(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(D) Julie Gonzales
(R) Janak Joshi
80%
40%
20%
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Hetal Doshi
50%
40%↓
30%
(D) Jeff Bridges
(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
50%↑
40%↓
30%
(D) Diana DeGette*
(D) Wanda James
(D) Milat Kiros
80%
20%
10%↓
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Alex Kelloff
(R) H. Scheppelman
60%↓
40%↓
30%↑
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) E. Laubacher
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
30%↑
20%
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Jessica Killin
55%↓
45%↑
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Shannon Bird
(D) Manny Rutinel
45%↓
30%
30%
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
In three of the stories that The Denver Post ran about Michael Hancock’s alleged ties to prostitutes, including the big splashy ones on the front page, Post reporters, as if to bolster a weak story, tossed in vague and misleading references to U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham. 9News revealed in 2008 that Nottingham was allegedly […]
FRIDAY UPDATE: Coverage from the Vail paper and the Colorado Independent. —– UPDATE #3: More details from Common Cause’s invitation email after the jump. —– UPDATE #2: The uber-swanky Ritz-Carlton Resort at Bachelor Gulch is the location we just got from multiple sources. We are working on confirmation now. —– UPDATE: Not much information yet, […]
From The Hill: Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) are urging the Obama administration this week to reiterate earlier vows to leave the enforcement of medical marijuana laws up to states. The lawmakers want Attorney General Eric Holder to re-avow his commitment to a 2009 Department of Justice (DOJ) memorandum – known as […]
It could be a statement on the quality (or lack thereof) of the 2012 GOP field that, as the Iowa Independent reports, Rep. Michele Bachmann is now beating out frontrunners like Mitt Romney in opinion polls–even as those same primary voters don’t expect her to win. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann led the pack for the […]
( – promoted by Colorado Pols) Two days before a major address by President Obama on Afghanistan, in which he’s expected to announce the drawdown of 33,000 troops, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has again changed his message on Afghanistan. In Denver yesterday, Romney said the Afghan surge should be seen as one of Obama’s […]
Two stories out of Grand Junction–first, KJCT-TV: Mesa County’s Commissioners are publicly opposing a lawsuit that threatens the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, of TABOR… The plaintiffs in Kerr vs The State of Colorado say governments must be able to raise money in order to function. They say TABOR keeps governments from properly serving citizens and […]
As The Los Angeles Times reports, add another complaint to the frenzy over illegal immigrants and the “damage” they cause: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday defended his statement over the weekend that illegal immigrants were responsible for some Arizona wildfires, citing congressional testimony and published reports to back his claim. Speaking from his home […]
Perhaps more of a flip-flop-flip, reports ABC News this weekend: Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have announced that they won’t sign the Susan B. Anthony’s List Pro-Life Presidential Pledge, which five other Republican contenders –Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum — agreed to sign. Romney announced his […]
A report of the 2009/2010* disclosures show that both Perlmutter and Tipton own substantial stock in companies that are affected by the committees they sit on. Perlmutter owning up to $350,000 of US Bank shares while serving on the House Financial Services Committee, Tipton owns up to $750,00 of natural gas and oil stocks and […]
A fascinating story from the Loveland Reporter-Herald’s Alicia Stice: responding to criticism of Rep. Cory Gardner’s vote for the “Ryan Plan” 2012 budget, a textbook deception: A group of about 50 people gathered Thursday outside of U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner’s Fort Collins office to protest his recent vote for a budget proposal that would make […]
UPDATE #2: Congratulations to c rork and ProgressiveCowgirl, your new front-page guest editors for the second half of 2011. —– SUNDAY UPDATE: A few candidates, including two who received a reasonable number of votes (though neither of the current frontrunners), have indicated that they won’t be able to serve as front page guest editor if […]
(What’s that? Righthaven might have to go out of business? Darn! *Note: Righthaven was not involved in the “cease and desist” letter sent by The Denver Post last year. – promoted by Colorado Pols) Righthaven, in a copyright suit against the Democratic Underground website, has been had its case dismissed by a Nevada federal judge […]
Behind the website paywall, and in today’s Grand Junction Sentinel, is an article worth paying for–that said, we wish more people would see it than likely will behind a paywall. One of the fiercest critics of repeated assertions by Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler that many, perhaps thousands, of noncitizens may have voted in […]
AP, via the Durango Herald: Advocates brought eight possible ballot measures to the Colorado title board Wednesday. It’s a final step before advocates can start seeking signatures to petition something onto ballots. Marijuana legalization supporters say they’ll wait a week for legal challenges and then pick a measure to start promoting for ballots next year. […]
We’d like to thank our front page guest editors for the first half of 2011, MADCO and Aristotle, as well as editor redstateblues who resigned to take a campaign position in the recent Denver city elections, for their valued contributions over the past few months. This is the most widely read and discussed political blog […]
THURSDAY UPDATE: Los Angeles Times: “Given the important U.S. interests served by U.S. military operations in Libya and the limited nature, scope and duration of the anticipated actions, the president had constitutional authority, as commander in chief and chief executive and pursuant to his foreign affairs powers, to direct such limited military operations abroad,” the […]
The AP reports–oops! U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn says he was unaware when he signed onto a letter to cut money for renewable energy that he was also targeting the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden. Lamborn said he was asking that funds be pulled from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy grants and it was […]
In today’s Denver newspaper, Denver Mayor-elect Michael Hancock supplies the first affirmative rebuttal to charges leveled against him just before the election that he was a client of the infamous Denver Players prostitution ring while serving on the city council. Last weekend, Hancock landed on the front page of the Denver paper after an agreement […]
WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Important details added by the Fort Collins Coloradoan, who put together the probable bottom line here without much help from local Rep. Cory Gardner: The bill is being carried by Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., and has 188 co-sponsors from both parties. But its most prominent backer is energy magnate T. Boone Pickens, who […]
Our friends at “The Fix” break down the Winners and Losers from the GOP Presidential debate last night in New Hampshire. Some of the more notable tidbits: WINNERS Michele Bachmann: For viewers who had never heard of the Minnesota Congresswoman before tonight, she put on quite a show. For the first 45 minutes of the […]
Our friends at the Washington Post report, a lot riding on tonight’s GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire–at the top of that list, the true disposition of “frontrunner” Mitt Romney: His moment is here again, in the state where last time the dream unraveled. Monday night, on a stage in Manchester, Mitt Romney will compete […]
It’s been a couple of months since we last discussed Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s controversial “awareness campaign” around the threat of tens of thousands thousands hundreds maybe a hundred? illegally registered noncitizen voters in Colorado. After the legislation Gessler pushed to deal with this “problem” was killed, it was widely reported that the normal […]
In a front-page story today in the Denver newspaper, the rapidly developing post-election scandal surrounding Denver Mayor-elect Michael Hancock becomes both much worse and, with respect to at least one important detail reported in recent days, the subject of an interesting disagreement between media outlets. Chuck Plunkett and Jeremy Meyer report today that Hancock has […]
Originally posted at Colorado Pols.
Denver Mayor-elect Michael Hancock significantly outperformed a poll we released earlier in the runoff election, and it’s a consensus among most who we’ve talked to that his margin of victory was larger than just about anyone had honestly predicted. While the final results are basically in line with an internal poll released by the Hancock campaign at the same time as our own, maybe presciently, we think there is more to the story.
Former state Sen. Chris Romer certainly did lose this low-turnout election, as opposed to the Hancock campaign having definitively won it. We do believe that there was much more momentum for Romer early in the runoff election than at the end, and even though it was close to the final result, we think the snapshot taken by our poll at that time was a more accurate view of the race then than Hancock’s internal poll. So what happened? A couple of things, actually:
First of all, Romer had a significant likability disadvantage that he never really tried to resolve. Chris Romer is a testament to the self-destructiveness of being a personally stiff and unlikable person, even though every other factor in a campaign may work in your favor. Romer’s stuffy, canned “class president” demeanor in debates and on the campaign trail gained him nothing with apolitical voters who didn’t care about his last name, and once voters understood that they didn’t like him very much or relate to him, that family legacy became a major disadvantage. Romer seemed only peripherally aware of this, and to the extent that he did understand, he didn’t seem to care. Romer certainly had his supporters, but those folks backed him more because he seemed likely to win than because they genuinely believed in him as a candidate; when Romer seemed to fade in the last two weeks of the campaign, those supporters faded right along with him. This personal lack of appeal is also a reason why many voters worked harder in their minds to rationalize Hancock’s various gaffes than they might have otherwise.
On the other hand, the Hancock campaign skillfully defused the issues lobbed at him by Romer and his allies. It’s just as important to understand why they did this as how: the hits on Hancock over his vote to raise city council pay, and later on his repeated creationism gaffes, could have indeed done severe damage to Hancock in a liberal town like Denver. But instead of answering any of these charges on their merits, Hancock’s campaign kept to a simple, boilerplate line about “not engaging in negative campaigning.” Hancock’s team diligently repeated the claim of Romer running a negative campaign, and it eventually stuck with a news media that wasn’t paying that close of attention to the race.
This strategy allowed the Hancock campaign to blunt basically any charge leveled against him, while ensuring that Hancock never had to respond to the facts of what he was being accused of. The critical moment when this strategy prevailed, and quite possibly the end of any chance that Romer ever had, came when Romer decided to pull an ad running against Hancock over the pay raise vote. As soon as Romer conceded this, he gave the “negative campaign” canard–and it was a canard, as the Denver newspaper managed to admit one fleeting time–all the legitimacy it needed to become a part of every report on this race. Romer did not run a negative campaign by any serious measure: the attacks he made on Hancock were backed up by Hancock’s own words and votes. But by not combating the “negative campaign” charges, Romer let them stick.
Rather than pulling his own campaign ad, which was mild at most, Romer should have said, “There’s nothing wrong with pointing out Hancock’s own statements, and there’s nothing wrong with this ad.” Pulling the ad brought nothing positive for Romer, and it began a retreat in which his campaign became hesitant to attack Hancock when it most needed to be aggressive.
There are some other pieces to the story we’ll circle back with in future posts, but these two facets–Romer’s unrecoverable lack of personal appeal, and Hancock’s ability to turn the daily news cycle into a consistent debate on his terms–were the key factors in Hancock’s big win.
FRIDAY UPDATE: Complete Colorado adds some details on the open records request–make that requests–Monday, from Michael Hancock’s campaign and at least one news outlet seeking any surveillance evidence of Hancock having visited the Denver Players. As we said yesterday, DPD reports that no such photo or other record exists: it likely wouldn’t, given that his […]
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