Free Republic

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will campaign for Jane Norton in Grand Junction on Sunday as her race for the U.S. Senate nears the finish line. Norton, a Grand Junction native, was the state chairwoman for McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. McCain last visited Grand Junction on Election Day 2008, speaking at Grand Junction Regional Airport. This time, he’ll campaign for Norton at 2:30 p.m. on the Mesa State College campus. McCain’s heft with Mesa County voters is significant, Norton campaign spokeswoman Cinamon Watson said, noting that he was the highest Republican vote getter in Mesa County in the past three presidential...

DENVER (AP) ― Colorado Secretary of State Bernie Buescher is asking the federal government for a waiver of the requirement to mail ballots to military service members overseas 45 days before the November election, a move that means some ballots might not be counted. Spokesman Rich Coolidge said the ballots will still be mailed, but some soldiers in remote battlefields might not have enough time to mail them back, even though the state will give them an extra seven days after the election. He said they can also send them by e-mail or fax. Coolidge blamed late primaries and petition...

In the races for both governor and senator, the GOP is doing its best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. If Colorado is a bellwether of national political fortunes, as many believe, then Republicans will be . . . well, they’ll be screwed. Unless some unlikely and unforeseen things happen, any chance of the GOP’s retaking the governor’s mansion in November was eradicated last Monday when erstwhile Republican Tom Tancredo announced that he would jump into the race on the Constitution party’s ticket. That party’s platform includes, among other, um, robust right-of-center positions, retaking the Panama Canal. Tancredo...

Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck has once again talked himself into some trouble - this time by calling certain tea-party activists "dumbasses" for questioning the legitimacy of President Obama's birth certificate. According to the Denver Post, Buck was caught on tape saying in June, "Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I'm on camera." He added, laughing: "God, what am I supposed to do?" Buck was speaking to a Democratic operative who had secretly recorded the conversation. Buck, who enjoys strong support from the Tea Party movement, has since...

Damned if you do, damned if you don't . . . Imagine if a Republican candidate had been caught on tape praising birthers. Chris Matthews would have been all over him. So what happens when a Republican candidate is caught on tape criticizing birthers? Why, Chris Matthews is . . . all over him, of course. Bizarrely, the Hardball host actually labelled the matter "Macaca 2.0," invoking the incident that--with the help of scores of stories in the Washington Post--brought down George Allen. The candidate in question is Ken Buck, who Matthews described as the front-runner for the GOP nomination...

Support for GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis is eroding among Republicans but he remains a viable candidate even after a plagiarism scandal, according to a new Denver Post poll. Twenty percent of registered Republican voters who supported McInnis prior to this week's allegations that he plagiarized previously published material said they will now back another candidate. Another 39 percent of those who originally supported McInnis said they will continue to stand behind him. However, when given a list of other Republicans who could be the party's nominee, 64 percent of GOP voters picked another candidate over McInnis. When asked who...

Former Rep. Scott McInnis may be losing his front-runner status in the race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Colorado. A poll conducted by SurveyUSA for the Denver Post found that the McInnis plagiarism scandal appears to be hurting him. Asked who — among a list of prominent politicians — would make the party’s strongest candidate for governor, just 19% of registered Republicans picked McInnis. His opponent in the Aug. 10 primary, Dan Maes, had the backing of 13%. Last month, a Denver Post /9 News Poll found McInnis crushing Maes, 57% -29%, among likely primary voters. The latest poll...

Administration officials dangled the possibility of a job for former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff last year in hopes he would forgo a challenge to Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, administration officials said Wednesday, just days after the White House admitted orchestrating a similar job offer in the Pennsylvania Senate race. These officials declined to specify the job that was floated or the name of the administration official who approached Romanoff, and said no formal offer was ever made. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not cleared to discuss private conversations.

Alternate headline: “Sestak story just getting started.” The news here isn’t that Andrew Romanoff was offered a job to help clear the way for Michael Bennet in the Senate primary; the Denver Post reported that allllll the way back in September of last year, citing multiple sources in the state Democratic leadership. The news is that the White House denied it at the time and that unnamed “administration officials” are formally un-denying it now. From last September: Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop, suggested a place for...

Republican Tom Wiens has dropped out of the U.S. Senate race in Colorado and endorsed Ken Buck. “I've campaigned with all the candidates over the last many months, and it's clear that Ken Buck is prepared to do a great job as U.S. senator,” Wiens said in a prepared release today. “These are serious times, and we must send serious, capable people to reclaim our children's future from Washington. Ken Buck has the ability to grasp and act upon the challenges facing Colorado and our country. This is not a time to send anyone to Washington who is not fully...

All three top GOP Senate candidates continue to lead the two Democrats in the field, but it's the insurgent, Ken Buck, who has taken the biggest leap forward in this month's Rasmussen Reports poll. In his strongest showing to date, Buck has a 48-41 percent lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, and he leads former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff by a 45-40 percent margin, according to the new poll released Wednesday. Buck's lead over Bennet is identical to former Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton's, who also has a seven-point, 48-41 lead over Bennet, and a 46-41 percent lead over Romanoff....

Former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton (R) had a difficult week. The Colorado Senate candidate announced Tuesday she was going to petition her way onto the August primary ballot, which prompted a swift rebuke from the Colorado GOP chairman. Now, she won't be allowed to speak or even have campaign signs at her party's state assembly May 22.

 On Wednesday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) endorsed Norton's chief primary opponent, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck (R). "Based on the support Ken is getting around the state, I think he's in a very good position to get the votes he needs at...

Organizers have released the final speaker list for the 2010 Denver Tax Tea Party on April 15. The rally officially begins at 10 am at the Colorado State Capitol, situated at Colfax and Lincoln. However, for those who get there early, Lu Busse, Chair of the 9.12 Project in Colorado, will be leading the crowd in song parodies. The event will be emceed by Rob McNealy, a small business owner and community activist, and Keith Peterson of Hear Us Now, the group hosting the event.

In my home state of Colorado we have a little thing called the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR. TABOR is a ballot measure that was passed in 1992 by the citizens of Colorado to limit the State from imposing new or higher taxes on Coloradoans without the consent of the citizens via referendum (taxes can escalate based upon population growth and inflation). Herb Fenster, an attorney in Boulder, Colorado, is now suing the citizens of Colorado over TABOR claiming that it violates Article IV, section 4 of the U.S. Constitution which requires the Feds to ensure the States provide...

State Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry on Saturday cast fellow Republican Jane Norton as the antidote to overspending in Washington, D.C. and endorsed her in the GOP’s four-way primary for U.S. Senate. His pick passes over former state Senate colleague Tom Wiens, who served two years with Penry in the state’s upper chamber. Retired businessman Cleve Tidwell and Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck are also vying for a chance to challenge incumbent Democrat Sen. Micheal Bennet in November. “Looking back over the course of the last decade, both Democrats and Republicans in Washington lost their fiscal compass. But thankfully,...

Saturday, January 23, 2010Legislation aims to rid American-Indian image from sports Mascot under new wave of scrutiny By Nate Miller nmiller@greeleytribune.comDepictions of American Indians in school mascots like the one for the Reds at Eaton High School could become a thing of the past if an Aurora lawmaker has her way. Sen. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, introduced Senate Bill 107 at the start of this legislative session that would bar public and charter high schools in Colorado from using American Indian-themed mascots unless they received permission from the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs. The bill, which was assigned to the Health...

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s war chest in his bid to be governor has zero dollars. Meanwhile, the leading Republican candidate to be the Grand Old Party’s nominee topped $1 million, Scott McInnis’ campaign announced Friday. At the same time, Gov. Bill Ritter’s campaign contributions for the fourth quarter of 2009 swelled his coffers to more than $2.5 million. Unfortunately for Hickenlooper, though, state law bars the Democratic governor who dropped his re-election bid earlier this month from giving that money to his fellow party member. But that’s all right, Hickenlooper said in a telephone interview... “I’ve got a steep hill...

DENVER - After taking six days to decide, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is expected to announce Tuesday afternoon that he will be a Democratic candidate for governor. Sources tell FOX 31 News that Hickenlooper is still making phone calls informing top Democrats of his decision and firming up plans for a press conference that will likely take place around 4:15 p.m. on the Capitol's west steps or possibly nearby.

There are appalling new developments in the cop-killer case in Denver. As reported by the Rocky Mountain News, Det. Donald Young’s suspected killer, 19-year-old illegal alien Raul Garcia-Gomez, was employed at a restaurant co-owned by the city’s mayor, John Hickenlooper. Garcia-Gomez worked for the Cherry Cricket for 10 months despite a federal notification sent to the business last month that his papers were bogus... Just killing the cops no one else will kill... Denver Post reports that Garcia-Gomez worked a shift at the Cherry Cricket after ambushing the police… the Rocky Mountain News reports that Mayor Hickenlooper’s restaurants employed about...

Mayor John Hickenlooper announced his gubernatorial bid this afternoon, saying "I love Colorado every bit as much as I love Denver." Hickenlooper said his agenda is going to be about jobs... The packed news conference on the west side of the state Capitol attracted top Democratic leaders and Denver movers and shakers. Hickenlooper talked about being mayor and the measures he has helped push. "We went to the voters every single time so we could decide what kind of city they could live in," he said. Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter, whose unexpected decision to drop his re-election bid set off...