The “cartoon” below appeared in print and online editions of The Examiner newspapers this week. These publications are owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, who is well-known to Colorado Democrats because he has repeatedly funded anti-labor and anti-gay ballot initiatives in our state. He has also been a major funding source for various committees of the national Republican Party and has contributed thousands of dollars over the years to Tom Tancredo. Although Philip Anschutz publicly supports Jane Norton in this year’s senate race, he funneled $100,000 to Michael Bennet’s campaign in 2009 from PACs and executives of companies he controlled at that time.
The offending cartoon, courtesy of Phil Anschutz
Michael Bennet spent his first six years in Colorado (1998-2004) becoming quite wealthy working as a kind of corporate raider for Mr. Anschutz who specializes in buying up distressed and bankrupt companies, consolidating some into new entities, and selling off other pieces for profit. While Mr. Anschutz has been quite successful financially, he is not known for restoring pensions or retirement benefits to employees of his companies.
During his ten years in Colorado before he was appointed to the Senate there is virtually no evidence of Michael Bennet speaking out for minorities or expressing any opinions at all on civil rights or other issues important to progressive Democrats. That is why it is all the more appalling that his campaign is attacking the integrity of Andrew Romanoff.
The cartoon in question was inspired of course by a Denver Post story several weeks ago planted by the Bennet campaign. The story found “manipulation” by the Romanoff campaign in a composite blue-screened banner produced by a volunteer at the top of its website. The image of an African-American woman, a strong supporter of Romanoff, had been moved next to his own image. Neither Romanoff nor anyone on his staff had knowledge of this and the original pictures of the event were so similar to the banner in question that when contacted, the campaign reaction was mostly disbelief that it was a serious story. Bennet’s own campaign had mailed thousands of campaign pieces with his image seeming to sprout from President Obama’s neck just a few weeks before, but this didn’t seem important to The Post. It didn’t matter that the campaign had never represented the banner as anything but a composite.
The banner in question had been in place online for all to see for seven months, apparently without offending anyone. Yet within hours the Bennet campaign had produced a list of about twenty Latinos who seemed deeply offended and demanded an apology. It was granted, and the banner was removed.
Apparently the Bennet campaign had been unable to find any African-Americans who had been offended, but they worked the story hard anyway, making sure every political news entity in America was notified. When the story was about to die, they worked hard to find new ways to keep it alive. The re-telling with no one looking at the original blue screened banner sounded so much more sinister, so fitting to their grand scheme to paint Andrew Romanoff as a racist.
The same Andrew Romanoff who worked in Montgomery, Alabama at the Southern Poverty Law Center fighting racist hate groups as a young man.
The same Andrew Romanoff who went to the trouble to learn to speak fluent Spanish and then taught English to High School kids in rural Central America to help give them a leg up in their lives and to give him a better understanding of their culture.
The same Andrew Romanoff who had the trust of virtually every legislator of any race who he worked with during his remarkable run in the state legislature as their Minority Leader and Speaker.
The same Andrew Romanoff who built a multicultural coalition of Whites, Latinos, and African-Americans to ward off a certain-to-pass ballot measure in 2006 that would have been as harmful and unjust to non-whites in Colorado as the legislation recently passed in Arizona is to minority citizens there.
That Andrew Romanoff.
That’s who the Bennet campaign, terrified of the Colorado electorate, knowing all the special interest money in the world will not be enough to save their candidate, is willing to try to destroy—Andrew Romanoff. And now as their despicable smear campaign is dying, they’ve engaged their Republican ally, Philip Anschutz to publish this distasteful cartoon.
Doesn’t it tell you why there is no place in the Democratic Party for those who would try to smear a good man like Andrew Romanoff? If Michael Bennet had just worked a few precincts with us before his appointment he wouldn’t put up with them either. Call his office in Washington at 202-224-5852 and tell him to get rid of these people. They are hurting him too, and their presence smears all of us.
Glad I was there to hear this first hand. Andrew Romanoff helped me remember what being a Democrat is all about…and it sure isn’t about being spineless!
There’s been a lot of talk bandied about in this period preceding the Colorado Senate Democratic primary. There are folks that use the term “progressive” when they refer to Sen. Michael Bennet, and I want to make sure that we really understand what this means.
Now, in all fairness, I am very psyched about the fact that Sen. Bennet signed on as a co-sponsor of the Dream Act, and I even shook his hand publicly at a Democratic Party picnic and thanked him for his courage. Also, he did sign on the the Lily Leadbetter Act, which guarantees equal pay for equal work. I am glad that he decided to act as your garden-variety Democrat would act.
However, I just have to remind everyone of one of Sen. Bennet’s first actions when he arrived at the Senate, which was to join the “ConservaDem” faction led by Sen. Evan Bayh. Right out of the gate, the ConservaDems trumpeted that they wanted a slowdown to spending and even threatened to slow down the President’s agenda. Remember Rachel Maddow’s report back in March 2009:
Here’s the thing. We need Democrats to act like Democrats. We need them to be strong on labor, on consumer protections, on re-regulation of the finance and insurance industries. When they can get those no-brainers down, then we will have a strong coalition to wage the war for comprehensive immigration reform, for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. These social issues are going to take a whole lot of testicular fortitude to win, and they will only be won when we Democrats win the confidence of the American people again. They will be on the side of social change when they no longer live lives that are fraught with economic despair. Let’s not forget that the first thing that many middle-class people say about undocumented residents is that “they take our jobs.”
I’m so excited to learn about Lucia Guzman’s candidacy for Senate District 34. If you haven’t met her yet, she is a long-standing advocate for Denver county residents, from her work on the Denver school board, to her work with the Agency for Human Rights/Community Relations with the City and County of Denver. We here at Liberal Latina endorse Lucia Guzman for Senate District 34!
Cara Degette at the Colorado Independent is news flashing us on some great numbers that came out from the election:
A blogger at ColoradoPols has crunched a bunch of election numbers in several interesting ways, and determined that of Colorado’s five largest counties, four went for Barack Obama. Only El Paso County, a reliable GOP stronghold, went John McCain’s way. And, the pol noted, Denver and Boulder counties turned out to be way more Democratic than El Paso County was Republican.
Here’s the breakdown of the big counties:
Jefferson 283,468 votes — 54.69% (Obama)
El Paso 264,407 votes — 58.97% (McCain)
Denver 259,647 votes — 75.29% (Obama)
Arapahoe 232,167 — 55.29% (Obama)
Boulder 159,469 — 72.33% (Obama)
In another interesting view, the pol, who goes by the moniker Precinct854, determined the five counties that registered the highest Republican presidential turnout were sparsely populated and rural, with all but Rio Blanco on the eastern plains.
Here’s the GOP breakdown:
Cheyenne 80.11% (890)
Washington 77.77% (1935)
Rio Blanco 77.38% (2425)
Kiowa 76.27% (630)
Lincoln 74.27% (1683)
And, of the five highest-percentage counties that went for Obama, San Miguel in southwestern Colorado came out on top, with 77.06 percent.
Here’s the Democratic breakdown:
San Miguel 77.06% (3,345)
Denver 75.29% (195,499)
Costilla 73.40% (1,236)
Pitkin 73.74% (7,260)
Boulder 72.33% (115,339)
This is really interesting to us at Liberal Latina, because of the high numbers of new and Latino voter registrations that were gathered in those very same four counties (other than El Paso) have also seen a growth spurt in the number of Latino/Hispanic residents.
Keep this in mind, mi gente. Just because you see a family with undocumented/legal resident members doesn’t mean that no one in that household can vote. We all know that even though Mami and Papi can’t probably vote yet, there are plenty of young people of voting age that can. I read a statistic recently that every month 35,000 young Latinos turn old enough to vote!
And even if Mami and Papi can’t vote this time around, chances are that they have completed all citizenship requirements by the time the next general election comes around…or even sooner! Don’t forget that you are eligible to apply for citizenship after 5 years as a legal resident.
Voter registration needs to be constant, year-round activity for the Latino population. The Democratic Party better be along for the ride at every step of the wayin this process! Talk to your neighbors. Keep them informed about politics and how progressive agendas are good for them. When they’re ready to vote, get in touch with the Democratic Party branch in your area and get them registered! We can’t afford to pass this up!
Here is a picture of the first of my new liberal Latina swag that I’m going to be offering via this blog. I hate that there aren’t a lot of women-specific (or even Latina-specific) gear for female liberals, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and design my own line.
Stay tuned for more stuff, because as stuff happens, I want to wear the slogans. Everything will be cataloged on the “Latina Gear” page, which will be linked to the right of the page. A percentage of each sale will be earmarked for various causes, and I’ll specify which as I identify a worthy one!
“Earmark”! I guess that was a dirty word during the election, but ha ha! They lost!
Man, we worked our culitos off for Barack Obama, and it really paid off! It’s been a week since Election Day 2008, and here are some of the statistics regarding Hispanic voter turnout:
More than 330,000 Latinos voted in the state last week, compared with 165,000 in 2004, based on exit polling from media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Voto Latino, a national nonprofit organization that organized Latino voting drives in the state.
The data also shows that the share of Latino voters in Colorado has increased by 9 points to 17 percent since 2004. Nationally Latinos increased their share of the vote from 8 percent in 2004 to 9 percent in 2008, according to The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization.
This is increible, because it really shows how the electorate in Colorado increasingly has a Hispanic/Latino face.
I think Barack has some quick work to do on immigration reform! He can’t afford to forget about us. But I have lots of faith in him, because even during the last week he has shown a lot of solid judgment and good character. Hell, if he can cut Joe Lieberman some slack, I know he has good things in store for nuestra gente!
There’s been a lot of talk bandied about in this period preceding the Colorado Senate Democratic primary. There are folks that use the term “progressive” when they refer to Sen. Michael Bennet, and I want to make sure that we really understand what this means.
