If you watched the gubernatorial primary debates this past week on 9News, there were two easy conclusions to reach.
In the Democratic debate between Michael Bennet and Phil Weiser, we learned too little. Because there is little, this deep in the campaign, separating Bennet and Weiser on the issues.
And in the Republican TMI debate among Victor Marx, Barbara Kirkmeyer and Scott Bottoms, we learned way too much, including information that should be disqualifying for two of the candidates, state Rep. Bottoms and “high-risk missionary” Marx.
In neither case is that a surprise. As we’ve seen, Bennet and Weiser mostly agree on most things, and the charges they made against each other in the debate — at times heated, but never exactly memorable — have been basically the same charges they’ve been slinging for months.
Are we being asked to judge Bennet and Weiser on the basis of who is tougher — or not tough enough — on Donald “Wake Me When It’s Over” Trump? Here’s my verdict: Both would be far better than Jared Polis, who has been the most Trump-accomodating Democratic governor in the country.
In the debate, Weiser slammed Bennet for voting for too many of Trump’s cabinet nominees, basically calling him an accommodationist. Bennet replied that the easiest thing in the world for a Democrat to do is to vote against a Trump appointee — and that he did the tough thing by voting for those in the Trump administration whose cooperation is needed on Colorado issues like fighting wildfires.
Weiser noted, in return, that he had sued Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins three times, including once for her reduction of food stamp benefits, and that Bennet should apologize for his vote to confirm her. Bennet said he has nothing to apologize for on the Rollins vote, that he knew exactly what to expect from her on food stamps and other Trump-inspired cruelty. But he said Rollins has been cooperative with Western senators in ensuring their states will have sufficient resources during the wildfire season.
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SUBSCRIBEI’m thinking you’ve heard this debate before.
For Bennet’s part, he said Weiser’s many recent lawsuits against Trump were far fewer in the first Trump term. Weiser has backed away from his reasoning that Trump had more guardrails in the first term — which was the most lawless term in American history, as Bennet said, until this one. Fightin’ Phil says he’s always been a fighter for Coloradans and pointed to his record to prove it. I’m guessing he’d fight anyone who says otherwise.
It is interesting, though, that Weiser didn’t enter an AG lawsuit in Trump’s first term on separating migrant children from their parents. Weiser, whose mother was born in a concentration camp, obviously cares about children being separated from their families. He hasn’t exactly said why he didn’t join that lawsuit, only saying that after reading Project 2025, Democratic attorneys general were far better prepared to challenge Trump in court this time around.
I’m thinking you’ve heard this one before, too.
Meanwhile, both Weiser and Bennet came out strongly against much of Polis’ recent veto-rama and, of course, his egregious Tina Peters decision. They both cited their plans to reduce housing prices. They both came out against ICE’s masked, jackbooted thugs and Trump’s anti-immigrant purge. They both vowed to protect Colorado’s water rights, even as we’re facing an official drought. They both came out against what they agreed was overregulation of state businesses. And both agreed with Polis’ veto of a bill that makes it easier for unions to organize, although both said they agreed with the bill in, uh, spirit.
And on. And on.
I have been wondering since Bennet joined Weiser in the race — when Weiser said, and still says, that the perfect bumper sticker would be “Weiser for governor, Bennet for Senate” — what issue would separate them.
I’m still wondering.
And the Republicans? I wish H.L. Mencken were here to cover this race. But we do have this lead from the Colorado Public Radio account of the GOP debate: “It was unlike any political debate in recent Colorado memory.”
The article goes on to say that the debate was reminiscent of a Saturday Night Live cold open, except the jokes — if you want to look at it that way — lasted for an hour.
The thing is, while the lead to the story is correct, it’s also a vast understatement. My memory goes back a lot further than recent Colorado memory, and I’ve never seen anything even approaching it. Kirkmeyer and Bottoms both called Marx a con man whom they would not support if he wins the nomination. All anyone has to do is watch Marx’s hilarious-in-a-bad-way interview with Kyle Clark to know they’re right. In the debate, as Marx dodged question after question, it was also clear that he didn’t have any idea of how to govern the state. His main qualification, he says, is that he’s an outsider, which he clearly is.
Bottoms, meanwhile, is firmly in the uber-MAGA camp, trending toward QAnon and maybe beyond. He’s the one, you’ll remember, who charges that Democrats in the legislature and governor’s office are running a pedophile ring. He really says that. And that may not even be the worst thing he says.
In the debate, Bottoms was asked about whether he welcomes support from rabid right-wing podcaster Joe Oltmann, who has called Polis, Weiser and Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold the “synagogue of Satan Jews” and that they should be “arrested, tried and hanged.”
While saying he has nothing against the Jewish people, Bottoms points out that he’s been told that two of the Satan Jews — Griswold and Weiser — would face federal indictment for treason this summer, but argued that he wouldn’t be in favor of hanging them.
Yes, he said that, just as he said, when Kyle Clark asked whether he might appoint Oltmann to a position in his administration if he were somehow elected governor, “Assuming that it’s not around Jewish people, probably.”
That leaves us with an interesting question: Which is the bigger joke — Bottoms’ far-from-funny Jewish comments or the idea that he could somehow be Colorado’s governor?
Meanwhile, the third candidate — state Sen. Kirkmeyer, a strong conservative and the sane one in the group — has to live down her part in supporting Weld County’s 2013 mind-boggling secession movement. Let’s just say that’s not something you’d usually find on a governor’s resume. But her biggest embarrassment was having to share a stage with the two GOP clowns.
Bennet did tell us something about whom he might appoint as senator if he becomes governor. After saying that Polis’ clemency of Peters was disqualifying, he said in the debate that he would appoint someone — not that he’s saying he has thought about who the appointee would be — under the age of 50. You might want to note that Reps. Joe Neguse, Jason Crow and Brittany Pettersen would all qualify.
In the Dem debate, that counts as news. I mean, we already knew that Bennet and Weiser are moderately liberal politicians who think deep thoughts about policy — even if many are the same thoughts.
In the Republican debate, Marx decided he would make his closing statement a closing prayer. After watching this theater of the absurd, I’m sure many Coloradans must have been offering prayers of their own.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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