This video was sent out to the press the day after the state Democratic dinner in Denver on Feb. 13. The America Rising PAC then sent a second clip when it wasn’t clear in this one if Bennet heard the opposition tracker’s question. In the next clip, the tracker asked him again as Bennet walked down the street. Bennet’s campaign didn’t reply to an e-mail asking if he heard the question.
Democrats on Thursday were calling out Republicans for saying they will support the GOP nominee, which looks increasingly like Donald Trump and .
Funny thing is, Republicans have been calling on incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet for weeks to say whether he’ll support Bernie Sanders and the Democratic socialist’s agenda. Sanders still trails Hillary Clinton nationally, but he waxed her in Tuesday night’s Colorado caucus.
Bennet and almost all his potential opponents have the same answer: They’ll support their party and its nominee.
I wrote a story about where top Colorado Republicans — including those who have sharply criticized Trump — would and clinches the nomination.
Nobody I interviewed said they were on the Trump bandwagon yet, and U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner was even traveling to Detroit Thursday to support Marco Rubio against Trump in a debate in Detroit Thursday night.
As much as Democratic operatives have dogged Republicans, GOP operatives have been nipping at Bennet’s heels.
It took me three weeks to get any kind of answer about Sanders out of Bennet’s office. I asked the first time shortly after the state Democratic dinner, where Sanders and Clinton spoke, and got no reply until I pressed the issue again this week.
The campaign wouldn’t put me on the phone with Bennet or give me a statement directly from the candidate. A statement from a campaign spokesman on Wednesday didn’t include Sanders’ name.
A few minutes after I pointed that out in an e-mail exchange with Andrew Zucker, the senior communications adviser for the Colorado Democratic Party who pressing the case against Republicans, Bennet’s campaign sent me an “updated” comment that added Sanders’ first name to the Wednesday statement:
“Michael remains a supporter of Hillary and he s truly excited at the level of Democratic turnout on Tuesday night, which even surpassed turnout from 2008. Colorado Democrats are united and excited, and Michael will stand with them in support of the Democratic candidate – whether Hillary or Bernie – to beat Donald Trump in November.”
I then pressed Zucker on the difference between Bennet’s position and that of his opponents. The answer came back partisan, because that’s what politics is.
“The difference: Donald Trump is the clear Republican frontrunner for president but his obscene rhetoric and reckless policy agenda would be a disaster for Colorado, and while even Mitt Romney is now repudiating Donald Trump, Colorado’s leading Republican Senate candidates all say that they will support him if he’s their nominee,” Zucker said in an e-mail. “No Republican running for Senate in Colorado can credibly argue that they will stand up for Coloradans when they can’t even stand up to Donald Trump.”
