Saturday Senate Update

Three items today:

1. The Denver Post and Mason-Dixon Polling released their most recent poll today, showing Salazar holding a slim 46-44 advantage over Pete Coors, with 9% undecided. Two thoughts--for a person with all the normal advantages of incumbency (having won statewide election twice) being statistically even and well below the 50% mark at this point has to be disconcerting for the Salazar camp; and, while I admit up front that I haven't seen the internals and my MATH MAY BE FLAWED (perhaps somebody out there better with matrices can help me out here), it seems that this poll rather substantially oversampled the unaffiliated vote--perhaps as high as 40% of the sample. Again, HELP ME WITH THE MATH to see if I have this analysis correct.

2. The two candidates held a major televised debate today in preparation for a nationally televised debate on "Meet the Press" tomorrow. Video of the debate can be seen here. I haven't had the chance to watch the whole thing, so I will withhold comment until after I do and after tomorrow's debate.

3. The Rocky Mountain News today endorsed Ken Salazar. Generally considered the less liberal of the two Denver major dailies, this is certainly not great news for the Coors camp. However, if you read the endorsement, it hardly comes across as a ringing endorsement. It congratulates Salazar for 18 years of good service and pragmatism, while saying he's also wrong on many issues.

Cross-posted at Best Destiny

No On 36

Yesterday I finally heard a radio ad by Coloradans Against a Really Stupid Idea. Nicely done, as well.

The "dead" site I went to the other day is now up and running, and offers plenty of reasons not to vote for Amendment 36. Pete Lepetsos sent me an email to alert me that the site is up and chock-full of good info about the ridiculous amendment. Check out No36.org.

Cross-posted on exvigilare.

UPDATE: the above link text was changed from NoOn36.org to No36.org. Good catch, Pete.

Pete Coors - Soft on Terrorism?

If you listen to/watch the latest Ken Salazar ad, you'd sure get that impression.

Featuring a shot of Osama bin Laden and foreboding music, the commercial's voice-over asks us if we "think that Osama bin Laden should receive the death penalty for causing the deaths of over 3,000 innocent Americans on Spetember 11th", or some such. It then continues along these lines: "Pete Coors doesn't. He's against the death penalty for terrorists..."

Coupla problems here:

1. Pete Coors is against the death penalty, period. He is a practicing Catholic, and, apparently unlike Ken Salazar, believes that the church's ordinances should be followed by those who claim to be adherents. He is similarly opposed to abortion, for much the same reason.

Now, I'm not a Catholic (I'm a protestant - specifically, an Evangelical Christian), and I support the use of the death penalty in the most heinous of crimes, but I'd not include terrorism in that number. "What?!!" shouts a stunned readership...

Nope. Terrorism is not, to my mind, a matter for the judicial system. It is an act of war, and all of its captured "soldiers" should be dealt with in military tribunals - not courts of law. Terrorism is not a law enforcement issue, and therefore, the application of punitive legal measures to the practice makes absolutely zero sense to me.

2. The ad might be more accurately written this way: Ken Salazar wants to bring terrorists to our shores, tie up millions of tax dollars in trials and appeals, and by doing so, subject our nation's citizens to unecessary security risks. Pete Coors wants terrorists killed. By our soldiers. Overseas.

So long as Ken Salazar continues to take the Kerry tack - that terrorism is chiefly a law enforcement matter - he shows that he remains unserious about the war in which we find ourselves, and about the tangible risks that Islamic terrorism poses to our entire way of life.

The ad is utterly disingenuous, and should serve as a starting point for Coors' criticisms of Salazar's weakness on the matter.

(Cross-posted at Exultate Justi)

Coors is in trouble, and 36 will pass...

if my recent searches are any indication at all. Yesterday morning I looked up the Coors for Senate website, went to the Arapahoe county contacts page and called one of the numbers I found there. I called in order of offer any assistance and to get yard signs/bumperstickers. I identified myself by (full) name. The gentleman that I spoke with was very friendly but seemed a bit bewildered, as though he hadn't gotten calls of this nature before. That may be true but it is unsettling. He told me that he didn't have any yard signs and that I would have to go to the county headquarters to get them. Fine, where is it? He gave directions (of a vague nature, anyway).

I drove to where the gentleman sent me and could not find it. I drove in circles, canvassing the area in search of anything that looked like a campaign headquarters. Nothing. No Coors for Senate signs, no red, white and blue banners. Not a damn thing.
Now tell me this - if someone goes to the trouble to contact one of the campaign volunteers, get "directions" and drive to the campaign headquarters, shouldn't they be able to find the campaign headquarters? Throw me a bone! What does a casual observer go through?

So this morning I went to the GOP headquarters. I took both of the little ones, walked through the rain and found the office with no problem at all. The ladies were all taken with the girls (if you've seen them you know why) and offered me extra bumperstickers. They were down to their last two Bush-Cheney yard signs but offered both. I took one Bush-Cheney yard sign, one Coors yard sign (despite my feelings from yesterday) and four bumperstickers.While there I was also offered tickets to next week's Bush appearance. Very nice, very nice. So what better place to ask for signs for Amendment 36? I was advised that they don't have any signs related to 36, but if I just look up "no on 36" I would easily find the website and could get signs delivered right to my door. What service!

So I went home to Google No on 36. Uh, no. Not even the right state. Well, no big deal, probably just simple confusion. Surely the Colorado Republican site would have some kind of information related to such a significant amendment, wouldn't it? Uh, no. Well, I know TyroBlog is following closely (check out 86 Amendment 36), he's bound to know - he even had a letter published this week in the Denver Post. The link sends me here, a dead site. Well, I know that "Coloradans Against a Really Stupid Idea" is one of the groups that is leading the harge against the idiot movement. Google it, nothing.

Now, I could be overreacting or just pissed that I wasted all of that time. But if I'm looking for these things and can't find them what is an "average" voter supposed to do? If Salazar and the Pro-36 groups put enough money into simple informational advertising I think they both win. Ouch, does that hurt to say.

(cross posted on exvigilare).

Salazar Even AWOL on Actual Vote Fraud

As View From a Height readers know, I spent yesterday at the court hearing for Common Cause v. Davidson at the Denver District Court. (The hearing continues today, but barring something radical, I think the salient points have been made, and the judge's standard for upholding the rules largely met.)

Ken Salazar's office, though, was noticeable by its absence. After suing the Secretary of State over redistricting last year, Salazar couldn't even be bothered to file an amicus brief in support of her proposed voting rules.

He also turned to be AWOL on a case of proven vote fraud, something Common Cause and Susan Rogers claimed doesn't exist in Colorado. There was, in fact, a high-profile case of signature fraud earlier this year, which resulted in turning over 110 fraudulent registrations to the AG's office for further investigation. Ms. Rogers stated that she had not heard back from the AG's office, and that the case had apparently resulted in no prosecutions.

Now, I know these things can be complex. But not that complex. Someone was purposely submitting false voter registrations, and figuring out who to charge can't be that hard.

Either Ken Salazar's offce isn't taking clear voter fraud seiously, or he's trying to dodge it through the election.

Coors Takes Foreign Policy Initiative

The latest round of ad wars clearly has Ken Salazar on the defensive. For the last couple of nights, I've been seeing Pete Coors ads on foreign policy doing their best to 1) tie Salazar to Kerry on foreign policy and the war (someone evidently thinks maybe Kerry shoulda stood in bed last Thursday), and 2) make it clear just what that means. Coors points out, among other things, Kerry's votes on the $87 billion, and his opposition to missile defense. He shows side-by-side pix of Ken and Kerry, and then shows himself supporting missile defense and defending, obliquely, the Patriot Act.

So tonight, I see the Salazar response, and it's, well, Kerry-esque. He claims that Coors opposes the death penatly for terrorists. He quotes Coors as saying something about "not being experienced enough to answer" some question, which just reeks of an out-of-context quote. Then Salazar talks about first responders, responding to an attack, mind you, not preventing one. He comes out in favor of the death penalty for "terrorists and cop-killers," mixing war and police work, as though the petty drug thief down the street is the same thing as a murderous cult bent on destroying civilization. And he mutters something about "supporting the troops."

In short, Salazar comes out with an attack anyone can see through, and tries to bolster his own case by comparing war with armed robbery. Looks to me like the trap door is opening, and Salazar is standing there, Wile E. Coyote-like, pedaling furiously in mid-air.

I've been one of the Eeyores around here, so it's good to be able to push some good news over the wires.

Ken Salazar AWOL on Vote Fraud

As the Colorado Secretary of State prepares to defend her voting identification requirements in court on Tuesday, Governor Bill Owens and State Representative Rob Fairbank have filed amicus briefs on her behalf.

Activists, in turn, questioned why Owens felt the need to weigh in on the case, given that Colorado's executive branch already is represented in court by Davidson and her lawyer.

Perhaps because the last time the executive branch was defended by Davidson and her lawyer, it was against a lawsuit filed by the Attorney General, who also in theory represents the executive branch. Ken Salazar is either too busy or uninterested in defending the executive branch in this case, so it falls to the Governor to do so.

Salazar clearly has a dog in this fight, and by failing to show up, he's clearly neglecting his duty as Attorney General. He should recuse himself personally from the matter, and instruct his subordinates to help defend the Secretary of State and the executive's prerogatives.