Salazar the Non-Partisan

Salazar told the crowd that one "clear difference" between the two candidates is that Coors is partisan and he is not. Salazar mentioned the card he gets from the Bushes.

Salazar's not a partisan? I know that it's part of appealing to the center, or the unaffiliated, that you scream from the rooftops that you'll put Land, Water, and People over Party and Politics, but volume generally bears an inverse relation to sincerity.

One word: Redistricting

The man personally threw the authority of his office behind a lawsuit against the state the employs him. Salazar claimed in the Denver Post, April 14, that he "exercised my power as attorney general in the independent manner that I should." Well, he was certainly independent of the other powers of government, aside from the Democrat-domination State Supreme Court. How independent he was of the Democratic Party is open to question.

Salazar filed a lawsuit against the state, against a law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. He neither issued an advisory opinion nor filed an amicus brief on behalf of someone else's case. In fact, according to the July 16, 2003 Rocky, it was Democratic legislators who joined Salazar's suit.

He did this even as his brother was running for the Democratic nomination in House District 3, which he eventually won. No, John didn't file until 4 months later, but I'd be more than a little surprised if the topic never came up over dinner.

Salazar's one of the most partisan Democrats in the state. Just because he's found some ways of working with the other side - a necessity when the Governor and legislature are both from the other party - doesn't mean he's not a partisan.

Salazar: I'm the Independent One

Ken Salazar, the Democrat candidate for Colorado's U.S. Senate seat, is now portraying himself as the independent candidate. At a forum with Republican opponent Pete Coors in Lakewood yesterday, the Rocky quoted him as follows:

Salazar told the crowd that one "clear difference" between the two candidates is that Coors is partisan and he is not. Salazar mentioned the card he gets from the Bushes.

"I pledge to all of you here today that I will always, always put the interests of the people first," Salazar said. [My emphasis]

AND

"I'm the candidate for U.S. Senate and I'm not a rubber stamp for anybody, George Bush or John Kerry or any party," Salazar said.

That makes two Salazars distancing themselves from John Kerry in just over a week. His brother John, running for the hotly-contested 3rd Congressional seat has refused to declare who he is supporting for President. I thought it just might have been that Kerry was unpopular in the western Colorado district, but now it appears he may be seen as a liability statewide among independent voters. At least that's how the Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate is reacting.

In one of the recorded highlights, Coors assailed Salazar for his economically unsound position on taxes.

"Ken just said he wasn't going to increase taxes, but he said he wants to increase taxes on the wealthy," Coors said.

"He's defined that in a couple of different levels. The last time it was $250,000 incomes and above." That, Coors said, would burden businesses that create jobs.
Said Salazar: "I believe tax cuts that help middle Americans are important and are the ones that I will be supporting."

Salazar is clinging to the stale Democrat rhetoric of dividing rich vs. poor vs. "middle-class" (which a vast majority of Americans perceive themselves to be). His TV commercials tout the same message. So much for always putting the interests of the people first... unless you don't count those who make more than $250,000 a year or more as "the people." Which Salazar probably doesn't.

How long the failed Dairy Queen franchise operator will hold onto the Algore-like populist rhetoric and how far it will take him remains to be seen. But it's clear there are vulnerabilities. And Coors has to keep exploiting them.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

New Coors Ad

Tonight I saw, for the first time (yeah, I try not to watch too much TV) the new Pete Coors ad. The main thrust: Ken Salazar can't help do anything about health care because he's too deeply tied to the trial lawyers' lobby; I can help, because I have no such entanglement.

I think this is a great thrust at just this time in the campaign. Coors has already worked the home-grown son angle, and continues to hit hard about taxes. Now, his campaign is opening up a new front which seems to undercut Ken Salazar's primary issue: health care reform. The more Coors ties Salazar to the trial lawyers (especially like the way the ad points out that Salazar has taken $500 million from the trail lawyers), the better that will play in this state, which tends to like candidates not so tied up to goofy fringe lobbies.

Now, is it just me, or is the next front to open up in this battle the one which starts "Ken Salazar would vote to prevent judges from even being considered by the full Senate; judges like Miguel Estrada--the first Hispanic nominee to the 1st Circuit Court, Janice Rogers Brown--the first black woman to sit on the California Supreme Court, and Bill Pryor--a man whose nomination has been opposed because he (like Salazar) is Catholic"

I'm actually asking--is it just me? The only reason I care about the Senate is because of its role in shaping the judiciary; do I just have too much time on my hands, or do people just not understand the importance of that role?

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Ciruli Polling

Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli has a poll in today's Pueblo Chieftain showing Salazar up 46-45. I haven't looked very hard at the internals, but they suggest that Salazar has a better favorable/unfavorable ratio. Still, it's more evidence that the Rocky poll was an outlier.

Torrents of New Voters Keep Pundits in Dark

The Rocky Mountain News is reporting that Colorado added 30,000 new voters in the past month.

Democrats in that 27-day span registered more voters than Republicans - 17,749 voters to 15,777 voters, according to the latest figures from the secretary of state through Sept. 14. Unaffiliated voters declined by 3,694 during the period, perhaps indicating new allegiances, but in any event putting the net number of new voters at 29,832.

While with figures like that, one might be inclined to see the possibility of voter registration fraud, what's undeniable is a rising interest in electoral politics. This is the same rising interest that blinded the pollsters and pundits before the Aug. 10 primary, that made the Schaffer-Coors race look like a dead heat. In sampling "likely voters," one must ask, are the pollsters missing an accurate count of this race? The recent Rasmussen tracking poll shows a dead heat between the Senate candidates, while the Rocky Mountain News poll gave Salazar a "scratch-your-head" 11-point lead.

I think this may be one of those times where those who want to read polls like palms or tea leaves may just have to admit that they don't know. And this doesn't only apply to the Senate race but to the Bush-Kerry showdown (and key Congressional races, too) in Colorado.

The question to be asked: how many of the gains in Republican registration are from new voters or from those who switched their independent affiliation? how many of the gains in Democrat registration? Some of my friends and I have helped register a few new Republican voters, but that's very narrow, impressionistic evidence. Perhaps there's something to learn from this data, but even that would only show us one piece of the puzzle.

The most profound thing I can think to say at this point? In Colorado, there's a whole lot of campaigning to be done in the next 41 days.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

Salazar Courts the Deaniacs

From an email sent out by the Salazar campaign this afternoon:

Two weeks ago, Howard Dean's Democracy for America organization sent out an e-mail in support of South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle's re-election campaign to their membership of 700,000 people across the country.

Within 48 hours of the mailing, Daschle's campaign raised more than $250,000!

Now Democracy for America wants to do the same for two more Democratic U.S. Senate candidates, based on an on-line poll at their website. A fundraising appeal will be sent out for each of the top two vote-getters.

Please follow the link below to cast your vote for Ken Salazar...

I know politicians take money where they can get it, but suppose he actually wins this thing? It's bad enough that Salazar's brother John has to run away from John Kerry to have any chance at getting elected. It's worse that Zell Miller has to point out that failing to do so is taking the Georgia Democrats the way of, oh, Illinois Republicans.

But this? Does Salazar really want to be associated with these guys? Who knows what evil (ok, mischief) lurks on those contributor lists? Some enterprising 527 with a Mac and a small bankroll ought to pray for Salazar to win, and then run commercials putting Dean's scream up there next to Ken's hat.

The Rocky Poll

I want to thank Lynn Bartels of the Rocky and Lori Weichel of Public Opinion Strategies for being so helpful with this post. Lynn tried valiently to answer my questions. When they exceeded the data she had in front of her, she passed me over to Lori, who spent way too much time on the phone explaining POS's methodology to me.

They both know I'm a blogger, so they both expect this information to show up on the sites. (Lori didn't know this at first, and assumed from the forwarded emails that I had some background in polling. So I guess the Pajamahudeen is making great strides in self-education.)

The answer to question #1 is: 39% Republican, 35% Democrat, 24% Independent, 2% Not Telling. This appears to oversample Republicans and especially Democrats, at the expense of Unaffiliateds. (It's worth noting that re-adjusting doesn't help Coors much, since he's still down 55-38 among unaffiliated voters.)

Here's what Lori had to say about that. I'll let you be the judge.

• Independents tend to shrink in number as you approach the election. They consider this to be a result rather than a demographic to be adjusted for, since it's a self-identification. (Dick Morris uses this method himself. -ed.)


• Democrats seem to be more motivated than Republicans. This is consistent with their new registrations, and with a higher-than-normal level of interest since February.


• This suggests that Democrats will be more likely to vote than Republicans. Also, going back to 2000, exit polling showed only a 1-point edge to Republicans in actual turnout.


• POS uses a random-digit phone call, rather than voter lists. They believe this lets them capture new voters, and voters in places like Weld County which don't require phone numbers to register. The latter helps preserve geographic balance. If other polls are using voter rolls, that could account for some of the difference.


• Lori also suggested that the presence of Nader may help Bush, but hurt Coors, since there's no Green running in the Senate race, but there is a Libertarian.


• Coloradoans are sophisticated voters. Sophisticated enough to feel comfortable splitting their ballot not only for elected office, but also for ballot initiatives and taxes.

So, we learn that POS interprets the oversampling of Democrats as a real phenomenon, indicative of Likely Voter status, rather than a quirk to be corrected, at this point in the election cycle. Even if we do correct for it, it doesn't help Coors much. He's getting killed among unaffiliateds. And POS has usually been identified as a Republican polling firm.

Looks, it's a small sample, it's at odds with four recent polls. The Republicans have tended to run ahead of the polls here for a few election cycles. Their GOTV effort now matches the Democrats'. If you assume that Coors has to make up four points rather than 11, it's very doable.

Going back to 2000, the Republican turnout exit-polled at one point better than the Dems', but Bush carried the state by 5 points. Perhaps that exit-poll followed a pattern where Republicans were less likely to answer the pollsters. Lori did say that most of the "Refused to Tell Party Affiliation" were Republicans. If so, the demographics in this poll may not be as reflective of actual turnout as Lori suggested.

We report. You decide.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Comparing Polls

Coming out less than a few days after the Rocky Mountain News poll showed a double-digit lead for Democrat Ken Salazar (53-42), the new Rasmussen poll shows a dead heat with a slight edge to Republican Pete Coors (49-48). Both polls surveyed 500 likely voters and have the same 4.3% margin of error. What gives? Who do we believe? How much faith do we even put in the polls? With disparate results like these, it's hard to give a huge vote of confidence to them. But polls do tell us something, there's no doubt about that.

Unfortunately, the lack of detailed raw data from either survey makes it difficult to draw too many conclusions. (Let's put it this way: I don't make enough to cough up the cash for a premium membership to the Rasmussen site.)

Let's look at the new Rasmussen poll and draw some comparisons. The Rasmussen surveyed voters on Thursday, September 16. Result? Coors 49, Salazar 48. [Incidentally, the Rasmussen results are identical to the week-old projection made by Blogicus M. at Mile High Delphi.] The last Rasmussen tally on this race, conducted exactly a month ago, showed the Democrat with a 49-45 edge. Both results remain within the margin of error but read together seem to indicate a slight momentum shift into the Coors column. The latest RMN poll has failed Dairy Queen franchise operator Salazar leading by 11, but the last poll the firm conducted was in April, so indications of momentum are much less clear.

The Rasmussen poll also indicates identical favorable ratings for the two candidates. According to the RMN story on its poll, Coors has twice the unfavorables of Salazar. Maybe both facts coincide, and it's just a matter of emphasis. For example, Coors could be 60 favorable, 30 unfavorable, and 10 no opinion & Salazar could be 60 favorable, 15 unfavorable, and 25 no opinion. But I doubt the case. Rasmussen & RMN are getting two different reads.

Without the detailed data at my disposal, what I see are differently emphasized demographics from the two stories. The RMN poll highlights two huge advantages for Salazar: 68-23 among Hispanics and 59-35 among rural voters. The Rasmussen poll gives Coors an edge among military veterans of 55-43. Of course, the most surprising figure of these three is the giant lead for the Democrat among rural Coloradans. Just guessing here, but the gap is probably significantly smaller in the Rasmussen poll.

The RMN poll revealed 4% undecided, while Rasmussen puts the number at a paltry 1%. Perhaps the Rasmussen pollsters push their respondents a little harder, or perhaps it's just the sample. But if the former is true, it might indicate that more people on the fence are leaning in Coors' direction. If so, then the Republican needs to do a little better job selling himself.

So lest I get accused of preaching political agnosticism, what can we learn when we put these two surveys side-by-side? The result is somewhere in between. If you also factor in the internal numbers from Coors (showing +2 for Salazar, with a higher margin of undecideds, perhaps a reason to be suspect of the Rasmussen result) and average the three, you get about a 4-point lead for the Democrat.

Composite: Salazar 49, Coors 45

Overall, I don't think there's enough in all of these polls for Coors to lean on to justify any particular campaign strategy or tactic. What he needs to do still seems clear. All the following points have been made before among our members of the Rocky Mountain Alliance, but it can't hurt to repeat them. The Coors campaign needs to:

1. Connect Salazar with trial lawyers and the need for tort reform, making the case even stronger.
2. Highlight Salazar's varying positions on Iraq, much as Schaffer did back during the primary season. While the Attorney General hasn't been as slippery as the man carrying his party's presidential banner, he has been far from rock-solid on Iraq.
3. Make a stronger case for the difference between the two men and the two parties on values issues. Salazar is trying to parade around as a centrist. Coors needs to make the case that as a member of the Democrat party he'd be beholden to the special interests of the abortion absolutists and the anti-marriage zealots.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

Coors and the Hispanic Vote

One of the realistic assertions from the Rocky's poll was that Coors is getting crushed among Hispanic voters, 68-23. Coors has, in fact, constantly been behind the curve with this demographic:

• Coors has no Spanish-language version of his website


• He has allowed Salazar to define the election in terms of health care and education, two issues key to Hispanic voters


• He hasn't confronted Salazar on judges; a key victim of Democratic filibusters was Manuel Estrada


• Neither Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera nor 1st House District nominee Roland Chicas has been featured in the campaign

Even the war could be used effectively. While Hispanics tend to be more skeptical of the war, it doesn't seem to be a defining issue for them. (I backed out the numbers from a recent Gallup survey, comparing Black and Non-hispanic White attitudes on the war; Hispanics seem about evenly split on the war.)

Nobody expects Coors to win the Hispanic vote, but he needs to make better use of what assets he does have if he expects to win the state.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Saturday's Debate

As pointed out below, Coors got hit hard on the drinking-age question, in light of the deaths of a CU student and a CSU student from alcohol in recent days. He basically took the line that he stood by the claim, but that it wasn't a centerpiece of his campaign, which was certainly true.

Coors should simply have responded that these deaths happened when student returned to school from a non-drinking environment over the summer, and that they happened even though the drinking age is 21. Clearly this experiment has done just about nothing to keep alcohol out of the hands of students 18-21.

On the judges issue, I have to agree that abortion and Roe can't be the only issue that a senator votes on. But Coors has to make it clear that it cuts both ways. The Senate Democrats have been essentially litmus-testing judges on this for decades.

Coors can seize the high ground here by saying, "look, I'm against Roe and I think it was a bad decision. But judges have been meddling in all sorts of things recently that are properly decided by elected legislators. I won't vote based solely on Roe; there's a lot more at stake here, like the conduct of the war, for instance. And I certainly won't abuse the power of the filibuster the way that my soon-to-be colleagues across the aisle have gotten used to doing in the last few years."

More Senate Polling

With this new Rasmussen poll showing Coors ahead, 49-48, it begins to appear as though the Rocky poll showing Salazar up by 11 points was an outlier. Coors had released a Tarrance poll showing him down by 2, following a Tarrance survey showing him down by 4. Salazar's internal poll had him up by 5, so it's possible that the Rasmussem poll, too, is a little over-optimistic.

Still, the poll was conducted on one day, September 16, after the first debate but before the Saturday appearances and debate, and would confirm a trends in Coors's direction, or at least a tightening of the race. (The distinction is important. The state-by-state Rasmussen presidential polls are compilations over a month of data from that state, collected during the national presidential survey.) Interestingly, the Rocky poll claims a +/- of 4.33%, while Rasmussen claims 3% accuracy.

Only the Salazar poll released its party registration numbers, which seemed to accurately reflect the state's balance. I've emailed the Rocky's reporter, Lynn Bartels, and asked her where I might be able to get those internals.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

David Harsanyi

In a most telling piece, David Harsanyi, of the Denver Post, exposes the fact that Ken Salazar's populist notions are not really populist at all; but, only standard Democrat boilerplate.

At the conclusion of the article, David asks one very searching question,"Salazar is right on when he points to the out-of-control spending in Washington. But what programs would he cut? Well, that's still a mystery."

My guess is that Ken Salazar would reduce the size of government in the same fashion as ex-President Clinton...gut the military and drastically reduce spending on national defense matters. Not a good idea in light of our current war on Islamofascism.

Cross-posted at Damascus Road

Questions

Mr. Salazar...just a couple of quick questions for you today...

Would you have supported the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the Federal bench? Or, would you, in the finest tradition of Democrat obstructionism,have voted with Tom Daschle, and prevented this fine jurist from realizing his potential?

How do you feel about our Constitution? Would you support the nomination of judges that are strict constructionists? Or do you, as so many other Democrats, believe that our Constitution is a living, breathing document that should be interpreted according to the whims of the day?

Should judges only interpret laws that are passed by Congress? Or, should they, as their own personal agendas allow, legislate from the bench?

Mr. Salazar, these are questions that I and many other Coloradans would like answered before we cast our ballots on November 2nd. What say you?

Cross-posted at Damascus Road

More Thoughts On The Debate and The Campaign

Sunday's Denver Post coverage of the Salazar/Coors debate was a bit short, for my taste. It really did not give a very full picture of an hour-long event.

But the coverage did contain this important section:

For the first time in a public debate, Coors and Salazar were asked about abortion. Salazar said he does not personally support abortion, but he would uphold the law under Roe vs. Wade.

"I believe the decision about an abortion should be made between a woman and her God," Salazar said.

Coors, who opposes abortion with "no exceptions," said he too would not try to overturn Roe if elected to the Senate. He also said he would not use abortion as a make-or-break issue when voting in judicial confirmation hearings.

"People ask me if this would be a litmus test for me as to who I would approve as a federal judge," he said. "I don't think there should be one single, specific litmus test."

You should also be seeing a new mailing from the Coors campaign in the next couple of days. It's slick, it's impressive, it's full color, and it hits all the same notes as the campaign up to this point.

And it says not a word about the judiciary. This, combined with what I gather was a gentle approach to this issue in the debate, is a great disappointment to me. It seems that this is an issue that Coors can run on hard and win with--Salazar, regardless of his personal views, would vote with the Dems to block judicial appointments, then will vote to confirm judges who would enable partial birth abortions, and who would assert a "right" to gay marriage.

The cultural issues underlying this election are all centered in the judiciary, and oversight of the judiciary is one of the unique characteristics of the Senate. This is where the battle should be fought--and won. If we've learned nothing from Missouri and Louisiana, it's that support for these issues is stronger than we tend to think, or tend to be willing to articulate.

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Of Debates And Other Stories

The debate last night, sponsored by the league of women voters, was overshadowed in part by the second death in a couple of weeks at a state university due to binge drinking. Coors' stance on the drinking age issue has been well documented, but perhaps mis-represented. He has always maintained that it is a state's rights issue, and has objected to the blackmailing of the states over federal highway funds. Most, if not all of the coverage has been portrayed in the light that he favors reducing the drinking age back to 18. Given that perception, it's easy to see why Coors was on the defensive.

As the Denver Post reports it:

Coors, a Republican who has said the country should possibly lower the drinking age, appeared to soften his position when asked about it in a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

"It is not my agenda and it's not my desire, and in fact, this is a Colorado and state's rights issue," he said to a crowd of about 200 at Park Hill Golf Club in Denver.
Coors opposes the federal government dictating the drinking age to the states.

Salazar, a Democrat who said the drinking age should remain at 21, pounced on Coors, contending that he had "changed his position." He also said there were "significant questions" whether the beer commercials aired by Coors Brewing Co. are targeting underage drinkers.

You know, it really bothers me how no one can discern the seperation that exists between the brewery and the man. The difference does exist, despite attempts to breakdown the barrier. It's unseemly, but that's politics. On other issues, the candidates fell pretty much along party lines. Salazar is pro abortion and pro gun control, stating that he would vote to reinstate the recently expired assault weapons ban, even though he claims to be an advocate of the 2nd Amendment.

Coors is against any form of abortion without exception and stated that he would not vote in favor of the assault weapons ban as there was no proof that the ban had any effect on crime prevention. The diferences extended to the Patriot Act, where predictably, the liberal Salazar has issues with civil liberites:

Both candidates also diverged on the issue of the Patriot Act, enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to give the government more power in cracking down on terrorists. Key provisions expire in 2005.

Coors said he would reauthorize the act to protect the country from terrorism. Salazar said he supports the act, but also amendments that would protect privacy rights. Critics of the act have maintained that as written, it tramples on civil liberties.

I find it curious that the only debate the Rocky finds worth mentioning is this one between Beauprez and Thomas on Friday in the 7th District.

In other news, there was a recently published poll that shows Coors trailing by 11 points. Salazar must be feeling comfortable about it, but as we were witness to during the Primary, polls don't mean a whole lot.

Coors' campaign, obviously, takes issue with the results and states it doesn't reflect their internal polling numbers:

The Coors poll, conducted this week, shows the candidates in a statistical tie with Salazar at 46 percent and Coors at 44 percent, said GOP campaign manager Sean Tonner.
In addition, Tonner said Coors wins on the issues, from homeland security to taxes and reducing wasteful government spending.

"We know this is a tight election, but we feel Pete is better poised to win," Tonner said.

One of the key issues is voter turnout and the Republican advantage in voter registration, which the Salazar campaign is aware of:

Salazar's campaign manager, Jim Carpenter, agreed the election will be tight, as voter registration heavily favors Republicans.

"It's a steep hill for any Democrat to climb in Colorado because of Republican voter registration numbers, but Ken's had a lot of support from Republicans and independents over the years," Carpenter said. "People have a good sense of him, despite smear ads from Coors' allies."

Republicans hold a 181,000-registration advantage over Democrats, but unaffiliated voters - the second-largest voting block in the state, behind the GOP - help call the shots.

All in all, it's going to be an interesting election.

Cross posted at MangledCat