The Colorado Democrat Party has filed a legal motion to block CD2 Republican Congressional candidate Eric Weissmann from being on the Republican primary ballot. Are they scared of the threat Weissmann poses to their beloved insider trading Congressman, Jared Polis?
Democrats don't generally get involved in Republican primaries unless they are hoping to prevent a competitive general election candidate from challenging a Democrat.
The petition, dated April 15, was filed by attorney Martha Tierney for the Democrat firm of Heizer Paul Grueskin LLP on behalf of the Colorado Democrat Party. (Read the petition here).
That would be the firm of Mark Grueskin, the legal henchman for Pat Stryker and the menagerie of outside liberal groups who like to win elections in the court room, rather than the ballot box.
As Grueskin's Twitter account profile says "Practicing law and politics. Usually in that order." Sounds about right. Sue to stop someone before you're forced to let voters decide.
Weissmann is currently trying to make the GOP primary ballot by petitioning onto the ballot. He ran into trouble when the Secretary of State's (SOS) office rejected enough signatures to put Weissmann below the required 1000 valid signatures from registered voters in CD2.
Weissmann's campaign told The Longmont Times-Call the issue is related to some notary issues, and is likely to be resolved by a judge.
If there are enough valid signatures, we're betting a judge is unlikely to block ballot access over some small paperwork issues.
But that's not stopping Democrats from going to court to make sure Weissmann can't even make the ballot.
It's kind of a strange move considering Democrats' attacks on SOS Scott Gessler regarding access to ballots.
But hypocrisy has never stopped Democrats from doing what it takes to win elections.
Weissmann is by no means guaranteed a shot at knocking off Jared Polis just by making the GOP primary ballot.
He will have to face conservative state Senator Kevin Lundberg (R-Berthoud), who will not be easy to defeat in a primary. Considering the grassroots energy at the CD2 assembly in support of Lundberg's bid this past weekend, it is going to be especially difficult.
Weissmann does have one serious advantage over Lundberg, an advantage that is causing Democrats to go to court to stop Weissmann now, and that is money.
Last quarter, Lundberg raised a paltry $37,000. Weissmann raised $138,000, including an almost $30,000 donation from himself.
But sources say Weissmann is willing and able to put in far more than that initial $30k.
Even though Jared Polis will be able to out-self fund any other candidate, it's the fear of damaging TV ads and mail pieces coming from Weissmann that has Democrats spooked.
With Jared Polis's well-documented troubles with insider trading and abusing taxpayer money to help fellow Democrats, a well orchestrated ad campaign could do serious damage to Polis's standing.
Weissmann also doesn't have the long record of votes and quotes that Lundberg has, making it harder for the Polis campaign to attack Weissmann.
Someone should ask Rick Palacio. If you are so concerned with ballot access, why are you suing to stop Eric Weissmann? What are you afraid of?
Larimer is half of CD2, and the Buck team is all behind him.
You can’t always buy votes. EstablishmentPeakPolitics is rather clueless sometimes. Stuck in the capitol hill bubble.
Honestly, do you really think Lundberg, with no money and a history of saying some impolitic things, will put up a better fight than someone with lots of money and no record of unhelpful quotes?
Lundberg starts ahead by basically being the incumbent in Larimer, and the Larimer GOP is strong in primaries, but he’s a state Senator. How many folks know their state Senator? Probably not many.
Whoever wins is probably going to lose to Polis anyway. It’s a longshot, at best. But if Weissmann can prove he can take the largest chunk of out Polis’ hide to Republicans, I’m betting the district is pragmatic enough to choose him.
What do you think the final margin will be?
in a primary guaranteed Democratic success? I find it remarkable that of all the competitive congressional races in the state, this is the one Dems are messing with. Despite some on the left dismissing Weissmann’s chances of winning a primary, obviously the state Party is worried enough about him to go to the expense of these legal maneuvers.
Don’t you know most sentences do NOT make a paragraph by themselves?
Ari, what would we do around here if you weren’t around to bless us with your boundless intellect?
You have such amazing ideas for how to write great posts. How come we haven’t seen anything from your account?
Those who can, do.
I’ve written lots of diaries there.
I HAVE given some thought to dairy writing here, however. A daily roundup of all the GOP news fit for GOP shill sites like this to ignore. What do you think? Will they let them stay up, or will they delete them?
After perusing today’s open thread it’s pretty clear sanity no longer has a place in Colorado Pols. I don’t think I’ll even bother reading there anymore.
Don’t you know how lucky we are to have Ari right here in Colorado and not on the East Coast as a tenured professor somewhere? Clearly his intellectual prowess is so much better than us mere conservatives’.
You gotta hand it to Ari though, he’s outlasted the other Pols trolls.