Blake: Trouble for GOP in 5th?

Published October 4, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Opinion Columns & Blogs

If you're wondering how big the Democrats will win this fall, consider this: CQPolitics, an arm of Congressional Quarterly, has downgraded Colorado's 5th Congressional District from Safe Republican to Republican Favored.

There are other districts in Colorado, such as the 3rd and the 7th, where the GOP would love to earn a Republican Favored designation. But in this one, retiring Rep. Joel Hefley racked up margins of 70 percent or better in eight of his 10 races. His low-water mark was in 1990, when he squeaked to victory with a mere 66 percent margin over a Littleton school teacher.

When the 5th is merely Republican Favored, you know the GOP is in trouble nationwide if not in Colorado Springs.

The GOP candidate is two-term state Sen. Doug Lamborn. He won a six-way race in August for the open seat in a district where winning the primary was supposed to be tantamount to election. All of a sudden, it isn't. Democrat Jay Fawcett has at least a small chance.

"Landslide Lamborn" won the primary with a mere 27 percent plurality. Finishing a strong second with 25 percent was Jeff Crank, a former Hefley aide.

It wasn't one of those primaries where the losers all unite behind the winner on election night or soon thereafter. Lamborn hoped Crank would voluntarily come around. He didn't, and Lamborn had to go begging the other day.

To no avail so far. "I guard my endorsements pretty zealously," Crank said. "I don't just hand them out." The best he could do was promise not to actively work against him.

Lamborn isn't getting any help from Hefley either. Instead of staying neutral in the race to succeed him, Hefley backed Crank, who had helped him save Fort Carson from the tentacles of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

After the race, Hefley accused Lamborn of running "one of the sleaziest, most dishonest campaigns" he's seen in years.

As luck would have it, even as Lamborn was being spurned by those he needs, he was getting help from someone whose help may not now be welcome or useful: House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

The 5th District has five major military installations and Lamborn would like a seat on the House Armed Services Committee. Hefley served on it during most of his tenure.

"I will work with my colleagues in the Republican leadership to help make this committee assignment become reality," Hastert wrote the other day in a letter that Lamborn cheerfully publicized.

Well. Since then Hastert has been accused of doing nothing about Mark Foley even though he'd been warned a year or more ago about the e-mails the Florida Republican had been exchanging with young male pages. Foley resigned as the scandal broke, blamed alcohol and retreated to an undisclosed rehab facility.

Even the conservative Washington Times has called upon Hastert to resign, saying he was either "grossly negligent" for not heeding the warning signs or he "deliberately looked the other way."

Even if Lamborn is elected, Hastert is not likely to be in a position to help him get plum committee assignments in January, either as speaker or as minority leader.

At least Hastert didn't come to Colorado Springs for a Lamborn fundraiser last weekend, as The Hill newspaper, a Washington publication, erroneously reported. If he had, Lamborn would have been under pressure to return the money.

Lamborn has no military experience while rival Fawcett is an Air Force Academy graduate and a retired lieutenant colonel. That should help in military-rich El Paso County, but fortunately for Lamborn, his rival is no firebrand and has a tendency to talk like he's presenting an intelligence report to superior officers.

Fawcett is promoting a poll his campaign paid for in late August that has him surging ahead of Lamborn. He's hoping that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will take note of his progress and start spending money promoting him.

State Sen. Ron May, R-Colorado Springs, dismissed the possibility of a Lamborn defeat. "I don't think it's serious for Lamborn," he said. "He's not going to get beat." May predicted Lamborn would get at least 60 percent of the vote - short of Hefley margins but a rout in any other district.

But it's an odd year. The 5th has been solidly Republican ever since it was created in 1972 for legislator Bill Armstrong. He held it for six years, then Ken Kramer for eight before Hefley took over. If it goes Democratic Nov. 7, it would possibly be the biggest upset in the House.

blakep@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5119.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News