There was a fairly heated argument recently saying Bennet never said he would support Romanoff if Romanoff won the primary. I said he did say it -- I've heard him.
Here is a quote (I promised I would find one for Peter).
Colorado Statesman: "Is it safe to assume that, if Andrew Romanoff wins the primary, that you will support him?"
Bottom line, we see Bennet as an excellent senator for the next six years and beyond. But we see Romanoff as potentially one of the premier senators and statesmen of this generation.
They give credit to both men for their strengths and while the headline suggest the endorsement was simply about having "earned" the opportunity (as a number of Bennet supporters have argued is not sufficient reason), they actually gave a very thoughtful analysis of both candidates and their reasons for endorsing Romanoff:
In light of the latest round of polling showing that Andrew Romanoff continues to be the better General Election candidate vs. Republicans, I have a question.
What happens to Senator Bennet's war chest should he lose the Primary race to Andrew Romanoff?
Does Senator Bennet get to keep the money for another race or does it go into escrow or does it have to be returned to the donors?
What's more important, would Senator Bennet donate any of his funding to the Romanoff Senate Campaign?
Would Andrew Romanoff accept that money if it came from PAC's?
Or would it no longer be PAC money once Bennet is no longer a candidate?
Kelly Maher at WhoSaidYouSaid attacks Romanoff first by connecting his Russian-sounding last name to to the word "czar" and then goes on to write about how it's governments fault that businesses spend so much money to influence representatives in our democracy.
So first, I want to make sure you get Kelly's thought processes, Romanoff is Russian-sounding and Russians are like, communists n stuff so czars are like Romanoff who MUST be a commie, er something, like, whoa.
But that's not even the really stupid part: she quotes one of Romanoff's speeches (copied below) and then check out her response in bold.
Today a new poll came out that showed that Romanoff is the stronger Democratic candidate against either Norton or Buck. Against either candidate, Bennet loses handily.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Colorado finds Buck earning 48% support against incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennett who gets 39% of the vote.
If former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff is his Democratic opponent, Buck leads by a narrower 47% to 42% margin.
A month ago, Buck posted a 46% to 41% lead over Bennet and a 45% to 39% lead over Romanoff.
Yesterday I wrote a diary about an email that surfaced from the Bennet campaign about how people who wanted the Senator's ear could contribute specific sums of money to have more time with him.
It attracted attention on state and national blogs, but the story also got quite a bit of traffic around the state and the country.
(Not exactly illegal but a great way to ensure moneyed interests get in. - promoted by Fong)
The Bennet campaign has scapegoated a 22 year old intern in a serious pay-to-play scandal.
"With a donation of $2,400 or more," Garofano allegedly wrote, activists pressing for the fuel-standards bill "can schedule a one-on-one hour long meeting with the Senator." Hosting "an event for $5,000 or more," the email said, would offer "a better chance to lobby Michael."
So I saw Senator Bennet's newest ad today and was struck by what it might have similarities to. Surely it didn't seem like the Senator Bennet who was raised in D.C., worked as a corporate raider, and has been given everything in life. No, it resembled something else entirely.
First, if you haven't seen it, here is Senator Bennet's newest ad:
I know the endorsement has already been talked about here but it looks like Clinton's help wasn't limited to what was being reported as just a letter to Romanoff's own list. Two friends of mine who were Hillary supporters have told me they got an email from Clinton today asking them to give money to Romanoff. They're both out of state (Florida & Pennsylvania) so it looks like the letter went out to Hillary's whole national list. Looks like Clinton is betting bigger on Romanoff than a lot of people were saying.
I don't know if this is the same letter that went out last week but here is what was forwarded to me. It came from an @hillaryclinton.com email address and the subject line makes a pretty bold statement coming from President Clinton!
The 2010 Colorado Democratic Senate Primary signifies two different directions in Education in our Country - between a business person's view of education vs an educator's view of education.
Our choices include Michael Bennet and challenger Andrew Romanoff.
Michael Bennet is the incumbent appointed Senator who was also appointed to be Superintendent of Denver Public Schools. Bennet was appointed to Superintendent because of his financial experience in business as a corporate manager for billionaire Phillip Anschutz. Andrew Romanoff is the former Speaker of the House. He also worked as an educator in the State of Colorado as well as teaching in rural schools in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Speaker Romanoff's website mentions that he formed a coalition to pass the Building Excellent Schools Today or BEST Act, which provided the largest investment in Schools in Colorado history, while Michael Bennet states he gave Denver teachers the largest pay raise in Colorado history.
Let's have a closer look at each candidate's claims and philosophy on education.
(Desperate times call for desperate measure...ments... - promoted by Fong)
A few days ago everyone was talking about a new poll that showed Buck and Bennet winning their respective primaries (along with polling showing that both Maes and McInnis had a slight lead over Hickenlooper)
Apparently the Norton campaign wasn't too thrilled with the attention it was getting, so they decided to release a poll of their own.
"Too often these days we're waking up to newspaper headlines that prove what all of us already know: the old ways just aren't working.
In the past few weeks we've seen profound examples of this, with lax regulations and long-standing corporate loopholes leading to catastrophic financial and environmental disasters.
This is completely unacceptable. I know we can do better."
Yesterday Senator Bernie Sanders offered an amendment to close one of those 'long standing corporate loopholes' - Huge Tax Credits to Big Oil companies.
But Senator Bennet, the same one sending out fundraiser appeals on closing corporate loopholes, decided to vote with the Republicans to keep that loophole open.
Andrew Romanoff talks about the ongoing crisis in the Gulf, as well as yesterday's failed amendment to close tax loopholes which continue to be exploited by Big Oil, at Huffington Post.
One of the worst disasters in American history has left our nation heartbroken and angry. In the U.S. Senate, however, it's business as usual.
It's been nearly two months since an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon sent millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. And its been almost a year since the House of Representatives passed a bill to move the United States in a different direction: to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel and accelerate our transition to renewable energy.
In the meantime, the Senate has done ... nothing of the kind. Legislation that would curb greenhouse gas emissions has languished for months. The upper chamber seems determined to earn its reputation as the place where good ideas go to die.
The Senate did find time yesterday to preserve a set of tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. Special loopholes enable companies like ExxonMobil to avoid paying income taxes altogether. Last year, in fact, when ExxonMobil recorded the highest profits of any corporation in history, the company actually received a tax refund.
There is one disturbing diary up now about Saudi Arabia and here is one more.
It turns out that Saudi Arabia has convinced Qatar and Kuwait to join together to block a U.N. Climate Change study, in an apparent effort to protect their Oil Based Economy.
While there has been an orchestrated effort by Fossil Fuel lobbyists to weaken international Climate Change legislation, this is the first time a state Government has openly blocked reforms.
The immediate losers are the people who are members of A.O.S.I.S. - the Alliance of Small Island States - and what they have to lose by this action.
crossposted at Huffington Post, Square State, and PRAER.org
Andrew Romanoff, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Colorado made the following remarks at an event this morning at GeoSynFuels, a Golden, CO based bio-fuels company.
Half a century ago, the technological success of a foreign government shocked Americans into action. Today, the technological failure of a foreign corporation can produce the same effect.
In 1957, the Soviet Union sent a satellite into orbit around the Earth. In 2010, British Petroleum sent an oil slick through the waters of the Gulf.
This spill should be our Sputnik. We need what Congressman Jay Inslee and others have called a new Apollo program for energy independence. As Tom Friedman has written, this is our generation's "moon shot."
This past week, the headlines reported that the White House tried to limit the Colorado Primary via a list of possible administration positions to Senate Primary candidate Andrew Romanoff. This type of insider politics does not rise to the level of a violation of the law, but it does show a continued pattern of questionable use of the White House's and President's reputation to influence and interfere in Senate primaries - the other being a similar offer to Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania.
Now, information has surfaced about the timeline of that interference that raises some interesting questions about whether there was any coordination between Senator Bennet and the White House.
These new facts seem to indicate that Bennet was also part of the 'Pay to Play' mentality that is part of the Rahm Emanuel or Jim Messina playbook. We need to make sure these kind of deals are stopped so that they don't harm Obama's reputation or the Democratic party. We also need to find out what, if any, was Senator Bennet's involvement.
Consider these facts:
As we all now know, a second alleged job 'dangle' was made by the White House to a potential Senate Primary candidate - this time it was Andrew Romanoff to prevent his primary challenge to Appointed Senator Michael Bennet.
Republicans like Darrel Issa (who it now seems is less than honest about his military record) are trying to gin up an attack on the President over this non job offer. Is there something there? I doubt it. But the fact that the White House has been meddling in primaries by the clearing the field for Kirsten Gillibrand and by endorsing Conservative Dems like Arlen Specter, Blance Lincoln, and now Michael Bennet for Senate races is both historically unwise and potentially dangerous to Obama.
If you are like me, you can see that there is a distinct difference between the Obama organization on the campaign, and the Obama White House.
I smell a rat, and he is Rahm Emmanuel. If Obama is as smart as I know he is, he will learn from FDR's mistake and change course in regard to Rahm.
U.S. Senate Candidate Andrew Romanoff released the following statement on the re-election of Omar al-Bashir as President of Sudan.
Amid boycotts, allegations of fraud, deadly violence, and a civil war, Omar al-Bashir was sworn in for another five-year term as the President of Sudan yesterday.
Throughout al-Bashir's presidency, hundreds of thousands were killed and millions displaced from Darfur, and the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the President alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The U.N. estimates the humanitarian crisis in Darfur is the worst in the world today.
(Statement from one Latina Denver's School Board Member. - promoted by Fong)
As a child, I sat by my father's knee, as the stories of workers' struggles for workplace fairness and civil rights marches washed over me. It is so important for our young people to understand their rights and fight for justice, and so it was with great pride (and a little matronly concern) that I watched the news about the recent Denver Public Schools student marches and walkouts in the aftermath of the passage of Arizona's SB 1070.
One reason I ran for the Denver Board of Education was to ensure that our Latino youth can not only recite the U.S. Constitution, but also understand it on a deep, intrinsic level. I want for them to embrace it as I do, to wield it as the sword of justice to defend the rights of all, not just Latinos.
Our responsibility as adults, therefore, is to ensure that our youth are armed with truth. So it was with great dismay that I read in a recent issue of Denver's bilingual newspaper, El Semanario, that, "Youth called out legislators who have worked to enact laws...which are discriminatory by nature, including Andrew Romanoff who had voted against in-state tuition for children of undocumented immigrants."
