Denver, CO — In case you missed it, a recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal unpacks Michael Bennet's failed attempts to paint Joe O'Dea as an extremist.
See the highlights below:
On Colorado Politics
"But Colorado isn’t out of reach for the GOP. The Democratic voter-registration advantage is only 28% to 25%, with 45% unaffiliated. In 2014, the last midterm election with a Democrat in the White House, Cory Gardner beat an incumbent Democratic senator. (Mr. Gardner lost his re-election bid in 2020.)
"Unlike Mr. Gardner, Mr. O’Dea, who made his fortune in the construction business, is a first-time candidate. But his campaign “has been brilliant,” says a Democratic political consultant who asks not to be named. The RealClearPolitics average has Mr. Bennet up 8.6 points. But he’s below 50%, and an August survey from the Republican Attorneys General Association found the candidates tied."
On Energy
"Energy is a flashpoint. Gale Norton, a former state attorney general and U.S. interior secretary, says oil and gas production has brought 'great growth for Colorado’s economy' and Mr. O’Dea’s 'defense of that will be very helpful.' The nominee regularly rings that bell: 'You can’t shut off the grid that we have before you have one ready to replace it,' he says. Racing for the middle, however, he adds, 'I believe in wind, solar, nuclear, all those things.'
"Mr. Bennet has been cagey, attempting to separate himself from environmental extremists. Asked about electric cars, he generally approves but says, 'I do not want the Chinese, or Beijing is a better way of saying it, to own the electric-car industry in the 21st century.'"
On Abortion
"Mr. O’Dea endorses legal abortion, largely neutralizing that hot-button issue. 'I think for the first five months, that decision belongs between a woman and her doctor,' he says, and that was his line in the primary too. 'I think the late-term thing is outrageous on demand, and that’s where Bennet is.'
"Democratic groups spent more than $4 million promoting Mr. O’Dea’s Trump-supporting primary opponent, Ron Hanks, with ads attacking Mr. O’Dea as a pro-abortion moderate. That complicates efforts to call him an extremist now. 'I’ve seen [Mr. O’Dea] win people over, even though abortion is . . . such a divisive issue,' says Lora Thomas, a Republican candidate for sheriff in Douglas County."
On O'Dea vs. Bennet
"Mr. Bennet, the son of a State Department official and college president, was raised in Washington. He looks it, too, with the Capitol Hill uniform of a button-down shirt and dress slacks, the tie carefully discarded for his Colorado campaign events. After Yale Law School, he served in the Clinton administration before moving to Colorado in 1997—'more than a quarter of a century ago,' he snaps in answer to a question about whether he’s a carpetbagger. 'I’m as much a Coloradan as any other Coloradan,' he says, and he’s determined to show it."
"Dressed in short sleeves, Mr. O’Dea presents himself as casual, unpracticed at professional politics. A champion horseman, he wants to talk about Baxter Black and cowboy poetry. Asked about his early influences, he says: 'I got into a little bit of trouble in junior high school, and so my parents took me out of a public school and sent me to an all-boys Catholic school, run by nuns and brothers. I had to pay the tuition by working nights and Saturdays here at Piccolo’s.'"
On Michael Bennet
"Still, Mr. Bennet has detractors. 'I badly want to replace Michael Bennet, because Michael Bennet isn’t even really from Colorado,' says Mark Hillman, a 55-year-old wheat farmer. Mr. Bennet has yet to debate Mr. O’Dea, which sits poorly with some. 'I think Joe has a kind of a very strong-blue collar presence,' says Dick Wadhams, a political consultant from Littleton, 'and I think Bennet is afraid of it.' But Mr. Bennet is clever and speaks with a calm softness that has served him well in previous years’ debates."
"Mr. Bennet has voted with Mr. Biden 98% of the time. His 'voting record speaks as loud as anything,' says Mr. O’Dea. 'For him to now come out and say he’s a moderate is really disingenuous.'
Original source can be found here
