Colorado Race for U.S. Senate Seat: Onward to August
May 11, 2010
Democratic rivals Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and former Colorado Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff faced off at their second debate in late April, reminding voters that the race for Bennet’s seat will continue to heat up through the months leading to the August 10 primary.
The Democratic county caucuses held in March resulted in a higher number of delegates assigned to Romanoff rather than Bennet for the Democratic statewide assembly scheduled for May 22 in Broomfield. The results of the statewide assembly will determine which of the two party candidates will be given the first line on the election ballet used in August.
Voters in Colorado have at least four candidates to consider for the hotly contested Senate seat. In addition to Romanoff, Republicans former Colorado Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton and Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck each hope to head to Congress in the fall as Bennet’s replacement. At the Colorado Republican party caucuses, also held in March, Norton and Buck nearly tied, with Buck coming out the surprising front-runner. The Republican statewide assembly is scheduled for May 22 in Loveland.
In mid-April, Norton announced she would follow Bennet’s lead and not attend her party’s state assembly in order to spend more time collecting petitions to assure her place on the August ballot. As noted in a Politico.com article describing Norton’s controversial decision, “To appear on the Aug. 10 primary ballot, [Colorado] candidates must capture at least 30 percent of the delegate vote at their respective assemblies or gather 1,500 signatures from registered party members in each of the seven congressional districts.” Choosing the petition strategy over the assembly strategy gives a candidate increased time to contact unaffiliated or other-party voters who have yet to identify and strongly associate themselves with a preferred candidate. In Colorado, undecided 2010 voters have until July 12 (29 days before the primary) to change or withdraw from major political party affiliation. Electors who are registered but still unaffiliated are allowed to declare their party affiliation at the primary polls.
Each of the Colorado candidates understands the importance of undecided voters in this race and is striving to differentiate his or her campaign from the others. While Bennet and Romanoff appear to share similar views on many issues, campaign finance remains a topic Romanoff insists reveals why Bennet is too tied to Washington interest groups to effectively represent Colorado. Romanoff claims Bennet talks one way in Colorado as a candidate and behaves another way in D.C. as the appointed Senator. Bennet claims he is cleaning up Washington despite taking huge campaign contributions from the big-money interests he purports to be against.
A member of the Senate’s powerful Banking Committee, Bennet is the beneficiary of significant campaign contributions that currently total more than half a million dollars from individuals employed by the finance industry alone. Significant donations have also flowed into Bennet’s coffers from individuals as well as organizations within the healthcare industry. While his campaign staffers argue Bennet received such donations and still voted “for sweeping restrictions on credit card companies and for health care reform,” others point to the senator’s votes against the cram-down bill—legislation designed to help individuals filing for bankruptcy receive legally managed mortgage modifications banks are opposed to offering—and against a public option in healthcare reform as evidence that Bennet strongly supports his special-interest donors.
According to Bennet’s campaign manager, producing and airing just one of the senator’s recent television ads costs an estimated $300,000. New legislation introduced in April in Congress by Senate Democrats and by House members from both parties is designed to force “top financers” of such campaign ads to identify themselves. Until a time when such disclosures are honestly provided, voters are left to wonder which of a candidate’s donors allow a candidate to support media interests by purchasing lucrative ad time, and what those donors get in return for their generosity.
If and when such disclosures are required, voters will likely be surprised to find special interests criticized by a candidate in a commercial and the funders of a commercial are often one and the same. The funding of such ads does not mean a special interest supports the views presented. It simply means the special interest is fully aware a candidate must rail against them in this day and age in order to win an election. The special interest knows full well the candidate will accept their donations and support their causes when it comes time to vote for legislation such as the mortgage cram-down bill or for healthcare that may or may not include a public option, regardless of statements made in a donor-funded commercial.
As was said during the last two years of the Bush administration when Democrats controlled Congress but were unable to accomplish much of anything, more attention needs to be paid to the puppeteers—the true powers-that-be in Washington—rather than the puppets.
1) Democratic/Liberal groups, notably ActBlue, which provides an on-line fundraising tool that allows individuals and organizations to funnel contributions directly to Democratic candidates’ campaigns:
Top two beneficiaries in this race: Bennet (more than $1 million total) Romanoff (more than $100,000 total)
2) Lawyers/Law Firms, including firms that specialize in lobbying:
Top two beneficiaries in this race: Bennet (more than $400,000 total) Romanoff (nearly $27,000 total)
3) Securities and Investment Firms, including Wall Street giants:
Top two beneficiaries in this race: Bennet (more than $300,000 total) Norton (nearly $100,000 total)
4) Leadership PACS that include executives from companies regulated by Senate committees on which Michael Bennet serves:
Top two beneficiaries in this race: Bennet (more than $200,000) Norton (more than $90,000 total)
Donors like these made it possible for the top candidates in this race to raise the following amounts during the first quarter of 2010 alone: Michael Bennet: $1.4 million; Jane Norton: a little over $800,000; Andrew Romanoff: nearly $400,000.
Overall, the top candidates have raised: Michael Bennet: more than $6 million; Jane Norton: nearly $2 million; Andrew Romanoff: a little over $1 million.
While the first quarter of 2010 brought in only a little over $200,000 to Ken Buck’s campaign, overall the Republican has raised nearly $800,000.
The obvious fundraising frontrunner, Michael Bennet insists special interests must be shut down. Yet special interests pay his bills. Bennet has more than enough cash on hand to buy prime television time and create ads that allow him to say, over and over again, that he is different from the Washington politicians with whom he has so much in common despite the fact he benefits from the special interests he condemns. The hope is that voters will begin to believe what they hear in his ads and spread the sound bites as truth by word-of-mouth. As a study of modern perception management reveals, if a statement is repeated enough times, it becomes a twisted form of truth.
The question then becomes: Are Michael Bennet’s special-interest donors allowing the incumbent to sell the message that special interests need to be regulated, confident that when it comes time to vote, their beneficiary in Congress will most often serve their very specific, pro-industry needs, even when that means neglecting the needs of voters back home? Or will Michael Bennet be the only elected representative in political history to bite the hands that made him a U.S. senator and now feed him on a regular basis? By the same token, will Andrew Romanoff be the only candidate in political history to turn down contributions from the special interests he deplores, especially if he becomes the Democratic nominee for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat?