The scariest scare-mongering about Ken Buck does not come from Michael Bennet’s campaignalthough it’s not for lack of trying.
Don’t believe what you hear about this being a new day in politics, in which the old ways are under attack. The Buck-Bennet U.S. Senate race is about as new strategically as the Greek phalanx.
Bennet, we’re told, is a taxer and spender. Buck, we’re told, is too extreme for Colorado. If you don’t believe me, turn on your hi-def widescreen and wait — no longer than 15 seconds, I promise — for the next campaign ad. Haven’t we all seen this made-for-TV movie before?
But, the truth is, you don’t have to believe Buck’s foes. You can just listen to his friends, those from the I-am-you wing of the party, who will tell you that Buck is just like them.
Sharron Angle, the Republican Tea Partyer from Nevada who’s running against Harry Reid, is one. She was caught on tape — it’s a long story — trying to persuade a Tea Party of Nevada candidate, Scott Ashjian, to drop out of the race. She told Ashjian she had “the juice” to get him fixed up with Sen. Jim DeMint and others in Washington.
Unfortunately for Angle, Ashjian secretly taped the meeting and sent the tape to Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston, who had it up on his blog faster than you can say “I got comped two tickets for the Elvis on Ice show.”
It was on this tape that Angle also said that Washington Republicans are afraid of her because they know “I’ll shake this mess up. . . . When I go back, there may be five or six of us . . . maybe Joe Miller, Ken Buck, Christine O’Donnell.”
Yes, Ken Buck and Sharron Angle together — which is just what Bennet keeps warning you about.
What would that mean? Buck says he has never met Angle and doesn’t know what she stands for, which must mean he doesn’t read the papers or watch the news. But let’s play a little guilt-by-association game. Angle was also caught on tape at a town hall in Mesquite, where she was asked about the dangers of “Muslims taking over the United States.”
Unlike many of us, Angle seemed to take this question seriously and then seriously suggested that Islamic law, Shariah, had already taken hold in Dearborn, Mich., and Frankford, Texas. As many have pointed out since, there is, of course, no Shariah law in Dearborn — or anywhere else in America — and Frankford, Texas, doesn’t have any law at all, since it doesn’t technically exist. It was annexed by Dallas in 1975, and, according to the Handbook of Texas, all that’s left of it is a cemetery and Bent Tree Country Club.
Buck has troubles of his own, of course. We’ve watched him run away from virtually every position he had taken during the Republican primary, which is what you’d expect. Candidates — left and right — always move toward the center, but for Buck, it has often been a hazardous trip.
It’s one thing for Buck to back away from saying he’d introduce a constitutional amendment banning abortion or that he didn’t really mean he’d use abortion as a litmus test for judicial nominees. It’s another to back away even while still supporting the concept, as Buck does, that a 12-year-old rape victim should be forced to deliver the rapist’s baby. That’s how politics works, I guess.
But sometimes the pandering gets out of hand. I’m still laughing about Buck’s brief romance with the idea of repealing the 17th Amendment, the one that allows — get this — for popular election of senators. A repeal would take the job of electing senators away from you and put it back into the capable hands of your state legislators. Buck likes to say his 17th Amendment repeal romance lasted about as long as it took him to answer a question from an audience member, but I keep wondering why the reply wasn’t: Are you nuts?
The question for Buck is what he’ll do if elected. Personally, I’ve never been convinced that Buck is a true member of the revolution that Tea Partyers promise is sweeping the country. But what do I know? I don’t know whether Buck knows.
What I do know is that Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., the Tea Party’s favorite senator, has been Buck’s most important supporter. And that DeMint, who promises to “take the country back,” was just heard at a rally — as reported by the Spartanburg Herald-Journal — saying gays and sexually active unmarried women should not teach in public schools. You could look it up.
I know Buck doesn’t believe that — or that Shariah law is headed our way. But it’s DeMint who calls Buck one of the “reinforcements” he needs to effect change in Washington.
It’s more than fair to pin Bennet to his Washington buddies, like Harry Reid, and whatever changes they’ve made. I don’t know what Buck would do as a senator — or what exactly Buck’s pals would do if they are ever in charge — but it’s obvious that they expect him to stand alongside them while they do it. Scary, huh?
Mike Littwin writes Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-5428 or mlittwin@denverpost.com.