Wolf eyes challenge to Schaffer for Senate

Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

A Delta County commissioner whose roots in Colorado go back five generations wants to take on former Congressman Bob Schaffer for the GOP nomination to the U.S. Senate.

Wayne Wolf, 56, acknowledged a "little David-and-Goliath kind of thing" in challenging a better-known and better-funded opponent.

"The thing I like about that story is who won," Wolf said Monday.

Wolf will make an announcement at noon Wednesday at the old Mesa County Courthouse in downtown Grand Junction.

"I think people ought to have a choice," Wolf said, when asked why he was thinking of running against Schaffer. "I know it's a huge undertaking. I've got a lot of work to do, and I know who the favorites are."

Schaffer said he believes he has met Wolf twice before and remembers him "as a nice man."

"I admire people like Mr. Wolf who take their concern about their state and country so seriously that they consider running for office themselves," Schaffer said.

But Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, said Schaffer already has built a "tremendous" campaign and and raised $717,000 in just six weeks.

"Until someone shows they can equal that, as far as I'm concerned, we have a de facto nominee," Wadhams said.

Wolf is serving his second term as county commissioner.

"I think I have some things to offer, particularly from a local government perspective. The federal government has been increasing unfunded mandates to us on all kinds of levels."

The Republican county commissioner was particularly critical of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which he called costly to school districts and "unrealistic."

Wolf, a rancher with a master's degree in education, lives in Cedaredge.

So far, only one Democrat, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, of Eldorado Springs, has announced he is seeking the nomination for the seat left open when U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland, leaves office next year.