Welcome to another edition of Crashing the States--featuring Jay Fawcett in the 5th district of Colorado! This diary comes from you live from Seattle, where we're in town for the Darcy Burner campaign--we just got in from Montana last night!
What I was originally intending on doing for the Colorado section of this trip was writing one diary about our stop in Colorado, encompassing both the Jay Fawcett campaign in CO-05 and the Bill Winter campaign in CO-06. But I had such a great experience with the campaigns in Colorado that I felt that each candidate was worthy of their own diary, even though it may set my posting schedule back a day. I'm writing about Jay Fawcett's campaign first because we visited Jay's campaign earlier from a chronological point of view, and I need to do my best to keep absolutely everything fresh.
Jay Fawcett is running for Congress in one of the most conservative districts in the country--a district that encompasses Colorado Springs, the home of the U.S. Air Force academy, and James Dobson's Focus on the Family compound.
Follow below for our experience in Colorado Springs...
Previous entries: NC-08 (Larry Kissell);
VA-Sen (Jim Webb);
DC interviews;
PA-07 and PA-08 (Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy);
NJ-07 (Linda Stender); NYS-41:
1 and
2 (Brian Keeler);
CT-Sen (Ned Lamont);
NH-02 (Paul Hodes);
NY-29 (Eric Massa);
IN-06 (Barry Welsh);
IL-10 and IL-14 (Dan Seals and John Laesch);
TX-21 (John Courage)
Our first mission in Colorado was to pick up our third and final (hopefully!) cinematographer, Andy, up from the Denver airport. Unfortunately, the drive from Austin to Denver was far less entertaining than the trip from Chicago to Austin. Essentially, we made our way from Austin to Decatur, and then I drove all the way from Decatur to Denver, filming scenery along the way. It's a good thing we gained an hour in between Central and Mountain time, because I'll tell you what--I needed that extra hour of sleep that night!
Now, I had never been to Colorado before, and Colorado Springs definitely matched my expectations as far as scenery. Only problem is that we seemed to have brought the bad weather with us--like usual. Our first day in Colorado was overcast--but that was just the beginning!
Once we got to Colorado Springs that afternoon, we stopped by Jay's campaign headquarters on Tejon St--which just happens to be located across the street from the Republican coordinated campaign office in Colorado Springs. I wonder if they ever cast evil glances at each other from across the road...
We got directions to a house party that Jay was attending as part of his candidacy, and showed up to get some footage of Jay on the campaign trail. The house in question also had an unexpected visitor--at least from my standpoint, because I never expect to see deer anywhere. And for those concerned about what Gary is trying to do to the wildlife--all he did was pick up a leaf from the ground to try to entice the deer. They're pretty tame in and around Colorado Springs. I actually had one run two feet in front of me on her way across the road.
Now, before I get further involved in the travelogue, I'd like to just give a brief word about the state of the race, and the state of the district.
Colorado Springs--as you can well imagine--is one of the most conservative areas of the country, for two prominent reasons: 1) the U.S. Air Force Academy's presence in Colorado Springs makes it a military town; and 2) James Dobson's Focus on the Family compound is located here as well, and his presence has attracted many of those of a similar persuasion. Because of these factors, Republicans outnumber Democrats 2-1 when it comes to party registration.
This district has not elected a Democrat since its creation in 1972. And it seems to me that if that's ever going to change, Jay Fawcett is going to be the man to change it. Not only does he have a biography that is perfectly suited to the district, but he's also a compelling, dynamic, and well-informed speaker.
Further assisting Fawcett's campaign is the fact that this is an open seat for the first time in about 20 years--the incumbent Republican, Joel Hefley, is retiring. Now, Hefley is a traditional Republican who might be best known for his principled stand on the ethics committee, where he voted against relaxing the ethics rules to allow Tom Delay to serve as speaker of the house after his indictment--and was promptly demoted by party leadership for actually having a commitment to House ethics.
The Republican who wishes to replace Hefley--Doug Lamborn--promises not to be such a principled Republican. He is the new breed of Republican--the ultra-conservative, Club For Growth-funded candidate like Bill Sali in ID-01 who will do anything and say anything to get in power. But, like many such Republicans, his own attitude might very well be his undoing, as evidenced by this frightening episode in a debate between Fawcett and Winter regarding mercenaries in Iraq:
You shut up!
And to counteract his own stupidity, Doug Lamborn is going after--you guessed it--YOU. And me. And Markos. And everyone who posts here. He's gone negative against DailyKos, just like Macacawitz did against Jim Webb.
Watch Lamborn's negative ad
Lamborn is so bad, and ran such a sleazy primary campaign, that Hefley refused to endorse Lamborn in his race against Jay.
Fawcett talked with intelligence about the crucial national issues of the day, such as the deficit and the occupation of Iraq, but--for the first time that I can recall on the trip--he actually spent some time talking at the house party about his support from the blogosphere and why Lamborn was attacking him for it. It's amazing that the blogosphere has become a campaign issue in Colorado Springs, but that's the way it is.
Despite the conservative nature of Colorado Springs politics, there is a little bit of a resurgence, and it's not just coming from Jay Fawcett. There is also an excellent slate of State House candidates running in the local area--and as Jay pointed out, they are primarily comprised of very strong women who are running excellent campaigns, despite their uphill battles. Among them is Anna Lord, who is running for the State House in the district that falls within Jay's congressional district:
After Jay's presentation at the house party, he gave us a private interview, and we talked all about his support from the blogosphere and how difficult it is to run in Colorado Springs. There's a consistent message out there that we're hearing from campaigns in conservative districts all across the country: that the extremism of the national party is giving Democrats a chance to present an alternative in areas that they normally wouldn't have a chance in, and the blogosphere is doing an excellent job in helping to promote candidates and give them a chance to have viable campaigns and make the national party pay attention to races that they otherwise wouldn't have even begun to pay attention to. As a side benefit, Gary is an aviation fanatic and shot the bull with Jay about aircraft for a good 15 minutes after the interview.
But the more amazing thing to me isn't just that the Democratic side has these opportunities during this election cycle. The amazing thing to me is that it seems like the Democrats seem to have excellent candidates running in this districts to further maximize the potential for an electoral sweep. Jay Fawcett is an Air Force veteran who graduated from the local academy. He worked in the civilian side of the industry as well. He has family ties to the region, and is the common sense Democrat that everyone could seemingly get behind. He's knowledgeable about local issues, such as the Colorado water shortage. His family has ties to the region.
To me, Jay Fawcett's campaign proves the need for the 50-state strategy. The Democratic Party is like an endangered animal in hiding here in Colorado Springs. We found a nice place for breakfast close to the place we were staying, and went there both mornings we had in the Springs. At the end of our second breakfast there, the proprietress--a very soft-spoken, polite, middle-aged woman--asked us what we were in town for, since we essentially brought our command center into the place for two days running and brought our laptops and camera equipment in with us. She supposed that we were doing a documentary on mountain sports, and when I told her what we were doing, she started whispering her thanks and talking in hushed tones about how the thing the hated most here is that she and her husband couldn't express their progressive views without fear of retaliation. The fact that she had to whisper this and look around when she was talking--as if this were the England of V for Vendetta, or George Orwell's 1984--really made me angry at heart. So I did what any progressive worth his salt would do. I told her where to find Jay Fawcett's headquarters. And I gave her the website information for the Drinking Liberally get-togethers in Colorado Springs (which we attended the previous night, and I'll be getting to). Now, it's great that individual grassroots organizations are doing this type of galvanizing of the minority Democrats here, but it doesn't change the fact that the party should be more involved in helping--because even if it's a conservative district, even if it's a long-shot, you never know when you might get a confluence like this. And even if you don't win the congressional races, you might win state house races. Infrastructure is everything.
And maybe--just maybe I will have ended up connecting someone who thought that she was alone with other people of like mind whom she never knew were there. And even more importantly, Jay Fawcett is the type of Democrat that can get people used to the idea of voting for Democrats. He's the type of Democrat that can change people's perceptions of what a Democrat is. We saw the same thing with Paul Hackett in OH-02 and its impact on Victoria Wulsin's candidacy in that district--when people see a Democrat that actually represents them and represents their values going up against a Republican who so clearly does not, it has reverberations far past the current election cycle.
Now, as a little break from the immediacy of politics, we decided to take in some of the sights here in Colorado Springs, if only for a moment. Part of that agenda was the Garden of the Gods, a series of spectacular rock formations:
Now, like I mentioned before, Gary is an aviation buff, and that meant that we had to stop at the US Air Force academy.
Now, I'm sure you all remember the scandals about the proselytizing at the Air Force Academy. Well, it's not really surprising, given the fact that the most prominent building on campus is the chapel.
The chapel was built back in 1959, when attendance at services was a mandatory part of academy life. The building actually holds the Protestant chapel--which covers the entire ground floor of the building--as well as the Catholic and Jewish chapels on the recessed floor below. The size of the chapels relative to each other was based on a survey conducted among the students at the academy back when the chapel's construction plans were first being formed.
Walking into the modernist Protestant chapel gave me a modernist, Gattaca-style feeling. Not sure how else to explain it. But probably the most disconcerting thing was the cross at the altar of the chapel, which seemed to be intentionally done in the shape of a sword. Onward Christian Soldiers, anyone?
And we weren't done with the Christian Soldier movement--not by a long shot! Our next stop--FOCUS ON THE FAMILY HEADQUARTERS!
It started snowing heavily on our way from the Air Force Academy to the FotF HQ. Don't ask me why--maybe someone was trying to tell us something, especially since it was the first major snow of the season. Now, I expected the headquarters to be a building. A pretty big building, yes, but still just a building. But I was wrong. The place is an entire campus. Like a small university. In front of one of their main buildings is a two-sided tablet, apparently made of marble from Mount Sinai. I kid you not. On one side, of course, is the Ten Commandments. Nothing to wonder at here.
But on the other side? The beatitudes! Imagine that! Straight from the book of Matthew. I wonder what Barry Welsh would have to say about this.
For an organization that seems to make its living violating just about every single one of the beatitudes listed on that monument, this came as a total surprise. It's the first thing you see when you leave the building to go out to the parking lot--so maybe they use it as a reminder to find out all the respects in which they had failed that day.
Like I mentioned earlier, we also stopped by the Colorado Springs Drinking Liberally when we were in town--and we just happened to be there for the anniversary gathering! Unfortunately, the attendance was severely reduced by the aforementioned snowstorm--but we still had a nice time with all the bold souls who dare to express their liberal viewpoints in Colorado Springs, including the chapter founders, JJ and Amanda. I took a whole ton of pictures of the event, but similar to the gathering in Chicago, my pictures all made everyone look somewhat less than angelic, so I'm going to refrain from posting any lest nobody new ever show up to the Colorado Springs DL ever again.
We caught up with Jay the next afternoon in Denver when we were in town with Bill Winter's campaign--which will be the subject of the next diary--as he was dialing for dollars:
When I got back to the car and checked DailyKos, I saw something quite interesting: a diary by someone who had just been called by Jay Fawcett and donated money!
See, this is what happens when you dial for dollars among Kossacks! You get a lot more than you bargained for :-)
This concludes the report from Colorado Springs in CO-05. Be watching for the report from CO-06 with Tom Tancredo's challenger, Bill Winter!
[Cross-posted on Squarestate.net]