BRUSH, Colo.—It’s one thing to have observers give you a good shot at ousting an incumbent. It’s another when voters are already talking to you like one.
For Republican Cory Gardner, a state lawmaker taking on Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey in one of the nation’s premier battleground districts, a campaign swing has the flavor of constituent outreach.
A voter advises Gardner on national defense at a pancake breakfast in Greeley. A man with a natural gas well on his land pulls Gardner away from lunch at a Fort Morgan Arby’s to gripe about his business. And at a Fourth of July parade in Brush, one woman shouts at him like he’s been in Congress for years. “Stop! The! Spending!” she screams.
The complaining doesn’t bother Gardner, 35, who seems confident he can revive GOP fortunes in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district about the size of South Carolina, but an unpopular Republican incumbent combined with a national turn toward Democrats in 2008 helped Markey become the first Democrat to win here in three decades.
“People are excited, more excited than I’ve ever seen,” Gardner said while waiting to march in another holiday parade. “It’s not just a tea party thing, or people mad about this or that. There is just a real sense that they’re sick and tired of the spending in Washington.”
Gardner sewed up the Republican nomination at a GOP assembly this spring and has no primary.
Gardner runs his family’s farm-equipment business and chats easily with voters about crop prices. He attended law school at the University of Colorado and worked briefly for the National Corn Growers’ Association in Washington before becoming legislative director for former Colorado Republican Sen. Wayne Allard. In 2005, Gardner was appointed to the state House and won in his own right the following year.
Markey worked for Allard’s Democratic counterpart, former Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar.
Markey has taken a centrist course after ousting Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave two years ago. She joined the Blue Dog group of conservative Democrats. She voted against the first Democratic crack at health care overhaul, saying it wouldn’t protect employers—though she later voted for the final version. And on July 1, she voted against extending unemployment benefits, citing the cost.
But Gardner tells voters that Markey is still too close to Democrats running Congress.
He cites four examples: Markey’s support of the $787 billion federal stimulus law; her vote for a climate-change bill that would have started a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions; her ultimate vote for the health care law; and her support for a labor-backed bill allowing workers to form a union by signing cards instead of holding a secret vote.
“She voted for the four horsemen of liberal politics,” Gardner said.
The pitch goes over well at tea party rallies and Republican gatherings. But some conservatives warn that Markey has won over voters.
Take retiree Mel Hilgenberg of Fort Collins. He’s a self-described “born-again Republican” who invited Gardner to a conservative breakfast gathering at a nearby diner. But he gives Markey a hug when she crosses paths with the Gardner campaign in Fort Collins.
“I love Cory, but I tell you, Betsy Markey has won my respect,” Hilgenberg said. “She has, I believe, truly voted her conscience. So even though I don’t always agree with her, I’m very impressed by her.”
Markey holds a significant fundraising advantage, with almost $1.7 million by end of the first fiscal quarter to Gardner’s $866,000. Markey also has received flattering ads from independent advocacy groups that favored the Democrats’ health care overhaul.
“This is not an easy race by any stretch of the imagination,” said Dudley Brown, head of the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners group and a Gardner supporter from Windsor.
Brown called Gardner a “rock star” for trying unsuccessfully to expand Colorado’s “Make My Day” law to allow business owners to use deadly force to protect life or property.
Gardner angered some conservatives last month when he canceled a campaign appearance by Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King after King implied that President Barack Obama favors blacks over whites. Former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo chastised Gardner, though a local tea party group disinvited King to a rally planned the same day.
Gardner hasn’t talked about why he canceled the King fundraiser, but he deflected any grumbling.
“Our conservative credentials,” he said, “are unquestioned.”
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