The Senate Race and Immigration

This, in a Grand Junction Sentinal report on candidate and immigration:

Pete Coors, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, also supports a program to let immigrants find jobs and to toughen penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants.

“Pete is a strong proponent of a guest worker program that allows immigrants to cross the border legally,” Coors spokeswoman Cinamon Watson said. “He is opposed to amnesty.”

...

“Current immigration law is not working,” said Ken Salazar, Colorado’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. “I support stronger border enforcement and efforts that would crack down on illegal human trafficking.”

This is an apparent weakness in Salazar's Hispanic strategy. Coors needs to hammer this. Salazar may be applying an "Only Nixon can go to China" strategy here, but his family is from old Mexican stock that the US overtook, not from a recent immigrant community. This line may not resonate the way he hopes.

Also, some of us have been wondering about Salazar's accent. It's real enough, but from where? Turns out it's a native San Luis Valley accent. The other morning, when I was checking out, the lady at the front desk had the same accent. It turns out her father was born in Pagosa Springs, and her grandfather was a young man looking for work during the Depression.

So there you go. Salazar may be an authentic liberal, and an inauthentic moderate, but he does seem to be an authentic person.

This Is the Great Outdoors?

Ken Salazar like to brag about being a moving force behind the legislation known as Great Outdoors Colorado. Now when I think of the Great Outdoors, I think of this. I suspect you do too. I do not think of city playgrounds in Burlington, CO as the Great Outdoors.

Nice city playgrounds are a worthy use of municipal funds, no doubt about it. But we're talking about a playground, with playsets and benches and a grill, and a fountain. We're not even talking about Winter Park or Boulder's glorious trail system.

Salazar has been using his promotion of Great Outdoors Colorado in his response to the Summitville Slime. I'm just not sure those words mean what we think they mean.

Money and ideas.

As of this month, Salazar raised $407 thousand from PACs while Coors raised $107 thousand.


Political analysts say they expect Coors to catch up in contributions by October.

They also say the money raised could hurt Salazar's image as being for special interests.


And though Coors is pro-life and against gay marriage, he said he disagrees with President Bush on budget issues.

Coors said Bush has allowed federal spending to get out of control.

A short review of where Pete Coors stands from the Canyon City speech.

The Budget -- "We're burning up the credit card," Coors said. "If you own a business, if you did your accounting like the federal government does their accounting, you'd be locked up." ... ... he would vote to keep the president's recent tax cuts in place and fight to extend the estate-tax reprieve that is set to expire in 2011. ... ... he would cut to reign in deficit spending but said his experience as chairman of Coors Brewing would be useful in making those decisions.

Health care and tort reform -- "We have the least efficient health-care delivery system in the world," which results in higher costs, Coors said. ... tort system and reducing the number of plaintiff and class-action lawsuits could lower costs. ...

Immigration -- " but immigrants should be documented, and he would be in favor of increasing penalties for companies that hire undocumented aliens... ... "my plan is to put military on our borders," both north and south, Coors said, receiving a round of applause from the crowd.

The military -- "I'll be an advocate of increasing our military budget," ...


Cross posted at The American Kestrel