Colorado Pols reported this morning that Joe Coors Jr. is looking at a run for Congress in the 7th Congressional district. It's been whispered about in Republican circles for about a month. We have no reason to believe whether it is true or not. But if it is, a few reasons to believe he has a shot.
1. Oops. Dems made the 7th more competitive, apparently thinking that the Republicans had written the seat off. Maybe Lynn Bartels owes Ryan Call an apology. It has gone from a seat that Perlmutter won by 11 points in 2010 to a seat that has only about a two-point Democrat lean. Perlmutter thought he could give up Democrats to Joe Miklosi and the 6th CD, thereby helping his cause, while keeping his own seat. What might instead happen is that neither of them win. Oh, Boy!
2. It's all about the environment, and many Republicans believe that 2012 will be an improvement on 2010 for Republicans in the same way that 2008 was a giant step forward for Democrats even when compared to a super '06.
3. Coors Jr can raise money, and thanks to Mike Coffman, the NRCC has a whole mess of Colorado cash to spend. This won't be a cheap race, something that should concern Perlmutter more than Coors. Coffman's Colorado NRCC fundraiser pulled in a cool 850k in a single event, proving that not only will Coors have enough cash from his own account, but Republican donors in the Centennial State would have pockets deep enough to support his campaign as well.
4. Joe Coors Jr wouldn't be plagued by a primary in the way that Pete was. Bob Schaffer and Pete Coors hammered each other, leaving Pete Coors vulnerable. This Coors will almost certainly not have any of these problems.
5. Ed Perlmutter is Barack Obama's stooge, and the Congressional race will almost certainly be a referendum on Perlmutter's close ties to the President. With millions of dollars pounding the airwaves on the Presidential race, Perlmutter will struggle to get through any message distinct from Obama's re-elect.
After Ryan Frazier's sub-par performance in his losing Aurora mayor's bid, Perlmutter's win last year over Frazier all of the sudden seems not so impressive. Republicans seem to be coming around to the idea that Perlmutter is far more vulnerable than conventional wisdom suggests.
The notion that there won't be outside money proferred by Pols in their post is non-sensical. If Coors Jr runs, not only will he have his money and Colorado GOP money, he will have a gravy train of national money too. Remember goofy liberals: before you were baking up think tanks in the last decade, the Coors' created the Heritage Foundation and other cogs in the Reagan revolution.
Beyond the mechanics of a race, the issue matrix for Perlmutter is not one that benefits his standing among his new Southern JeffCo constituents.
Obamacare. Stimulus. Bailouts. Debt ceiling deal. Imbalanced budgets.
On all of it, Perlmutter has been Obama's toady.
Of course, there is a chance that Obama may do better than the polls show. But there is an equally good chance he won't. And if he doesn't, not only will Barack Obama be one and done, but Ed Perlmutter may well join John Salazar and Betsy Markey in the ranks of Colorado's electorally unemployed.
Pols, in an obvious attempt to try to preemptively scare Coors from the race, is already muckraking. In the fullness of time, these issues will be vetted and explained, and so will, we are told, very interesting portions of Ed Perlmutter's own political and personal story.
Is it a for-sure thing for the GOP if Coors Jr pulls the trigger? Not by a long shot. But the same can be said of Perlmutter's own prospects against a Colorado Giant. Whatever the eventual outcome, something tells us that, like Gilbert Gottfried in days of old, on this fine evening Ed Perlmutter will be UP-ALL-NIGHT.
The Colorado political map just got one hell of a lot more interesting.
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