So... now we need to keep Salazar honest and liberal.

[politicat]

We can't afford another Campbell Quickstep.

So my thought is this: I wrote a letter today to his office and sent it via a friend who worked on his campaign.

Dear Mr. Salazar,
First, please accept my congratulations on your successful bid for the US Senate Seat from Colorado. Everyone in my household is pleased that Colorado gave the Senate another Democrat and are hopeful for your future ability to improve the tone in that chamber.

However, we ask that you stand on the principles on which you ran - help for working families, reforming and fully funding No Child Left Behind, environmental preservation and clean up, sensible water use and water policy and effective security and foreign policy. To compromise those principles is to damage the trust we have placed in you. If we'd wanted someone willing to go along with the status quo, we, the people of Colorado, would have voted for your opponent.

Again, thank you for your service and my sincerest congratulations. We're behind you, as long as you're up front for us.

Sincerely....

Et cetera.

He's got six years. I know that freshmen don't have much influence in the Senate, but there are only 100 of them. It's not the house.

Pcat

[mountainvue]

1. Honest? Certainly.

Liberal? No. Salazar has always been a moderate. I don't see that changing.

[intheflow]

2. You don't think Salazar is firmly Dem?

I've only been in Denver about 3.5 years, from Massachusetts. CO politics confuse me--when MA elects a Dem to office, they stay Dems. The Campbell thing seems like an anomaly to me, but maybe I'm just not wise to the western ways yet.

I agree with Salazar on everything but the death penalty. But I also think he's smart enough to realize he rode in on (or provided) the coat-tails for the state legislature to turn Democratic. Unless something freaky happens, I want to think he'd stay with the party he came with. Am I being naive?

[mountainvue]

9. He won't flip.

He was a Leiberman guy, which doesn't really excite me but I voted for him anyway.

[coloradodem2005]

3. Ken's got our back.

;)

[hlthe2b]

4. Ken is a true Colorado native, through and through...

I think that is a big part of why even some Repugs voted for him...

[politicat]

5. It's more the compromise that worries me.

We Dems have been bent over Rethug barrels for how many years? Ted Kennedy did it on NCLB, and how many other times have we played by the rules and then had the rules change at the last buzzer?

It's not that I don't trust KS to stick to his principles as much as I don't trust him - or any Dem - not to try to compromise. And the more we compromise, the less difference there is between them and us.

Pcat

[CO Liberal]

6. Ken Salazar is One Person We Don't Have to Worry About

That sounds like the line of crap that we were getting from a lot of Mike Miles supporters last summer before the primary.


This is the DU member still known as CO Liberal.

[coloradodem2005]

7. Personally, I think some Dems may be feeling burned because of Campbell.

I think Salazar knows what side he's on. And he is there for a reason.

[CO Liberal]

8. Ben(edict Arnold) Nightmare Campbell Defected Ten Years Ago

And no other Democrats in Colorado followed his lead in the ensuing years, with the exception of Pueblo County DA Gus Sandstrom, who recently revealed that he registered as a Democrat after losing the nomination for re-election. (He got less than 30 percent of teh votes at the Country Assembly - Bill Thiebault got over 70 percent.)

Why on Earth do people think Ken Salazar will jump parties???


This is the DU member still known as CO Liberal.