Bob Schaffer, meet Jack Ryan April 11, 2008

The hits keep coming for Bob.  A new story in today’s Denver Post follows on yesterday’s bad news about Schaffer’s ties to federal inmate 27593-112 (otherwise known as one Mr. Jack A. Abramoff).  If you read the Denver Post story yesterday you might remember crowd-favorite Dick Wadhams (Schaffer’s Karl Rove, previously seen running George Allen’s failed VA Senate bid in 2006) weakly trying to deflect the issue by claiming that [listen for the raised whine pitch in his voice] Schaffer barely even knows FCI 27593-112:

Opponents “are trying to leave the impression that Bob went gallivanting off to the Mariana Islands with Jack Abramoff, who Bob has never met, never talked to and wasn’t even aware was around back then,” Wadhams said.

Such a quote stretched all bounds of credulity yesterday and today it looks even worse.  A few key points from today’s article:

At two key moments in the political life of Benigno Fitial — governor of the Northern Mariana Islands and a powerful former ally of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff — then-Congressman Bob Schaffer was among several Republican U.S lawmakers who stepped in to lend their support

and

Bob Schaffer is done April 10, 2008

Bob Schaffer’s campaign is dead. It probably already was, what with a probable imbalance in D-R turnout this November (favoring the D’s), but now it’s really dead. Schaffer was already linked with FCI inmate number 27593-112, but now he’s linked with 27593-112 in a sleazy, slushy Congressional “fact finding” junket sort of way. Here’s the story out of the Denver Post. In 1999 Schaffer went on a vacation work trip that was partly paid for by the now-untouchable Jack Abramoff. The politically active upshot is this:

it links [Schaffer] to what Abramoff later boasted was an incredibly successful lobbying effort to quash reform by cashing in on ties to key House Republicans, including those on the House Resources Committee, on which Schaffer sat.

The Schaffer campaign and R repeaters will spin this 8 ways to Sunday but the hard reality is this:

“Given that many Republican members, including Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and Conrad Burns, have lost their seat or gone to prison based on their association with this criminal, it’s pretty remarkable that Schaffer seems to be proud of his association with these sleazy Abramoff-sponsored junkets,” said Taylor West, a spokeswoman for Schaffer’s Democratic opponent, Mark Udall.

It might take months to see this through, and the impact of this might not be readily apparent even through November, but it will be there. Bob Schaffer is done.

finally, a post on the Colorado Senate race April 1, 2008

Excuse my tardiness. Colorado is voting for a new Senator to replace Mr. Allard (who, seemingly deservedly, has accrued the reputation of having done absolutely nothing as a Senator) and I haven’t yet begun to cover the race.

The contenders are Mark Udall, currently CO’s CD-2 rep, and Bob Schaffer, currently an oil/gas exec. Udall’s known for knowing the names and voices of all 434 Reps he serves with in D.C.  Schaffer’s known for his bloody R Senate primary battle with Pete Coors in 2004. Yea, there is a lot more there, but those two tags sum up who these guys are: Udall comes across as a “nice guy” and a consensus builder, Schaffer comes off as a Rovian pit bull willing to get in the mud with his opponents.

On the issues, this article in yesterday’s Rocky Mountain News is probably the best place to start. Udall and Schaffer both served in the House at the same time, and the House being what it is (a byzantine empire ruled absolutely by the majority, with thousands of pointless message votes mixed in with a few legit ones) both have very long records. The RMN does a great summary of the opposing votes cast, finding that Udall and Schaffer are about as opposite as you’re ever going to find in a Senate race. Over four years the two cast over 2000 votes together and disagreed on half. Considering that half of those 2,036 votes were probably typical House busy work (eg. “H.Res. 2198: A Resolution Congratulating John Smith on becoming the 347th Postmaster of Schluberville, Illinois”), finding that Udall and Schaffer disagreed on the half of the votes that meant something is interesting.

To see who you’d support (I’m sure you already know), take the RMN’s quiz. (Warning: bad quiz. Udall’s name misspelled throughout. You have to manually count the times you agree with each candidate. No score given. blah blah blah)

To this point the polls have the race a close tie, with Udall holding a slight (very slight) lead in most. Polls are fine, but they don’t predict turnout or excitement well and turnout is what this race will come down to. In that regard Schaffer has big problems while Udall has a golden brick road laid down in front of him. In the Feb. 5th caucuses when both the D and R races were still very close, the statewide turnout was ~120,000 for the D’s vs. ~55,000 for the R’s. Obama drew close to 80,000 votes while McCain drew about 10,000 and lost to Romney by worse than 3-1. Bob Schaffer might be worried about a lot of things, but those numbers should be his #1 concern. The numbers shout clearly that Colorado Democrats are excited about November 2008 while Colorado Republicans are apathetic. I doubt the Bob Schaffer ticket is going to draw those apathetic R’s out when they stayed home for the Romney vs. McCain vs. Huckabee fight. Meanwhile, Mr. Udall gets to sit back and watch all those fired up Obama voters pull the D lever over and over again.