Colorado voters spoke loudly Tuesday and said they’re tired of dirty, deceptive campaigns.
Insurgent candidate Andrew Romanoff was up 3 points in a poll almost two weeks ago, but then he launched his over-the-top ad calling Sen. Michael Bennet a corporate looter. It blew up in his face as Democratic voters resoundingly said no to those scorched-earth tactics.
And fueled by Tea Party enthusiasts, Ken Buck turned back Jane Norton’s relentless, sometimes nasty jabs on the GOP side of the Senate race.
Not only do Colorado voters care about clean campaigns, ethics matter, too.
Presumed GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Scott McInnis saw his once-commanding lead in the polls vanish after his plagiarism scandal. He lost to Dan Maes, a virtual unknown just months ago who has his own credibility issues.
Both Maes and Buck benefitted from the energy and enthusiasm of Colorado’s Tea Party members, who are tired of the same politicians and the same policies.
Buck is the Weld County district attorney who almost dropped out of the race last year when Norton, the former lieutenant governor backed by Sen. John McCain and a long slate of state Republican elite, joined the hunt.
Even though Buck was buoyed by the grass roots, the establishment candidate more than held her own. Buck’s victory was close.
Norton managed to wound Buck by exploiting a pair of gaffes — his notorious vote for me because “I do not wear high heels” comment and his off-the-cuff remark deriding Tea Party members.
While we thought it is terribly unfair to suggest that Buck is sexist, the attack line could follow him into his race against Bennet, via the kinds of shadowy side campaigns that play a role in contemporary elections.
In the Democratic race, the power of the incumbency — and millions of dollars spent — held strong.
Unlike in other races across the country, President Barack Obama’s imprimatur appears to have mattered here. Early on, Bennet had the money and the backing of national Democrats. (The famous exception was that of former President Bill Clinton, who backed Romanoff, but didn’t come stump for him, as Obama did for Bennet.)
And while Romanoff kept up a hotly negative — and unfair — series of attacks on Bennet, the appointed senator prevailed.
Romanoff’s claims that Bennet’s work to keep thousands of jobs intact at cinemas across the country was actually the work of a corporate looter didn’t pan out with Coloradans, and shouldn’t have.
As of late Tuesday night, it was difficult to know what to make of the Republican gubernatorial primary, which became an outlier due to scandal and intrigue. It was still too close to call at our press deadline.
But the Senate race for November is set: Buck vs. Bennet. The candidates would be wise to heed the lesson of Tuesday’s vote: Keep it clean.
