This is from today's WSJ Political Diary paid-only tip sheet. It spells out the GOP nightmare scenarion re: CO open seat and how a particular matchup could help Kerry in the general election with hispanics all over. Please spread the word:
Dem Unity Poses Nightmare Scenario for GOP in Colorado
In a rare show of unity, Colorado Democrats have agreed to coalesce around a single candidate to replace retiring U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell. Rather, it looks like it's Republicans who will have the fireworks primary, especially now that immigration-basher Rep. Tom Tancredo seems likely to run for the GOP nomination.
Democrats decided their strongest candidate would be Attorney General Ken Salazar, a Hispanic who hails from the rural part of the state and thus can't be tagged as a Denver liberal. Both Rep. Mark Udall and millionaire Rutt Bridges agreed to bow out of the race in favor of Mr. Salazar. Meanwhile, Republicans are hopelessly divided. White House political director Karl Rove has called freshman Rep. Bob Beauprez to encourage him to run. Rep. Scott McInnis, who is retiring from the House this year, is another possibility. Already announced is former Rep. Bob Schaffer, who retired to fulfill his term-limit pledge in 2002. Mr. Schaffer has the support of influential former Senator Bill Armstrong, who is furious with Mr. Tancredo for violating a similar pledge last year.
Mr. Tancredo, a hard-shell conservative first elected in 1998, has become a lightning rod as the leading practitioner of us-versus-them demagoguery on immigration. While he scores points with complaints about government failure to deport some illegal aliens who commit crimes, Mr. Tancredo favors a massive reduction in legal immigration. He also once called for the deportation of a straight-A student whose family was in the country illegally and who had been quoted by name in a newspaper article. (In a slap at his colleague, GOP Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell responded by sponsoring a bill to grant the family legal immigrant status.)
Republicans worry about the tenor of a Senate race between Mr. Salazar and the voluble Mr. Tancredo, who stands a reasonable chance of winning the GOP primary. "The media would latch on to the symbolism of Tancredo running against a Hispanic, and the resulting national coverage could set back the party's image among Hispanics by decades," one Colorado political consultant told me.