In this year’s race for U.S. Senate, Colorado voters have a clear choice both in substance and in style.
Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet has backed President Obama 97 percent of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly.
His opponent, Republican Ken Buck, opposes virtually every significant measure passed or pending in the current Congress – massive “stimulus” spending, government-mandated health care, and cap-and-tax energy policy.
Buck regularly provides straight answers to tough questions and speaks his mind clearly, even when it might be more expedient to tap dance. The lords of political correctness convulse at Buck’s frankness, but to voters fed up with politicians who talk out of both sides of their mouth, Buck is refreshing.
Coloradans warm to candidates who shoot straight: ask Wayne Allard, who’s affable, plain-spoken style earned him two terms in the Senate.
Bennet, on the other hand, is the master of evasive non-answers, striving mightily, since the day Gov. Bill Ritter appointed him, to have his cake and eat it, too.
Business leaders longed for Bennet to oppose the heavy-handed union “card check” legislation, which takes away workers’ secret-ballot elections. Likewise, labor unions pressed for Bennet’s support. On this key issue, Bennet seemingly couldn’t make up his mind.
Then in a debate this month, Bennet finally seemed to take a stand, saying he “would not support the language in the bill.” However, Bennet said only that he would vote against the language in the bill as it exists today. It’s anyone’s guess how he will vote on a slightly different version.
Some Bennet supporters contend that “the real Michael Bennet” isn’t the lockstep liberal who’s voted slavishly for the past two years to advance the Obama agenda, loading $3 trillion of debt on taxpayers and their children – including his own.
The Denver Post acknowledged that Bennet hasn’t “bucked his party or his president” on even one major issue. Yet the Post endorsed him, claiming the Bennet they once knew was “a maverick.”
So, who are you going to believe — those who say they know “the real Michael Bennet” or the Michael Bennet record you’ve seen for yourself?
Once “broken to lead,” a horse doesn’t need to be re-trained every time you want to lead it. In two years, Barack Obama and Harry Reid have broken Michael Bennet to lead.
Remember, we were told that Barack Obama wasn’t as liberal as his voting record in the Senate, but as it turns out, Shakespeare was right — “past is prologue.”
Consider the possibility that Bennet himself simply doesn’t believe that “the real Michael Bennet” — whoever that may be — is someone voters will like. How else do you explain that even his campaign commercials about himself are so obviously disingenuous, if not untruthful?
Remember the ludicrous commercial early this year when Bennet tried to persuade us that he was more attuned to Washington County, Colo., which in reality he had rarely even visited, than to Washington, D.C., where he grew up?
His latest commercial is less audacious but equally ridiculous. Bennet asserts that “special interests” are supporting his opponent — implying that they are not supporting him, which is demonstrably false to the tune of $7.7 million.
“Colorado’s not for sale and neither am I,” he continues. “I’m nobody’s Senator but yours.”
Sorry, Senator Bennet, but voters across this state tried to tell you that they don’t like the agenda advanced by President Obama and your party. You ignored them.
The only remaining explanations for your voting record are that you truly are a lockstep liberal or that powerful politicians and special interests have been pulling your strings.
Neither is an acceptable answer for our U.S. Senator.