Citizens are protesting the leasing because drilling will have permanent impacts on the area’s important wildlife habitat, watersheds, and the region’s air quality [...] Drilling the Roan Plateau could also have serious consequences for water quality and trout streams [...] Energy development will threaten the quality of the plateau’s watersheds, potentially contaminating the Colorado River and harming the drinking water supplies of municipalities that rely on the river.If the bipartisan outcry over McCain's comments about the Colorado River Pact are any indication, if theres one thing to take seriously about Colorado, its that we are damn serious about protecting our water. In unswaveringly advocating drilling the plateua, Schaffer associates himself with a tradition of Washington politicians alienated from the concerns of those our West.
This exemplifies Colorado's independent streak, and so long as Schaffer doesn't realise that he has to account for the unique priorities of our state, his campaing will continue to squander. Needless to say, Schaffer's GOP cronnies' running ads attacking Udall's (and, incidently, sitting Republican Senator Wayne Allard's) support for an earmark to build a bridge to protect drivers on I-70 from elk crossings (a danger alien to most out-of-staters) won't gain him much ground.
As a retired Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) senior manager and an Endowment Life member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), I understand the relationship between protecting wildlife and their habitat here in Colorado and the protection of our firearm rights under the Second Amendment. Both issues are extremely important to me and sportsmen and sportswomen across this great state. Many Colorado citizens, myself included, chose to live in this state because of our abundant wildlife populations, breathtaking habitat and our great outdoor recreational opportunities, including hunting, fishing and shooting sports — three activities near and dear to my heart. [...]
Even though I am voting for John McCain, I joined more than 75 other CDOW retirees, including two former CDOW directors, in endorsing Congressman Mark Udall as the “Sportsman’s Candidate” for the U.S. Senate.
For you to sit here and suggest that somehow you're immune from any of the criticism or any of the blame for the straits we find ourselves in is laughable [...] The financial system meltdown, (the) middle class being choked, no energy policy, a war with no end, CEOs getting welfare -- this is a direct example and the direct result of what you did and what you supported when you were in Congress.Though substantively I feel like I have to reluctantly give this debate to Schaffer, in terms of popular perception I think the net impact will be hard to gauge. Schaffer certainly comes off as a policy wonk, but such analysis tends to go over the heads of most Americans and such theatrics as reading off the numbers of various pieces of legislation Mark voted on are virtually meaningless to even well informed viewers.
Schaffer has said he found largely satisfactory conditions for factory workers when he visited the islands on the 1999 trip paid for by the California-based Traditional Values Coalition. The organization, which bills itself as "the largest nondenominational, grassroots church lobby in America," often worked as the political arm of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose clients included garment manufacturers in the Marianas.
Factory workers were often smiling during his visit, Schaffer has said. And in a recent interview with The Denver Post, Schaffer said the guest-worker system in the islands — a territory of the United States — could serve as a "model" for immigration policy on the mainland.
[...]
Schaffer's appraisal of the Marianas Islands contrasts with a litany of government reports, investigations by human-rights groups and findings by journalists in the 1990s that portrayed near-slavery conditions where, in addition to forced abortion, allegations of child prostitution and the prohibition of religious activities were common.
I think that the ad presents a fairly salient message, and does an effective job of hitting Bob in a number of sensitive areas: both the general vulerability of the GOP on issues of the economy, as well as the GOP's gradually increasing alienation from the faith based community. My sense is that this controversy has fallen fom most Coloradan's political consciousness, and its about time they be reminded of it
Trust me, Barack can only succeed if we also elect more champions in the Senate to stand up to the incredibly powerful oil lobby. Those leaders are emerging—and three of them are in close Senate races. Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Mark Udall in Colorado, and Al Franken in Minnesota are all real, clean-energy heroes who need our help to win. And they're fighting against Republicans who have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from the oil industry.Of course, Republicans like nothing less than a nationally recognizable and popular environmental icon meddling in Senate races they are involved in. They prefer meddling be done on their own terms.
As Salazar arrived at his office on 15th Street, he told the Rocky he expected a formal agreement "by next week." He declined to elaborate. "We're working on it," Salazar said. The latest offer that sources say is on the table: businesses would kick in about $5 million to help fight three measures unions are trying to defeat [...] In exchange, unions would pull four measures that businesses would otherwise have spent money fighting until Election Day on Nov. 4.The measures in question include 3 anti-union amendments--they are 47, 49, and 54--as well as the 3 pro-union ballot initiatives 53, 55, and 56. This is an important development in what was shaping up to be a business/labor bloodbath in November no matter which way you cut it.
As johne over at SquareState points out,
Just like with Ref C and D we have unions and business working together while there's a far fringe element in Jake Jabbs, the Coors family, and the Independence Institute who are hell-bent in remaking this state in their conservative self-image.
My bet is that if this deal goes through it will take much of the wind out of the sails of anti-union activists that have been pounding Udall for months on his traditionally pro-labor stances such as his support for the Employee Free Choice Act. This will likely help Udall come election day for a couple reasons.
1. On an ideological level, it will demonstrate that strong unions and strong business are not mutually exclusive phenomena, and that their issues can be worked out without the strong hand approach of the GOP, hopefully making it easier for some independents to warm up to Mark.
2. More importantly, ballot measures like these traditionally help get-out-the-vote of conservative activists. Their not being on the ballot might mean that anti-union activists otherwise ambivalent about the Republican candidate won't get to the polls. A similar phenomenon has been seen in other states with anti-choice initiatives on the ballot.
Side Note: it also means that the millions of dollars spent by republican 527s running anti-union ads were wasted, which just makes me feel sorta warm and fuzzy inside.
The Democrats still retain one fairly clear path to 60 seats, assuming that Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders are counted with the majority [...] This path would involve flipping Virginia, New Mexico and New Hampshire -- all of which remain near locks for the Democrats -- along with Colorado, Alaska, Minnesota, Oregon, North Carolina, and Mississippi.It looks like Colorado will remain in the national political limelight for some time as now the second most contentious US senate race next to Alaska according to FiveThirtyEight's analysis.
Colorado remains the best bet; it's projecting eight-tenths of a point better than Obama's national numbers. What that means is that, theoretically at least, Obama would still be expected to have a winning elecotral map if he lost the popular vote by 0.8 points. That is why Colorado is so essential; it is the state most likely to be involved in a split result between the popular vote and the Electoral College.Needless to say, Colorado is on political stratigists maps for good (though I guess if they didn't have Colorado on their maps initially they might want to get better made maps...).
I was not present for the vote on this resolution (H. Con. Res. 398), despite my best efforts(Full text available here)
to reach the House floor in time to do so. Had those efforts been successful, I would have
voted ``no,'' because I think we should not adjourn or recess this week until completing
action on legislation to revise our national energy policies--something that has not yet occurred.
Then when the vote came up as to whether or not to enact said resolution and go to recess,
he was present and voted to NOT go to recess, so upholding his infamous debate promise.
When I looked into it a little bit more, it turns out that Big Oil Bob was the real congressional slacker.
The Rockey Mountain News reported in March that,
In 2002, when Schaffer's self-imposed, six-year term limit was running out, he missed about one in every eight votes, starting with the first "quorum call" of the year. Schaffer's 13 percent absentee rate that year was more than two times his career average - about 5 percent. His rival in this year's U.S. Senate race, Rep. Mark Udall, missed 2.5 percent of the 484 votes scheduled in the House in 2002.
Apparently, these included final votes on promoting peace in war-torn Sudan, making payments to fallen soldiers exempt from taxes, and one regarding the moratorium on oil drilling off the coast of California.
Now I get why he wouldn't care about peace in an oil-rich conflict ridden country
And I appreciate that saying they support the troops then abandoning them once they have served their purpose is pretty standard fare for the GOP.
But really? Skipping the vote on the whether or not to ban drilling off the coast of California? He didn't even vote on the very issue that has become the hallmark of his campaign, the very issue that he has been blasting Mark for having accidentally missed a vote on?
Come on now Skip, I knew most of your rhetoric was hallow, but for some reason I figured as an oil exec you'd have the myopic self interest to stand behind at least this one bit of advocacy.
Both parties point to past wins decided by Western Slope voters when Front Range votes seemed to cancel each other out. Republicans credit Western Slope voters with helping put former Gov. Bill Owens over the top. Democrats credit them for helping elect Gov. Bill Ritter, Sen. Ken Salazar and his brother Rep. John Salazar [...] Western Colorado is thin when it comes to voters. With some 600,000 people in the 3rd Congressional District, it’s vastly outnumbered by the Front Range [...] Despite its small population, its independent streak can serve as a tie-breaker in elections where Democratic Boulder and Denver counteract Republican suburbs and Colorado Springs.
Because Freedom [sic] Watch does not let the facts get in the way, this does not provide you with the ability to ignore them and the obvious legal issues created by this advertisement [...] The offensive representations and slanderous image directly tie Mark Udall to the use and promotion of marijuana.CBS4 has done a fairly good job of fact checking the ad, but apparently this wasn't enough for some in neocon blogosphere. "A Watcher", of the anti-Udall attack blog SchaffervUdall, refuses to believe CBS4 conclusion that the claim that "Udall voted against funding for our troops" was false, she argues that,
If memory serves, he wanted billions taken out of the defense department budget and he didn't care whether it meant fewer bullets, fewer uparmored vehicles, or less care for wounded soldiers.She also mentions that, "I think they are wrong, but don't have the time to do the research to prove it." How convenient. Well fortunately I do.
There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this Act at least 1 percent of the total amounts appropriated annually for the Department of Defense.So it is true that a small percent of total DOD funds would be going towards the Department of Peace, but the trade-of logic hust doesnt hold water. Appropriations for opperations in Iraq and Afganistan are specifically earmarked in in bills like HR 2206, and thus general funds for the Department of Peace would not be taking away from our honorable troops.
Voters in the Mountain West still have a conservative bent, but [...] they've become tired of the wedge issues, the cultural crusading, and, most of all, the war. They're independent thinkers by nature, and they want answers from pragmatists, not pabulum from ideologues.Read the full article here.
In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mark Udall held a one-point lead over Republican Bob Schaffer, the poll found. The poll, conducted among 495 "likely" registered voters in Colorado between Sept. 2 and Sept. 3, has a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percent.It's important to take into account however that the poll was commissioned by the the Republican hill committee working to elect Bob Schaffer, and that unlike any reputable polling agency (such as Rasmussen or PPP) it failed to provide ALL the essential information used to judge such a poll's acuracy:
1. The wording of the questions asked
2. Whether these "likely voters" were actual registered voters
3. Any data about how representative the sample actually was, i.e. about how the sample was proportionally composed in terms of party affiliation
I'm skeptical about how much weight should be given to this poll on these grounds alone. But even if we give the NRSC the benefit of the doubt, I think that the daft conclusion reached by RealClearPolitcs' Reid Wilson (and likely many mainstream news outlets to come) that "despite the free press [provided by the DNC] Rep. Mark Udall didn't benefit at all" is simplistic at best.
Especially given that this poll was conducted smack dab in the middle of the RNC, and 4 days after the Palin veep pick. The temporary bounces that result from both events effect the whole of the republican party, and its effects would inevitably trickle down to this poll to a greater or lesser degree.
Nate of Fivethirtyeight.com has compiled a large number of more recent polls and similarly finds that Democrat Mark Udall maintains an average 6.2 % lead over his Republican opponent. It goes without saying that, these numbers bode fairly well for Congressman Udall lending hope to many democrats of gaining an important foothold in the American West.
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