Daily Kos: CO-05: Fawcett cracks top-50 House races

CO-05: Fawcett cracks top-50 House races

by kos

Wed Sep 27, 2006 at 09:21:40 AM PDT

When we added Jay Fawcett to the ActBlue netroots list, we were honest that this was a longshot race. CO-05 is heavily Republican home to James Dobson, Colorado Springs, and the Air Force Academy. But in Jay Fawcett we had an unapologetic Democrat who was perfectly tailored for the district and unafraid to take the battle to the Republicans. It wasn't a race that we could realistically hope to win, but one that we could use to build for the future. There's no reason that CO-05 shouldn't be a competitive district, and Fawcett was going to help make that happen.

But then funny things started happening. The outgoing Representative, Joel Heffley, refused to endorse the Republican nominee Doug Lamborn. Heffley even considered running a write-in battle to deny Lamborn the seat. Primary voters had chosen a Republican perhaps too far Right for even this district. Military leaders and prominent Republicans gave overt or tacit support to Fawcett. And people have noticed.

In a step that I never would've imagined possible this election, Chuck Todd has added Fawcett to his list of 50-most-competitive House races. And sure, while Fawcett brings up the rear at #50, this is a remarkable accomplishment in its own right. At worst, this is yet another supposedly-safe Republican district the GOP will have to spend energy defending.

At least one local columnist has noticed as well.

You know it's a troublesome year for the Republican Party when the Democrats think they might actually have a chance to win Colorado's 5th Congressional District seat.
It's not much of a chance, to be sure. Republicans have better than a 2-to-1 edge in voter registration. No Democrat has won more than 40 percent of the vote since the district was created in 1972.
But it's an open seat, and the retiring incumbent, Republican Joel Hefley, has denounced his party's nominee for running a "sleazy, dishonest" primary campaign.
This is unusual, to say the least, but it also says a lot about Joel Hefley. He never made much of a splash in Congress until he approached the end of his 20-year run. Then he got serious about ethics. He wasn't shy about opposing the powerful in his own party, and he lost his appointment as chairman of the House ethics committee.
He showed himself to be a man of courage and principle. So when he said he didn't approve of the tactics of the Republican nominee, state Sen. Doug Lamborn, people listened.
Whether this can translate into a win for the Democratic nominee, Jay Fawcett, is an open question at best. It would be one of the biggest upsets of the year, and no prudent person would bet more than a used campaign button on it.
But Fawcett is more conservative than most Democrats. He also shoots guns and goes to church (not at the same time), and he is a military veteran - all things that matter in a district that's home to an unusually high number of religious and military installations.
"I think this guy's got the best chance ever of any Democrat in this district," says Tom Cronin, a Colorado College political scientist who came as close as any Democrat ever did to winning the 5th District. Cronin got 40.5 percent of the vote - including 44 percent in Colorado Springs - against Republican Ken Kramer, who was running for re-election in 1982.
Fawcett contends he's the better choice to carry on Hefley's legacy of ethics and independence. He and Hefley have "clearly different" political philosophies, he says, "but we agree that Congress should advance the people's business."
He isn't going to ask Hefley to endorse him. "I think that's disrespectful," Fawcett says. But, "If he decides on his own, I'd welcome it."
Of course he would. That really would be a sign that the right wing of the Republican Party has gone too far for the
Fawcett, in an interview, says he needs to capture two-thirds of the district's independent vote, and a quarter of the Republicans, if he's to win. After the primary, "traditional" Republicans called him to offer support, he says. He plans to buy a lot of television advertising, and his fund-raising is benefiting from surprisingly good poll numbers.

We help in races like this one to build for the future. And in Colorado, the future of Democrats is bright. One of the two success stories we highlight in Crashing the Gate (the other is Montana), Colorado Democrats have made big gains at the state legislature and are poised to pick up the governorship this year. In the House, we are set to build on 2004's success (we picked up the John Salazar seat in CO-03 in addition to the Senate seat his brother won), with an almost sure victory in CO-07 and real shots against the hateful Musgrave and Tancredo.

And as we build toward the future, there's one more benefit -- we create new Democrats and flip Republicans. That'll be invaluable in 2008 as Colorado will become one of the top battleground states the next presidential cycle.