Here's a look at Bob Schaffer's run to the middle from The Denver Post. From the article: "When state GOP chairman Dick Wadhams talks about the fight for Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat, he sounds like a battered general rallying the troops for a final, decisive campaign. By Wadhams' reckoning, the seat has been in Republican hands for 48 out of the past 54 years and in many instances was the rock that brought the state party back from the brink of disaster: in 1978, when Bill Armstrong reclaimed it following the dark days of Watergate; and again in 1996, when a veterinarian named Wayne Allard snatched an unlikely victory after dismal defeats for the state party in the early 1990s.
"After 2004 and 2006 and some very bitter defeats and some very big disappointments, it is this Senate seat that is going to bring this party back in 2008," Wadhams told a crowd of Republicans in Denver this year. The history lesson is meant to leave Republicans with no illusions about what's at stake in Republican Bob Schaffer's Senate race against U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, a Democrat from Eldorado Springs. The campaigns are expected to begin in earnest after state conventions this month. If Republicans lose Allard's seat after the loss of both legislative houses, the governor's mansion, the other Senate seat and the majority in the state's congressional delegation, Colorado will no longer be swing purple. It'll be true blue...
Strategists on both sides of the political divide say that answer is already emerging in the outlines of Schaffer's campaign, and the playbook can be distilled to a few basic principles:
- Avoid divisive primaries.
- Eschew firebrand social issues and talk about things the party can agree on. Run conservative candidates (to appeal to the base) but don't call them that (to draw in moderates).
- And whatever you do, make sure you win the collar counties around Denver, especially Jefferson County.
Republicans "need a good, solid top-of-the-ticket race that does everything possible to try and heal some of the party's problems over the last few years [~] the division between the conservative wing and more moderate wing, having lost the suburban counties around Denver, and the crucial battle for the most important voter in Colorado today, the unaffiliated voter," said Floyd Ciruli, a political analyst based in Denver. In some ways, Schaffer is an unlikely choice for such a key race. A brilliant debater who is deft on the stump, Schaffer is running even or only slightly behind Udall in early polls.
But Schaffer also left Congress voluntarily in 2002 and was soundly beaten by Pete Coors two years later in a divisive Senate primary. Some Democratic strategists say they were much more worried that they'd face former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, who's closer to a GOP version of the Democrats' recent champions: a well-liked moderate with strong crossover appeal and a solid base on the Western Slope. But Republicans see clear advantages in Schaffer. His conservative record appeals to the party's base, but his soft name recognition outside his former congressional district allows them wide leeway to introduce the candidate, shaping a more moderate image for statewide voters. Aides believe that issues like abortion and gay rights, which became major themes in Schaffer's 2004 Senate primary bid, haven't stuck around in voters' minds.
Thanks to Politics West for the link.
Category: Denver November 2008 Election
6:30:50 AM 
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