Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Schaffer hits hard at Dems

Western Slope trip aimed to show he remains 'viable'

By Ed Sealover, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 29, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  
U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer autographs the shirt of Terra Wilcox, 16 months, after speaking Tuesday with supporters at the County Republican headquarters in Delta. Kym Miller kisses tiny Terra. Schaffer said the integrity of the U.S. Constitution is at stake in this election.

Photo by Brian Lehmann / The Rocky

U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer autographs the shirt of Terra Wilcox, 16 months, after speaking Tuesday with supporters at the County Republican headquarters in Delta. Kym Miller kisses tiny Terra. Schaffer said the integrity of the U.S. Constitution is at stake in this election.

Related Links

More Elections

More stories »

Republican Bob Schaffer warned about the dangers of Democrats holding too much power on a day when he fended off new questions about his chances of winning Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat.

He came to the Western Slope armed with messages about cutting taxes to spur the economy and increasing domestic energy production - something that played especially well with the employees of the natural gas company he addressed in the morning. But more than usual, Schaffer emphasized the need to keep Democrats from winning nine more Senate seats this year and holding a filibuster-proof majority.

In answering a question at one event, Schaffer implied that the integrity of the U.S. Constitution is at stake if Democrats control all top federal offices.

Debates over international treaties and Supreme Court justices will not happen if Democrats can cut off dissenting Republican voices, Schaffer told voters at five different stops.

"It will ensure a strategy toward higher taxes," he said. "It will ensure a strategy toward surrender and defeat in the war on terror. It will ensure a strategy on energy that involves less production instead of more."

Schaffer reached out first to workers at the Parachute plant of EnCana, a natural gas producer. He followed that with trips to Republican headquarters in Grand Junction and Delta, a pizza parlor in Montrose and a steakhouse in Meeker.

No place to meddle

Several people asked him about Democratic efforts to impose the so-called fairness doctrine on talk radio, by requiring stations to balance conservative talk-radio shows with liberal ones.

Schaffer said this was no place for government to meddle, and questioned whether it might lead to stations having to find voices in favor of militant groups like Hezbollah or Hamas.

He also fielded several questions about the "fair tax" - a proposal to replace the federal income tax with a federal sales tax - that is grounded in Congress. Schaffer said that while he thinks it's more defensible than the current tax code, it is politically unfeasible to try to repeal the income tax enshrined in the Constitution at the same time Congress enacts a sales tax.

The vast majority of the crowds were supporters, and Schaffer spent much time encouraging them to work hard over the last week before the Nov. 4 election.

No longer 'viable'?

Bill Miller, political director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has spent about $2 million against Democratic candidate Mark Udall, was quoted Tuesday in The Washington Post as saying that Schaffer "is no longer a viable candidate."

Scott McInnis, who briefly entered the Senate race last year, also told the Colorado Independent, an online news site, that he felt he could have defeated Udall.

After some Republicans expressed concerns about McInnis' remarks, the former congressman said he didn't mean to imply that Schaffer couldn't win.

Schaffer dismissed Miller's comments as coming from someone outside Colorado, and said he is the candidate, not McInnis.

Schaffer's campaign has said its internal polls show that the majority of voters still undecided about the Senate race live outside the Denver area in Republican-leaning counties, so that's where the candidate is spending his time.

Not every question he faced from Republicans was a friendly one, however. Grand Junction businessman Steve Bagga said that Congress should consider a moratorium on home foreclosures, but Schaffer said no law allows a government to interfere with private contracts between two parties.

"You've got a legal theory that is just not consistent with America's traditions," Schaffer said.

More purple than red

Some analysts have questioned Schaffer for leaving the more populous Front Range area in the last days of the campaign.

But Shawn Pinnt, a 15-year EnCana worker, said that while a recent influx of Californians has turned the Western Slope more purple than red, that is only because many of the conservatives don't vote.

He also said this is the first year he has voted.

Linda Sorenson, a volunteer with the Delta County Republican Party, said that she has encouraged people to wear Schaffer T-shirts out to restaurants and engage anyone who asks why they should support Schaffer.

"I think if we get out the vote in western Colorado, it will cancel out Jefferson County's votes for Mark Udall," she said after Schaffer spoke to a 75-person crowd that included 26 enthusiastic middle-school students from nearby Delta Academy. "We have enough Republican voters that we can win this election for Bob Schaffer."

Comments

  • October 29, 2008

    3:06 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Who_Me writes:

    Stick a fork in him, he's done.

  • October 29, 2008

    9:36 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Jonah writes:

    Sorry, Bob, karma is going to get you. (He knows what I mean)Maybe after your loss next Tuesday, you could spend more time with your racist son in Dayton, Ohio. Or, maybe you should just move back to Ohio. Colorado deserves better, and will get it from Mark Udall.