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Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet’s campaign said today that it dismissed a summer intern who allegedly told a person seeking to talk to the senator about pending legislation that she could secure a one-on-one meeting for a $2,400 donation. “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.” Bennet, a Democrat, was appointed to his seat last year and is now running his first-ever political campaign....

Throwing a wrench in the gears of Democrats pushing the candidacy of Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Bill Clinton today endorsed Bennet's primary challenger, former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff. The move solidifies the fact that Clinton and Democratic leadership in Washington are not always on the same page. The White House is so firmly in support of Bennet that it discussed other potential jobs in Washington with Romanoff that he could explore instead of running for Senate. "Colorado is far better off today because of Andrew Romanoff's leadership. America will be too," Clinton writes in an email to supporters titled,...

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said Thursday he was aware the White House had urged Andrew Romanoff not to challenge him in a primary. Bennet told The Hill he knew beforehand that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina had reached out to Romanoff in hopes of avoiding a primary challenge to the incumbent Bennet. “Yeah, I was aware,” Bennet said. “Right.” Romanoff, a former state House speaker, attracted headlines recently by stating he was contacted by Messina last September with various job offers... The White House also contacted Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak (D) in hopes of avoiding a primary...

Here is video of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refusing to answer a question as to whether Rep. Joe Sestak was offered a job by the Obama Administration in order to get him to drop his run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania against Sen. Arlen Specter. Gibbs hemed and hawed, but would not really give an answer.

"Sen. Bob Bennett Ousted at Utah GOP Convention SALT LAKE CITY – Republican Sen. Bob Bennett was thrown out of office Saturday by delegates at the Utah GOP convention in a stunning defeat for a once-popular three-term incumbent who fell victim to a growing conservative movement nationwide. Bennett's failure to make it into Utah's GOP primary — let alone win his party's nomination — makes him the first congressional incumbent to be ousted this year and demonstrates the difficult challenges candidates are facing from the right in 2010. "The political atmosphere obviously has been toxic and it's very clear that...

Former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff has opened up a sizable lead over incumbent U.S. Senator Michael Bennet in preliminary results from Democratic caucus straw polls this evening. Romanoff scored the biggest coup of the night so far when he decisively won the preference polls taken in Denver precincts, 60 percent to 35 percent. That has helped him for the present to push away from Bennet in what had been a neck-and-neck contest during the night's earliest returns. Results from some of the state's largest counties — including Boulder, Jefferson and Arapahoe — are still to be reported, though. And...

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet has received plenty of attention — and from progressive groups, plenty of praise — for authoring a letter pushing Democratic leaders to save the public option through a parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation. He mentioned the letter in a missive to supporters citing differences with primary opponent Andrew Romanoff But according to a report this week on the liberal blog TalkingPointsMemo.com (TPM), the idea belonged less to Bennet then to his House colleague, Jared Polis (D-Boulder), who worked out the strategy with a coalition of progressive groups hoping to revive the government-run health insurance option.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said Sunday that he will vote for landmark health care reform legislation even if it means he will be defeated at the polls next November. "If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform, and every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job? " CNN's John King asked Bennet on the "State of the Union" program. "Yes," said Bennet, a former Denver public schools chief who was appointed to the Senate...

Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) lays it on the line: [see video] He doesn’t care what his constituents want, he’s going to toe the Democrat line, even if it means he loses his job in 2010. That said, I have to admire Sen. Bennet; at least he has the courage of his (party’s) convictions, and is willing to say so, with no ambiguity or equivocation. Asked a direct yes-or-no question, he simply answers “No.” We could wish for that same simplicity from the rest of our elected officials...

Next year’s U.S. Senate race in Colorado is a lot more crowded this week, and incumbent Michael Bennet has some serious competition on hand. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Colorado voters finds Bennet trailing former Republican Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton 45% to 36%. Norton formally announced her candidacy on Tuesday. In that contest, seven percent (7%) like some other candidate, and 12% are undecided. Another newcomer, former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, is expected to announce his candidacy today (Wednesday), challenging Bennet for the Democratic Senate nomination next year. In a match-up with Norton, the highest profile Republican...

Senator Michael Bennet finds himself in a toss-up with two potential Republican challengers, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck and Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Bennet ahead of Buck 43% to 37%. With Frazier as the opponent, Bennet is essentially even... Any incumbent who polls less than 50% is considered potentially vulnerable. Polling released earlier showed that the Colorado Governor’s race is also potentially competitive in 2010.

How do you outgun the NRA? Very, very carefully. Mark Pryor knows all about that. The Democratic senator from pro-gun Arkansas was nowhere to be seen on the Senate floor during Wednesday's showdown over a proposal, championed by the National Rifle Association, that would have gutted state gun-control laws across the nation. Toward the end of the vote, Pryor entered the chamber through the back door, took a few steps inside, flashed a thumbs-down to the clerk, and retreated as fast and furtively as somebody dodging gunfire. Several minutes later, the Democrats had racked up more than enough votes to...

Michael Bennet's record U.S. Senate fundraising pace is built on out-of-state donations, Colorado donors concentrated in Denver, and well-heeled associates from his past endeavors in politics and business. It's a tried-and-true formula for neophyte politicians, especially those in swing states defending Senate seats where the price of victory may be more than $10 million. A Denver Post analysis of the $1.4 million the Democrat raised in the first three months of 2009 showed: • Less than half of the $1.1 million he raised from individual contributors came from Colorado. He received more than $100,000 from donors in New York, Washington,...

Denver Public Schools superintendent Michael Bennet is expected to be named Saturday as the future U.S. Senate replacement for Interior Secretary nominee Ken Salazar, according to two Democratic sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Gov. Bill Ritter is expected to name his U.S. Senate replacement pick on Saturday, ending a brief but frenzied period of speculation about who will take the seat of Interior Secretary nominee Ken Salazar. The selection would be preliminary, since Salazar is not expected to resign his U.S. Senate seat until sometime after Jan. 15, when he faces a confirmation hearing — and later...

The rhetorical blur decalcifies straight thought. William Bennett thought he was being asked about crime rates. Well, he was being asked about crime rates, but the blur took over and the world found itself deliberating whether he wished to abort all children of black mothers. So he had to begin not with the point he had set out to make, but by affirming that not only was he against aborting black babies, he was against aborting any babies. Ah, but that statement bumps squarely into Roe v. Wade, which, invoking the right to privacy, entitles mothers to abort their children...

State Senate President Ken Bennett Wednesday said he likely will challenge Gov. Janet Napolitano in next year's elections. Bennett, a Republican businessman from Prescott, told The Business Journal that chances are "very good" he will take on the Democratic governor next year. "I will make a decision within the next several weeks," said Bennett, a conservative who is president of Prescott-based Bennett Oil. Bennett's likely run also could end speculation to whether U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona or Marilyn Quayle (the wife of former vice president Dan Quayle) might mount 2006 campaigns. Some top GOP strategists have been trying to...

Taking security forces by surprise, a group calling itself "The Liberation of Galilee" claimed Wednesday it had abducted Israeli-American Dana Bennet, who went missing in 2003, and demanded Israel release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for information regarding her fate. The group sent a leaflet to the Associated Press claiming it kidnapped the 18-year-old Bennet, who disappeared in August 2003 on her way to spend the night at her uncle's home after finishing her shift as a waitress in a Tiberias restaurant.

On Bill Bennet's radio show, a caller made the point that several Vietnam POW's who asked for Geneva Convention protection were told...you are not prisoners of war;you are war criminals; Your own countryman (John Kerry) has admitted as much. Did John Kerry's testimony to congress in 1971 cause the Vietcong captors of our guys to refuse to abide by the Geneva convention? Did American POWs face additional torture and in some case death because of Mr. Kerry's actions-treasonable in my opinion? This has really upset me; I think about our men (many of them only boys) dying at the hands...

Sinners have long cherished the fantasy that William Bennett, the virtue magnate, might be among our number. The news over the weekend -- that Bennett's $50,000 sermons and bestselling moral instruction manuals have financed a multimillion-dollar gambling habit -- has lit a lamp of happiness in even the darkest hearts. As the joyous word spread, crack flowed like water through inner-city streets, family court judges began handing out free divorces, and children lit bonfires of "The Book of Virtues," "More Virtuous Virtues," "Who Cheesed My Virtue?" "Moral Tails: Virtue for Dogs," etc. And cynics everywhere thought, for just a moment:...