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President may be seeing pink during visit

Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 28, 2005 at midnight

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President Bush's planned trip to Colorado Tuesday to raise money for U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave is expected to boost the two-term congresswoman's already formidable war chest.

It also has resurrected that famous pink suit.

Bob Martinez, chairman of the state Republican Party, said he expects a good turnout at the $1,000- a-plate luncheon at the Brown Palace, despite the short notice for the fundraiser.

Although Bush's popularity is on the wane, Martinez said he doesn't believe that hurts Musgrave.

"The president still appeals to the base" of the Republican Party, Martinez said. "It ebbs and it flows," he said of Bush's popularity. "In two months, he could be the most popular president."

The chairman blamed the media, in part, for Bush's low numbers, saying it focuses on negative coverage of the war.

Some streets near the Brown Palace will be blocked off while the president is there. But the liberal group ProgressNow plans to get as close as it can with a truck pulling a portable billboard with a picture on it of Musgrave. The billboard will contain a yet-to-be-announced slogan.

ProgressNow received some 600 suggestions in its contest to pick a billboard slogan, said executive director Michael Huttner.

In some of the billboards, Musgrave appears with Bush. In some, she is dressed in a pink suit.

The suit harkens back to the 2004 campaign, when political opponents targeted the Fort Morgan Republican in a TV spot that featured an actress in a pink suit, representing Musgrave, stealing a watch from a corpse. The ad said Musgrave, as a state lawmaker, voted against a bill that would have barred nursing homes from charging families of their late clients for rent, care and other fees after their death.

Musgrave's chief of staff, Guy Short, called ProgressNow's billboard slogan contest an effort to get free publicity. The slogan ideas touch on various themes, including Musgrave's leadership in the anti- gay marriage movement.

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