In 2008, Mike Coffman, the newly elected Congressman in Colorado’s Sixth Congressional District, was the Colorado Secretary of State. In that capacity he decided to make it his business to remove citizens from the voting lists in Colorado--while he was running for Congress! In other words, in an election where he was a candidate he actively worked to deprive Americans of their right to vote.
As reported by the New York Times, Coffman purged thousands of voters from the rolls in apparent violation of federal law. And he saw nothing wrong with this, and no conflict of interest! And this is the man newly elected to replace Tom Tancredo and represent Colorado’s Sixth Congressional District!
Now some would say, I suppose, that’s just how it is in CO-06, because a Democrat just can’t win there. And to those people I say no, that is NOT the case. I grew up in this District, and in fact, I ran for this District in 2006, and though I lost, I know that a Democrat CAN win here, and I also know that it is a fight worth fighting no matter what.
And so I post today to introduce you to a friend and someone who I think is going to be a great candidate, David Canter--the first candidate in America to file for Congress in 2010! I post today because this is a fight worth fighting and I’m asking you to get involved.
CanterForCongress.com
David Canter Act Blue Page
Let me start out by making a couple of things very clear. First, this is not my campaign. I am not running it, and I am not the candidate by proxy. I am helping David because I believe in him as a candidate, and I believe in him as a future Congressman.
Second, I am not going to run! Period! I do not want to be a candidate. I simply want to work for people I believe in, and it is in that capacity alone that I introduce you today to David Canter.
Third, we CAN win in CO-06 and anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong. Democrat Bill Ritter got 52.2% of the vote in CO-06 on his way to becoming Governor of Colorado in 2006. And while we do not have the precinct by precinct breakdowns to prove it yet, it seems clear to me that Mark Udall and Barack Obama both won CO-06 in 2008 on the way to winning Colorado. And that’s after both were portrayed as the most liberal candidates in history. As they say in the financial world, past performance does not guarantee future results! What I do know is that the only fights we absolutely can not win are the fights we do not fight!
You may ask, if Ritter and Udall and Obama all won CO-06, then why didn’t I win as well, why didn’t Hank Eng win? What happened to all those Democratic votes at the top of the ticket? The answer is simple--they didn’t vote after the top of the ticket! It’s not that they all turned around and voted for Tancredo or Coffman. They simply didn’t vote. There was a significant undervote in CO-06 after the Presidential and Senate races. In races where a Democrat had resources, they won CO-06. In races where they didn’t have resources, they didn’t win!
The reason we haven’t won the Congressional seat in CO-02 is because we’ve never put up a real fight. We’ve never had the resources that were spent to win CO-03 or CO-04, Districts every bit as "red" as CO-06!
Our biggest problem in CO-06 has ALWAYS been that our candidates get started too late in the cycle, and with no experience running for office, much less running for Congress. As a result, every candidate relearns the same lessons, makes the same mistakes, and never has the time or the ability to raise the money and name recognition really needed to win. We don’t really know what would happen in a serious race in CO-06 because we’ve never had one, mine included!
In Colorado this year Betsy Markey won CO-04 by 12 points! I was born in CO-04 and I grew up in CO-06 and there isn’t anyone who can tell me that 04 is more open to a Democrat than 06. There’s nothing about CO-06 that makes it unwinnable for a Democrat. We’ve just never put up a fight here and our candidates have never really made themselves known to the voters.
That must change, and I think David Canter is the man who will change it. He’s already working hard, putting in hours of call time to raise the money he needs to win. He’s not going to make the many mistakes that I made because I’m going to help him learn from my errors. David has the full two years to introduce himself to the entire District, and to raise the money he needs to be the first Democratic candidate ever in CO-06 to have the resources to run a serious and complete campaign.
And so I introduce David to you today and ask you to visit his website and, if you can, to make a donation to help him raise that money. I expect to get David on here and on our Colorado blogs quite often in the future so he can introduce himself to you. But for now I hope my humble introduction will suffice!
Yes, we have gotten rid of Tom Tancredo in the U.S. House of Representatives. But we’ve replaced him with a man who read from the same book as Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris when it comes to the right to vote. Whatever else we may or may not agree on, I think we can agree that is not a legacy we want in Washington!
Thank you!
CanterForCongress.com
David Canter Act Blue Page