I left Washington, DC Friday and flew to Colorado to help out on the Angie Paccione congressional campaign, arriving at campaign HQ in Fort Collins around 9PM. The staff here is psyched and energetic and the field operation has gone full throttle with several hundred volunteers this weekend knocking on doors of both Democrats and Independents making sure that they get to the polls. Just today, Saturday, about 30,000 doors were knocked on by canvassers, with many people telling us they had already voted for Angie through absentee or early voting — they have a very good early voting system in Colorado. What is great about being in the field is that you can really get a feel for the energy and momentum of a campaign — and Angie’s team has it.
Three members of Congress were here to help rev up the troops — Diana DeGette (CO), Diane Watson (CA), and Barbara Lee (CA). At the meeting point for canvassers in Longmont, Diane Watson gave a stirring talk about why this election was so critically important just before everyone went to walk their assigned precincts.
A few points I’ve learned after the jump.
— Bush came to Greeley to rally the “faithful” for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave and Gubernatorial candidate Rep. Bob Beauprez. The feeling in the Paccione Campaign is that the Bush appearance will do as much to rally Dems in the district as it would GOPers.
— Greeley is a battleground for both campaigns. Stan Matsunaka, who ran as the Dem candidate last time, lost Greeley by 10,000 votes. We expect to lose Greeley, but if we can cut the Greeley margin significantly, Angie should be fine.
— To counter the Bush rally in Greeley, the Democrats will have a counter-rally Sunday with Senator Ken Salazar, Dem Gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter, and Angie — followed by a major door-to-door canvassing event. Ritter will win election easily, Ken Salazar is very popular, so this should be a great antidote to the Bush rally.
— Eric Eidsness, the Reform Party candidate, will have a major impact on the results. Almost all of his votes are coming from GOPers, and we have seen polls that give him anywhere from 6% to 11%. The more he gets, the better it is for Angie. He is a former Republican and did a very good job in the one debate, focusing most of his criticism at Musgrave.
— The ads on TV are non-stop as most of the congressional candidates are using Denver media. The negative ads are now focused on CO-04 as the GOP has basically pulled out of the open seat in CO-07, conceding it to Ed Perlmutter. The DCCC now has a presence in CO-04, and is dropping six-figures in advertising money, as wel as providing field operatives.
Angie is a great candidate for anyone who has met her, and she has a nice, positive ad to end the campaign.
I will report more from CO-04 tomorrow.
more conservative than Musgrave running there too…good!