Primaries raining fire in Colorado

In another time, in another place, Ken Buck might have doomed his chances of helping Republicans seize control of the U.S. Senate the minute he started talking about high heels.

The small-town district attorney committed a classic political gaffe when he joked recently that the reason he should win Tuesday's Colorado GOP primary is that he doesn't wear high heels as his rival, former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, does.

Norton ads slammed Buck as a crude sexist. Political insiders predicted he'd pay a heavy price. Yet, Buck still leads Norton in polls — he's up 50-41 percent in a July 27-29 poll for The Denver Post — and should he win that, he has a solid chance to defeat either of two possible Democratic candidates.

The reason? Buck's image as an anti-establishment, unpolished outsider comes at a moment when a lot of conservatives, such as members of the tea-party movement, hunger for in-your-face voices in Washington — and are suspicious of anyone who looks like a polished, let's-make-a-deal insider, even a Republican one.

They're people such as Nina Rodriguez, an executive recruiter from Colorado Springs who had tuned out politics for years — until George W. Bush started cutting deals with Washington Republicans to jack up government spending and Barack Obama was elected to succeed him.

"When I was young," Rodriguez said, "the anti-establishment was at Haight-Ashbury. Now the anti-establishment is Ward and June Cleaver."

So when Norton boasts that she was lieutenant governor, that may have helped prompt Washington insiders such as the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to back her. But it's more of a target than a badge of honor to someone such as Rodriguez.

"Norton is the establishment," Rodriguez said.

"He [Buck] speaks from his heart," said Mary Hertzog, a teacher from Colorado Springs. "He's not scripted."

That's for sure.

Despite support from tea-party members, Buck reacted angrily when one pressed him to talk about the false allegation that Obama wasn't born in the United States.

"Will you tell those dumbasses at the tea party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I'm on the camera? God, what am I supposed to do?" Buck said.

Then there was the high-heels comment.

Asked at a rally why people should vote for him instead of Norton, he said, "Because I do not wear high heels."

Buck, who often jokes about having to take out the trash at home because his wife has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, said in an interview that he was reacting only to Norton.

He said she often had referred to gender. She said in one TV ad that Buck should be "man enough" to level his own attacks. She's also noted that she'd be the state's first female senator, he said, and she's said herself that one thing that sets her apart from Buck is that she wears heels.

Tough for incumbents

Colorado's chaos is reflective of the corrosive nature of national politics in the midst of this recession, where incumbents of all stripes are fighting for their lives. Two U.S. senators — Republican Bill Bennett in Utah and Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania — already have lost their primaries.

Both Colorado GOP candidates oppose Obama's agenda.

Buck, for example, said he'd vote to repeal the new health-care law. Pressed what he'd do if his side fell short of the votes needed to overcome the president's veto, Buck said Republicans could start by refusing to appropriate money to carry out the law.

He also said he'd vote to pare federal spending by partly privatizing Social Security. Asked how he'd cut spending if that proved politically impossible, he said he had no plan B.

"I'm hoping I learn," he said.

The Democrats, meanwhile, also have a divided primary, with a former state lawmaker taking on incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.

Obama is aggressively supporting Bennet. But Bennet, appointed to his seat when the president named Ken Salazar secretary of the interior, could lose to Andrew Romanoff, a former speaker of the state House. Romanoff says he'd be a stronger advocate in the Senate for such things as government-run health insurance as an option for everyone.

A Denver Post/Survey USA poll last week showed Romanoff up by 3 points over Bennet for the first time, erasing a 17-point Bennet lead in six weeks.

Obama's White House staff tried to clear the field for Bennet, once dangling a possible job offer in front of Romanoff if he would stay out of the primary. (The White House also unsuccessfully tried a potential job offer to get Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., to drop a primary challenge to Specter; Sestak stayed in and won.)

After leading Colorado Democrats to win back-to-back majorities in the state House for the first time in more than 40 years, Romanoff bristled when Bennet, a political unknown, was named to finish Salazar's term.

After making his fortune turning around failing businesses, Bennet served as chief of staff to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and as Denver's appointed schools chief before being sent to the Senate.

Romanoff said his experience forging coalitions in the state Legislature made him better qualified to work in the Senate, and that he'd be more aggressive pushing such ideas as government involvement in health care — either providing insurance to compete with private insurers or taking over the whole system in a "single payer" system.

"I support single payer. My opponent does not. I would have fought for the public option. My opponent did not," he said.

Conventional wisdom says a Romanoff victory would hurt Democratic chances in November, because Bennet by far is the better-funded candidate. But observers say the perils for the GOP are especially acute.

"The Republicans are slowly throwing away an opportunity," Bob Loevy, a political-science professor at Colorado College, said of the races for senator and governor. "In both cases, the Republican Party is losing a moderate, mainstream candidate who would have a better chance in the general election."

Governor's race

An outsider also is poised to win the Republican gubernatorial primary. Dan Maes is a former owner of telecommunications franchises and a credit-reporting company called Amaesing Credit Solutions. He paid a $17,500 fine for campaign-finance violations this year for reimbursing himself $40,000 in campaign funds to pay for mileage.

Backed by some tea-party groups, Maes has raised eyebrows with some comments, as when he blasted Denver's bike-swap program. Maes said the city, by allowing people to share bicycles, was surrendering its sovereignty to the United Nations.

He is benefiting from a scandal that has imperiled the candidacy of Scott McInnis, a former congressman and onetime statehouse majority leader. A foundation paid McInnis $300,000 for reports on water issues that turned out to have been plagiarized. McInnis has blamed an "expert" who helped him write them but said he bears responsibility and pledged to pay back the fee.

Last week, when McInnis released a seven-page economic-development plan to the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, the first question was about the plagiarism case. During a brief talk with reporters afterward, McInnis was pressed about rumors that, if he won the nomination, he would step down so he could be replaced by a more viable candidate.

"I ain't quitting," said McInnis, dressed in jeans, cowboy boots and a button-down shirt. "It isn't happening."

McInnis has touted his years in Congress and the Colorado statehouse, but in the wake of the plagiarism scandal, the political novice Maes has pulled even with him in some polls.

Another former congressman, firebrand Tom Tancredo, says neither potential gubernatorial candidate can win in November, so he, too, has entered the race on a third-party ticket, raising fears he could split the conservative vote.

Perhaps the only Colorado politician having an easy summer is Hickenlooper, the Denver mayor. He is coasting to the Democratic gubernatorial nomination while his GOP rivals implode.

Colorado has moved almost entirely to voting by mail, and many thousands of residents sent in their ballots well ahead of Tuesday's deadline. That makes it difficult to gauge the impact of final-week actions such as Obama's conference call for Bennet and a campaign appearance for Norton on Sunday by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

One thing is clear, though. Coloradans are weary of the campaign phone calls, TV ads and attacks. A Senate debate scheduled last week in Pueblo involving Norton, Buck and Romanoff was canceled for lack of interest.

And the November election is still three months away.

Compiled from McClatchy Newspapers, Los Angeles Times

and The Associated Press