Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Mark Udall of Colorado share a light-hearted moment Saturday before addressing volunteers in northeast Denver helping with Udall’s re-election bid. (Lynn Bartels, The Denver Post)
The other Cory — U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, not Congressman Cory Gardner of Colorado who wants to unseat Sen. Mark Udall — implored Coloradans on Saturday to make the effort to ensure Udall wins his re-election bid.
Booker described Gardner as a “wingnut” and said the reason the country is interested in Udall’s race is because “so goes Colorado in November, so goes America.”
“Your Sen. Udall is relentless,” Booker said, but noted, “This election will not be determined on his work ethic. It will be determined on ours.”
Gardner’s campaign in response referred to Booker as an out-of-state bully.
Democrats are more likely to show up in presidential elections, but skip the others — something the left in Colorado wants to make sure doesn’t happen.
Congressman Cory Gardner and U.S. Sen. Mark Udall. (The Denver Post)
Booker and Colorado’s other U.S. senator, Michael Bennet, helped Udall kick off the official opening of his campaign office in northeast Denver. The standing-room only crowd laughed and cheered at Booker’s jokes — “I’ve only been in the Senate 10 months; I still have that new senator smell” — and jeered when he mentioned New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who has been making news in Colorado on several fronts, to the .
“There is not a race in the country where there is a greater difference between the two people running for the U.S. Senate than right here in Colorado,” Bennet said.
The sentiment was echoed by Booker.
“Please understand that this is not a man who reflects Colorado,” he said, of Gardner. “He represents the wingnuts. He is way out there.”
Gardner’s campaign spokesman Alex Siciliano fired back.
“While Sen. Udall continues to bring in a parade of out-of-state bullies to prop up his failing campaign,” Siciliano said, “Cory spent the day in Pueblo meeting with Coloradans about how Obamacare is hurting their families, how Sen. Udall’s energy tax would kill jobs and how Sen. Udall’s record of rubber stamping President Obama’s failed policies is damaging the future for Colorado families.”
Booker offered an example of what happens when Democrats don’t vote in off-year elections. He told the crowd that when he voted for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama for president in 2008, the line of voters went around the block. But during New Jersey’s election for governor a year later, the polling place was deserted. 44.9 percent to 49.5 percent.
Udall talked about familiar themes — paying women the same as men for the doing the same job, making college more affordable — but in his final remarks the senator ., after police shot an unarmed black 18-year-old.
Northeast Denver has the highest concentration of black voters in the city and a number of blacks — including a state lawmaker, two City Council members and a member of the Denver school board — were in the audience.
“Itap tragic. Itap unacceptable,” Udall said. “Unarmed black men are not criminals. We need to do something. I don’t have the answer but we can’t let this fade away.”
