead heat. All the tell-tale signs were there that Lamm was in major trouble, but that’s one case where people really couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
before the primary that accurately polled a double digit lead for Perlmutter (I don’t count campaign polls when I say that) – the SurveyUSA poll. Were there other independent polls that gave a wide lead? (Not that it really matters at this point.)
I may be confused as I was party to some information around his campaign office that indicated a lead most of the way, plus I was in the district talking to people – not so much towards the actual election, but over the summer – and Lamm’s support always seemed weak, so I may be transposing my impressions.
I thought there was more than one poll, but maybe somebody else has the nergy to check the archives on that.
I do know that a lot of the poll ‘energy’ showing a close race was done with fairly small samples that didn’t focus more heavily on JeffCo – the largest population center and Ed’s base. In the end, people went back to their old state senator and he dominated in the most heavily populated areas of CD7. It was easy to spread the numbers out a little more evenly or even distort them by reaching way out into Adams county and Aurora, where Ed had less name ID than somebody named Lamm.
It’s hard to believe that so many polls would completely inaccurately forecast the results though – sort of shakes whatever little faith I ever had in polling.
I never could figure out how anyone could think this was going to be a 2-3 pt race, or even a 5 pt race. In most races across the state, the Us were going for Dems by 60-40 or more — thats a 6+ pt edge for a D in this district right out of the gate. The other points you mention just added to that margin.
with a perfect storm of factors. Incumbency would have helped, more skeletons in the other guy’s closets, ugly daughters, etc.
In other words, if Ed had taken an expensive trip to Panama with a hot girlfriend and Rick had three cute daughters……
Ugh. Post mortems are brutal.
Let’s play hardball. The real problem with ROD was that he was a shill for the Republican policy lines that are so out of touch with Americans that they have been hiding them for years. But, unfortunately for Ricky, he decided to go to a think tank in Washington where he was encouraged to say what Republicans are really thinking, even if it is unpopular with the public. But, the public is finally figuring out what these “Republicans” really believe and, especially here in libertarian leaning Colorado, they don’t like the authoritarian bent of Ricky and the boys in Washington. And, so Coloradoans are rejecting this form of faux Republicanism. ROD wasn’t the problem, it was his policies and the policies of his cronies in the intelligensia of the Republican Party. It appears that the American public is finally waking up to this nonsense and they don’t like it one bit. The voters of the 7th figured out really early that Ricky was just another pretty-boy who was a vote for the “party” line in Washington. If he had any original ideas, they were right in tune with the government drowning crowd which only believes that government is good for enforcing the moral code of those in charge. And, especially in Colorado, voters just don’t like that one bit. See ya Ricky. Hope the grocery has an opening since you aren’t qualified for anything else. Get a real job.
You won, we lost. Sip a cappuccino, watch a sunset, hug a tree. I’m sure those independent thinking virtuous Dems who just took office will do a much better job than those evil Repugs.
The upside? Watching the media focusing on the Dems this morning. Disorganization, leadership squabbles, Carville going after Dean.
There’s always a silver lining. Sometimes when you lose, you win:)
I’m always amazed when R’s find fault in the disagreements and dialogues that Dems are prone to have. It’s called democracy. We don’t shut off the disagreers. It’s a variant of herding cats, as the old phrase goes.
It was the Today Show!
You don’t know your allies. The reality, I’m a libertarian conservative and a former chair of the Jeffco Republican party. But, because of you and your ilk, me and my wife and my kids and most of my country club, RINO neighbors are now lost the the Republican party forever. Have a nice time as a minority party for the rest of your life. I’ll bet it will be very frustrating, but as my minister says on Sunday mornings, you reap what you sow.
I’m one of those who may not have reregistered yet but in my mind I’ve certainly left the Republican Party. The social conservatives are trying to get all of us to buy the idea that if we only were even more right-wing, we would have won the election. That is utter nonsense.
The real issue now facing the Republican Party isn’t who to blame. The social conservatives are focusing the blame on Gov. Owens, Bruce Benson etc. However, none of that matters, the bottom line is whether the two groups (e.g. the social conservatives and the economic/libertarian conservatives) have anything in common any more. I’m not optimistic. The flash point was Ref. C and D in 2005. After that election it was clear the two groups have very little in common any more. Right or wrong, the social/religious conservatives are out to destroy our public institutions whether it is the public schools, colleges or judicial system and to force their religious beliefs upon us through government action (e.g. Janet Rowland and creationism in the science classes). Such beliefs are not the hallmark of conservatism.
True conservatives want to preserve the institutions we have built over the past two hundred and fifty years while allowing for change and reform when practical and necessary. Between the two major parties only the Democrats are willing to do that and they are therefore the conservative party now.
The Republican Party is the “McGovernite Party” of this era in American politics. Like George McGovern in 1972, today’s Republican Party is out to turn our institutions on their heads (see examples above). In 1972, McGovern wanted to impose a 100% tax on all estates. The public is basically a conservative group of people but they aren’t going to throw the baby out with the bath water.
It is time for the economic/libertarian wing of the Republican Party to find a new home.
Sez this populist Dem. The old “the party left me” of Kevin Phillip’s observation.
Even though in my dreams we are all happy, lefty, Dems, I know that the best course for this state and country has always been a strong two party dialogue. Well, I wish we had three or four parties, but that’s another issue.
I see that we need the left to try new ideas for problems, and I see that we need the right to keep some brakes on the train so that we aren’t chaotic.
When I hear Eisenhower’s speeches, often played by Thom Hartmann, I hear a voice of reason and love for the people of America. Today, he couln’t get an invitation to the R National Convention.
How sad.
Those R’s musat have really ticked you off. But I like Libertarian Conservatives, so I’ll buy you a cappuccino and we can both sit back and watch the Dems do their thing!
I thought O’Donnell was smart at first, as he actively sought to portray himself as “new blood” for the party and put distance between his agenda and the Bush/Delay elements.
Unfortunately he couldn’t turn down the fundraising potential of the President and VP, and when you get down to his poltics, they’re not a bit different from the status quo of the former House leadership. The guy was an upwardly mobile Republican that was going to do what it took and logroll all over the capitol in order to further his career.
This is no attack on conservative principles, which I admire to a degree, but it’s pretty well known in some circles that a young person can make quite a career for themselves just by vocally and tirelessly justifying and promoting the beliefs of the far right (hence the nutjob essays).
There’s a patronage system in place that is far more concrete than the anything the left has too offer, and guys like Rick O’Donnell do very well for themselves climbing the ladder by staying tight with the leadership and financial backing’s agenda. The guy would have been a laugh as a Congressional candidate most places, but as one of Owen’s stalwart footsoldiers in state politics, he recieved the Party support he needed to run. Got him real far too.
with Bush and Cheney who both came out to give him a boost and saying all the while “vote for me if you want a change”. I mean come on… who bought that for a second?