Welcome to another Colorado edition of Crashing The States--this time featuring Bill Winter!
(You'll also be able to find this diary cross-posted on Colorado's local Soapblox-based blog, Squarestate.net.)
Today's entry comes to you from Ashland, OR--where the crew is overnighting on the way to visit Jerry McNerney's campaign in California's 11th district.
Bill Winter is challenging incumbent Republican Tom Tancredo. Now, that's really all I should need to say to get people to be interested in Bill Winter's candidacy. In case you don't know who Tom Tancredo is, allow the dKosopedia to introduce you to the most virulent racist xenophobe currently polluting the halls of Congress.
The 6th District of Colorado spans the southern edge of the Denver metro area and extends east into a large unpopulated area--on its southern border is the 5th district, in which Jay Fawcett is running for the open seat against Doug Lamborn.
We caught up with Bill at his office in Centennial. Follow for more below the fold!
What continues to amaze me--everywhere I go--is the quality of the candidates the Democratic Party has running in this election cycle, and Bill Winter is certainly no exception. A definite straight shooter, well-spoken, charismatic, and intense. A man who served in the Navy and the Marines, while his opponent Tom Tancredo got literally six deferments from military service, including at least one for mental health reasons--which he seems to still be suffering from.
Tancredo has a lot of problems in his district. Despite the fact that it has a net Republican registration advantage, Bill told me that according to their polling, there is a full 40% of district voters who would vote for a sockpuppet over Tom Tancredo. In addition, Tom Tancredo is a horrible fundraiser, according to what I've been told, and he has alienated the White house and the Republican Party so much with his outspoken position on immigration and his direct confrontation with Bush and Rove over the issue that the Republican Party is putting essentially no money into getting him re-elected.
Previously, this wasn't a problem for Tom, as he has faced only nominal opposition in his recent campaigns from candidates who only raised a few tens of thousands of dollars. But this time, things are a little different.
We first met up with Bill in his finance office, where he had to do a little "call time" before he sat down to speak with us.
Now, I'd have to describe Bill as being slightly upset. First off, he's upset with the current state of the country--as are most of the candidates we talk to. But Bill is especially unnerved about the way the Republicans have abused veterans, especially with regard to the way they swiftboat the veterans who run for office under the Democratic standard.
I asked Bill if the Tancredo campaign had tried to slander his military service like we've seen happen with Jim Webb, Joe Sestak, Eric Massa, and countless other veterans this cycle, and Bill said that he thought that not even they were that stupid, and that if they did, he'd put them in their place in a hurry. It makes sense, in a way--youwouldn't expect a campaign for a candidate with six deferments to challenge the patriotism of a candidate who has served in two branches of the military.
Not only, in fact, has Bill served in both the Navy and the Marines--as a matter of fact, he wanted to re-enlist. He says there's a phrase out there--once a Marine, always a Marine. And the way Bill explains it, until you've been in the Marines, you don't really understand it. And the reason they didn't let him re-enlist? Because he had donated a kidney to his sister-in-law. He was upset with that decision--he doesn't see how having only one kidney should prevent him from being an activy duty Marine.
I don't know--I guess he hates our troops.
STATE OF THE RACE:
There hasn't been any independent polling conducted in the district since May, but Tancredo's campaign apparently conducted some polling last month and didn't release the results. Not only did they not release the results, after the conclusion of the poll, Tancredo immediately cancelled all of his out-of-state campaign appearances (yes, he really thinks he's going to run for President!) and started doing something he's never done before--spend money on direct mail and radio advertising!
Unfortunately for Tom, it's pretty clear that he doesn't have that much experience with direct mail--because what his campaign came up with is quite the piece of work:
(Click on image for larger version)
Yes, that's right. It's a cartoon drawing of Bill Winter as a puppet with Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy (the latter of whom Bill Winter has never even met) holding the strings (with Howard Dean thrown in just for show). Not only does it look completely childish, but there are at least two misspellings on the back of the flyer--including Capitol Punishment--and the printing job is absoltutely atrocious.
But there's another reason Bill is upset--despite Tancredo's high negatives and the apparent danger Tancredo feels he's in, Bill says he's getting absolutely no support from the national party committees and he essentially has to win the race on his own--which is difficult for any challenger to do, but Bill is working is heart out to be able to accomplish that goal.
But at least Bill has the bloggers on Squarestate. Bill knows about the power of the blogosphere. You may remember that he won Mark Warner's "mapchangers" contest, and in a gracious act of unity, asked Mark Warner to do the exact same thing for John Courage's campaign that he did for Bill's.
Bill meets with bloggers relatively often, and he held a meeting in downtown Denver with some local bloggers the night that we were in town.
In the center is Bill Winter's campaign treasurer--whose name I have sadly forgotten, as well as two local Colorado bloggers, including TakeBackTheHouse. We covered a wide range of subjects, like we usually do--including the relationship between the candidates and the bloggers, how Bill Winter first started blogging, and a wide variety of things.
As I write, Gary is currently in the front passenger seat of our car editing together a video of our time with Bill Winter--I'll be posting it soon, both here and on Squarestate.
Be watching for our next entry, which will take you to Montana and the Tester for Senate campaign, by way of Wyoming--where we stopped in at Gary Trauner's HQ to say hi!