Colorado Senate: Udall (D) 47% Schaffer (R) 41%

Rasmussen Reports ^ | May 21, 2008

[Clintonfatigued]

Virtually all recent polling data for Senate races has carried a consistent theme—more bad news for the Republican Party. That’s the case in Colorado as well as Democrat Mark Udall has opened a six-point lead over Republican Bob Schaffer.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows Udall attracting 47% of the vote while Schaffer earns 41%. For Udall, that’s an improvement from a three-point lead a month ago and two months ago. It’s also the first time either candidate has enjoyed a significant lead in the race. In February, Schaffer had a statistically insignificant one point lead.

Udall and Schaffer are competing for the right to replace Republican Senator Wayne Allard.

Udall has gained ground among unaffiliated voters over the past month and now leads by twelve among them. A month ago, the candidates were even among those not affiliated with either major party. Partisan preferences have changed little during that time frame--Udall still attracts 84% of Democrats while Schaffer is supported by 78% of Republicans.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’d challenge you to find vast numbers that ran on unapologetic leftist platforms. They didn’t. They took advantage of an anti-GOP atmosphere and in some cases got to the right of the incumbents, many of whom got caught with their britches down. The Burns race, as I cited, had zero to do with ideology. The media and the rodents portrayed him as simply corrupt or involved with shady figures. He was innocent, but that wasn’t conveniently revealed until AFTER the election of a rodent. The rodents play very, very dirty.

We had the potential to knock off MT’s Max Baucus in a previous contest with a decent and personable state legislator who was renowned for doing a good impersonation of Teddy Roosevelt. Of course, the rodents turned it against the Republican, ran some ads of him from the ‘70s cutting another man’s hair and implied he was a creepy gay hairdresser. Absolutely false gay-baiting sleaze that had the Republicans done it, they’d have been crucified. Nope, there’s a different set of rules for both parties. They get away with murder and we’re convicted before we even begin to campaign. If we can’t overcome THAT gap, we may never reclaim the majority again.

[Antoninus]

Hayworth's loss was a puzzlement to me. Santorum had the problem of pissing off the base with his endorsement of Specter and a name candidate that more than a few old timers thought was his dad.

Both Hayworth and Santorum were tagged as "soft on illegal immigration" and it killed them. Even though it wasn't true, enough conservatives believed the lies. Casey had the gall to run a commercial portraying Santorum this way, without response.

The real trouble is, our guys don't hit back. And when they do, it's sissy stuff.

[Antoninus]

I’m not sold on that interpretation.

Here's the real story. Broken-glass conservatives are demoralized because the GOP has failed utterly to deliver on its promises for 14 years. The GOP has lost the confidence of the party's base. As a result, Republican voters are particularly susceptible to attacks calling their guys "liberals"--even if the accusations are bogus.

For the GOP, the need to re-establish that confidence with the base is paramount. Unfortunately, they don't seem willing or able to do so. They'd much rather go hunting for less certain votes in the mushy middle.

That's their current strategy and one that's likely to end in disaster.

The only solution for conservatives is to refuse to be part of the problem. If your local conservative is a mushy moderate, don't contribute to him/her. Send your money to a true-blue conservative in an embattled district somewhere else in the country.

[RabidBartender]

"except that the GOP desperately needs an identity,"

Even if they get one, it won't matter. The television and print media simply listen to what Pelosi and Reid say, and then present it as fact. This is why our economy is on the verge of "collapse" and the Iraq mission has been a "disaster".

I don't have an answer for dealing with a democrat media that controls most of the outlets. (If there's a 2nd American Revolution, I will though.)

[fieldmarshaldj]

I seem to recall Allen, too, was not answering back forcefully, either, and the media/rodentry kept harping on the macaca horsecrap. Thinking of Joe Biden over in Delaware, can you imagine if that cretin were a Republican with the gold mine of ignorant and often racist comments that come out of his mouth ? Well, doesn’t count, since he’s a rodent. Free pass. Nothing to see here. Move along.

One thing is for sure, the GOP needs a double spine & testicular transplant. Personally, I’d rather be viewed as mean spirited and WIN an election being a hardass than lose being a simpering, media fellatiating milquetoast that won’t dare raise his voice to oppose the liberal lies.

[Galactic Overlord-In-Chief]

One thing is for sure, the GOP needs a double spine & testicular transplant. Personally, I’d rather be viewed as mean spirited and WIN an election being a hardass than lose being a simpering, media fellatiating milquetoast that won’t dare raise his voice to oppose the liberal lies.

One of my favorites of the former case was the Cleland/Chambliss race in 2002. Man does that seem like a lifetime ago...

[RetiredArmy]

All that sounds like a self inflicted wound to me. The folks in Colorado are just like the other areas of America. They are believing the Marxist's lies, just as regular Russians did in 1917. A PEOPLE's paradise of everyone having everything at no cost to them, with government programs to provide EVERYTHING that you need to survive. Only the ones in CHARGE, I.E. the Head Commissars of the Soviets in America will have the power and all the good stuff. We get the lower grade stuff to thank them for being our saviors. Americans have gone totally stupid. I must admit, it totally embarrasses me sometimes to call my self an American any more. This country has forgotten what got us here, and we have become stupid to that history. We have fallen for the free stuff, gone stupid, totally blind to what is happening. What the Nazi's of Germany, the Imperial Japanese, the Soviets and Red Chinese could NOT DO, destroy American, is BEING ACCOMPLISHED WITHIN BY AMERICANS!!!! Crap stinks and we are helping it stink more every stinking day.

[LS]

That’s a pretty sensible analysis to me.

[LS]

You are 100% correct that the Dems did NOT run as leftists, except in the NE, where they won pretty big (Shays, a RINO, got beat by a guy much further left; Bernie Saunders, an avowed socialist, won a Senate seat).

But again, if you get down to making race-by-race excuses, that's no glowing endorsement of conservatism. You (and Rush) want to make the argument that Conservatism always wins. Well, it flat doesn't. Goldwater got hammered. And in 2006, the more conservative the candidate (Santorum, Blackwell), the worse they got whupped.

I prefer to take a realistic position that says, "Hey, maybe now isn't our time." That doesn't mean I cave an inch on conservative positions: Churchill held the same position for 15 years until the country came around to him; Lincoln held the position that slavery was wrong long before it was fashionable, and lost a senate race and was excluded from the Whig administration of Taylor for it. It just means that we need to be realistic and understand that like the Bible says, "For every time there is a season." Keep fighting, but don't fool yourself into thinking everyone agrees with us.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"One of my favorites of the former case was the Cleland/Chambliss race in 2002. Man does that seem like a lifetime ago..."

That one, running in tandem with Perdue, who managed the equally surprising upset of King Roy Barnes, should've been textbook examples for the GOP in how to run hard-hitting campaigns. Frankly, the next time ANY liberal cut-and-run rodent screeches, "Are you questioning MUH patriotism ?!?" we should answer, "You damn right I am. You're a coward and a weasel." Sit back and watch the rodents sputter in outrage. We're WAY too nice to these punks. Way too nice. You have to wonder what has happened to this country when nearly half of it, fanned on by the media, is practically flagellating itself in grief over an ailing Senator that got away with vehicular homicide and failure to report it. No doubt when the Klansman from West Vuhginny buys the farm, we'll see a similar outpouring. Mass insanity.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I don’t think you meant to say Shays got beat, since he wasn’t.

But you do have to review races one by one, they’re not all equal, the question is whether a group of losses or wins particularly shows a trend. The media points to our 3 consecutive House special election losses and says, “This is a referendum on/repudiation of the GOP/Conservatism, etc.” Problem is, these are STILL 3 individual races with individual dynamics.

We lost IL because we ran a massively unpopular RINO against a far-less-negatively viewed Democrat (you can’t win an election when your opponent has a higher approval rating than you). We lost LA because the party establishment didn’t want the candidate chosen and did next to nothing to help him, and there was another RINO candidate running in the election. The Dem only won a plurality of the vote with a majority going to the multiple GOP candidates (not mentioned by the media, of course). We lost MS because we put up a Memphis suburb candidate in a majority rural district and the Democrat ran to HIS right. Geography killed us there. Geography.

In all these instances, we chose the wrong nominee, and ideology was secondary or tertiary.

Goldwater didn’t lose because he was a Conservative and the country rejected Conservatism, he lost because NO Republican of any stripe was going to beat LBJ carrying on the mantle of a instantly canonized deceased leader who wasn’t even dead an entire year.

And as I pointed out several posts up, neither Blackwell nor Santorum lost because they were “Strong Conservatives.” No Republican, again, of any stripe was going to win the Governorship of Ohio in 2006 with an outgoing incumbent of the same party who was almost in single digits of approval ratings. Indeed, only in Alaska did we stave off sure defeat when Sarah Palin routed Frank Murkowski in the primary. Santorum stupidly pissed off the base. He was viewed in many quarters as a RINO apostate. Even if he had still lost endorsing Toomey in 2004, PA still would’ve been left with a decent non-RINO Senator rather than the embarrassing Specter.

There’s a reason that even in positive or negative atmospheres, one size does not fit all in a campaign. You’ve got to run an individual campaign tailor-made for a given state or district. Run campaigns on auto-pilot or arrogant presumptions, and you may up with a very unpleasant surprise.

[LS]

Sorry. The woman from CT. Johnson? huge RINO. And I think another CT RINO Republican lost

Yes, all campaigns are individual. You're really, really stretching to explain away 1) Talent, 2) Burns, 3) Santorum, 4) Blackwell, 5) Hayworth, 6) Allen, 7) the guy in Indiana (can't recall his name, but he was fairly conservative), 8) the Hastert seat, 9) the LA seat, 10) the Miss. seat, 11) DeWine, 12) Weldon. There are actually, many, many more House members who were pretty conservative who lost in 06. As Ricky Ricardo would say, "that's a lot of 'splainin to do."

So, see, this continues to be part of the problem: a myopia that refuses to say there is a problem. Again, conservatism may not BE the problem, but the fact that it is unpopular with voters at this particular time needs to be recognized. Until it is, there will not be an effective strategy for winning . . . based on conservative principles. You can't treat till you diagnose.

Unfortunately, I still detect in your posts a tone of denial. I would prefer to say, "There are times when certain political views are swimming with the majority, and times when they are not. It doesn't change their rightness or wrongness, but it does change your strategy."

[fieldmarshaldj]

No, no stretching, and no denials, I’ve cited individual reasons for said losses. You seem to wish to attach ALL of them to the public’s repudiation of Conservatives. Problem is, it isn’t so.

There’s only one central problem overall here, and that’s the party itself. It’s a damaged label, but you seem to be trying to identify Conservative = Republican. Frankly, those have become two separate issues in recent years. The GOP has gone well out of its way to push the Conservative agenda away and combine that with an overall lack of leadership and courage, and it is a lethal combination, fatal for the party. There’s more than a few voters that see that and don’t bother to turn up at the voting booth, telling this party to pound sand. They’re not angry at Conservatives. They’re angry at the Republican party. So am I.

[LS]

Fine. So am I. But the problem in America is, going back 200 years, we have a two-party system. There's no getting around it. Winner take all, single member district mean that the eccentrics like Saunders and Paul remain the rare, rare exceptions.

So there is only one home for conservatives, and that is the GOP. Nevertheless, you've given me "individual reasons" which I say are excuses for the failures of conservatives in 2006. BTW, I added a couple more to the original list. With each new addition, another excuse. I agree, the GOP is a damaged brand name, but I see NO grass roots enthusiasm right now for conservative ideas.

There is "us," the stalwarts, who have been conservatives since the 1960s. We were joined from 1980-1996 by blue dog Dems and moderate Republicans who saw that our claims about welfare and national defense were, in fact, absolutely correct. But now that those two "enemies" have been vanquished, we have to make a case all over again for a new national defense focused on militant Islam and border security; on a new anti-welfare program focused on the SS scam; and on energy and health care based on free market principles. The case for SOME of the first have been made; none of the second, third, or fourth in the minds of the voters. So once again I say, it is better to admit that the public at this time is not with us than to keep pretending that there is this vast untapped reservoir of conservative sentiment waiting to explode. There may be in 2-4 years, if the right leaders come along with the proper expression of these ideas, but right now, I don't see it.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’m afraid we’re just going in circles here with the discussion, so I’ll just concluded my points again here. I disagree that there isn’t an untapped reserve of Conservatism out there. There is. The Republican party is failing to tap into it, preferring to pitch itself more to the left. We already have a party for the left.

If you did away with all the parties tomorrow and went to individual referendums on the issues, the Conservative side would largely prevail. CA, for example, a state more than likely to go for the Dem by 10% or so for President supports by about 54% the initiative that marriage is between a man and a woman. Again, it’s not Conservatism that’s the loser here. Not at all. If it was, then where are all the huge numbers of Democrats outside the moonbat bastions running on unapologetic Socialist platforms ? Even they know on many issues they have to talk “right” or appear “Conservative.” It’s appalling that they often show more enthusiasm for appearing that way than the GOP does.

[LS]

I think you are right on SOME "individual reforms," but only if they were phrased correctly. For ex., "Do you favor doing away with Social Security?" Big no. But, "Do you favor allowing individuals to save some of their Social Security in private retirement accounts?" Big yes.

"Do you favor an amendment that says marriage is between a man and a woman?" Overwhelmingly yes. But "Do you favor measures that deny health benefits [or some other marriage-only benefit] to same-sex partners?" Probably big no. Ultimately, the problem is that NO question comes without tradeoffs, and the debate is what constitutes the tradeoffs.

It's all in how a question is phrased, and that specifically is the job of the parties---to frame questions in such a way as to elicit a voter response. Theoretically, a party should frame the questions as starkly as possible to force everyone into a choice. But in reality, both parties frame every question as hazy as possible so as to not "offend" anyone.