January 04, 2009 11:10 PM UTC

Ritter's Gift to Republicans

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• by: harrydoby

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Engineering has a principle called KISS — Keep It Simple Stupid.  I guess there is no corollary in the law or in Ritter’s experience.  Choose the most qualified, experienced, skilled and willing candidate who can run a campaign, serve the constituency well and keep getting elected.  Every opposition candidate’s nightmare.

Ritter had at least a half-dozen candidates that fit the bill.  

Ok, so Ritter’s contrary enough to reject the easy way to solidify Democratic party gains in Colorado.  What’s next?

The race for both the Governor’s office and this Senate seat in ’10 has already begun.  It’s going to be extraordinarily expensive and bloody, I believe. Unnecessarily so IMO — but, so be it.

Presuming Bennet is not a placeholder (or a bone tossed at the other senate hopefuls to keep them out of the Governor’s race), what can he do to win his first election?

It seems Bennet’s fate will be tied to Obama’s, not so much Ritter’s (the ‘pubs will try to do both anyway, particularly to whomever is the weaker politically).  So he should join himself to Obama’s hip by being seen bringing federal dollars to Colorado in the way of energy, transportation, educational infrastructure and defense projects (especially to the Western Slope or the ‘burbs) with full PR fanfare is paramount.

Appealing to independents by being on the forefront of fixing NCLB through common sense measurement standards, while maintaining accountability; working to improve accountability and efficiency in government, and modernizing our information systems for greater visibility and accountability (healthcare, education and open government budgeting).

Leave the bleeding heart liberal issues to the other candidates (even if some are near and dear to many of us, they’ll either get done or not depending on the economy and the labors of the other 57 (D) Senators).  Bennet doesn’t need to lead on those.

With his connections, and political insider experience, I suspect he’ll have plenty of people to draw upon to fill both his Senate staff as well as his campaign staff.  He’s plenty sharp to know what talent he’ll need to support the Herculean challenges he faces in the coming 24 months.

I think fundraising will be the least of Bennet’s problems.  Thank goodness for small favors!

I don’t know that 24 months (or about 2 weeks, depending on when you start counting) will be long enough for anyone, no matter how talented, to build the organization and track record to win re-election.  So the doors are wide open to not just every Republican, but to many highly qualified Democrats that smell blood in the water.

It’s probably too much to hope that Dick Wadhams will deliver another election to us on a silver platter.  We are about to find out just how “Blue” Colorado has become.