Bennet Will be in a Major Party Battle

After eight months and in the midst of the Democratic Party’s crack-up over health care, newly appointed Senator Michael Bennet has some assets, but a rapidly growing array of liabilities.

On the asset side, Bennet has shown himself to be smart, hard working and with an organized campaign team whose biggest success has been fundraising (more than $3 million in two quarters).

On the liability side, Bennet is poorly known and now suffering from the blues associated with congress and Washington. The latest circulated Colorado poll shows Bennet with a 9 point deficit in voter approval over disapproval and only 31 percent of voters approving his performance.


Bennet was, of course, hoping to use that surfeit of money to create an image of moderate leadership against a still unimpressive Republican field. Unfortunately, one of the state’s most visible underemployed Democrats, Andrew Romanoff, will challenge him. Now, Bennet will have to spend some of that money defending himself this winter and spring.

The race is hard to handicap today, but if Romanoff is ready for a real fight, he has some advantages as the non-establishment candidate, dissed by unpopular Governor Bill Ritter and with a decent claim to party support for years of legislative and ballot issue leadership.

See The Hill article