DemNotesBlog for Colorado Democrats by State Party First Vice Chair Dan Slater

Seriously. I now see why Doug Lamborn is afraid to debate Jay Fawcett in the 5th CD now. What I don’t understand, though, is how Doug Lamborn ever made it past any competitive election in his life.

Tonight, I didn’t have to stray too far from home: The Canon City Chamber of Commerce held a debate for the 5th CD hopefuls, as well as for the candidates for the state legislature. This was the first time since the August primary that Doug Lamborn has agreed to debate Jay Fawcett.

The two candidates for Congress went first, and I’m going to primarily write about that part of the evening. This exchange pretty much sums up the evening:

Moderator: Let’s talk about the War in Iraq. What is your specific plan to win the War? Doug Lamborn will go first.
Lamborn: Can he go first? I went first last time!
Moderator: Uh… sure.
[While Jay Fawcett discusses a pretty comprehensive strategy to train the Iraqis to defend themselves while keeping American casualties low, Lamborn is writing furiously -- apparently, he hadn't given a whole lot of thought to the "how do we win the war" kind of question. Who knew they'd ask about Iraq?]

As they debate back and forth about the War in Iraq, and its diversion from the War on Terror, they get into U.S. efforts to find Osama bin Laden. Lamborn then goes on a tangent about Bin Laden, arguing that he isn’t that important, anyway. And this is where it gets interesting:

“State-sponsored terrorism is a bigger threat than some terrorists in caves. We need to focus on going after state-sponsored terrorism more.” I wonder if Lamborn thinks before he speaks. What he’s just said is that:
a) we need to fight the war on Terror until we win, regardless of cost (he said this earlier, including the GOP-mandated phrase, “cut and run”),
b) it is important enough to risk our soldiers in a war to go after Osama bin Laden,
c) even so, it is MORE important to go after state-sponsored terrorism.

Therefore, I can’t imagine any logical point (d) other than that Doug Lamborn thinks we need to invade Iran and Syria to go after state-sponsored terrorism there (so, of course, we don’t have to fight them here). Think about it. Our candidate for Congress is OK with us staying in Iraq and Afghanistan, and adding Syria and Iran to that list. Isn’t that kind of thinking how world wars get started?

It got better.

Moderator: What specific policies would you pursue in Congress that would help veterans?
Lamborn: I support the veterans. I have many veterans in my family. I support the veterans. I’ve done a lot for the veterans in the Legislature. Really, I support the veterans. Veterans are very important.

And still, it got better.

When trying to cite statistics to support some point he was making (a bad idea for Doug), an audience member corrected him. He exploded. He yelled. Here is the direct quote: “Excuse me sir, why don’t you keep your mouth shut!” The audience was stunned. Fawcett just looked over in awe that this man actually survived in the Legislature. Even Lamborn looked stunned himself that he had, in Tourette’s Syndrome fashion, exploded like that. He apologized two questions later.

Another theme running through the night was the urgent desire on Lamborn’s face to get this thing over with. Fawcett would often challenge Lamborn on a point he raised, or he’d ask him a point-blank question. One of my favorite lines of argument was to use Lamborn’s “no tax increase” pledge against him. Lamborn would often address a question with a proposal for a new program. Fawcett would then ask how we pay for it, “because you can’t raise taxes, remember?” The moderator would ask Lamborn to respond. Lamborn’s response? Verbatim: “Let’s go to the next question.”

At one point, Fawcett asked Lamborn a pretty basic question: “Do you support using mercenaries in combat zones?” The moderator, Dennis Bloomquist of local radio station KRLN (who, by the way, did an outstanding job of keeping folks focused and trying to get answers), asked Lamborn if he wanted to respond. Lamborn argued about the term “mercenary”. Fawcett persisted with the same question. Lamborn refused to answer. “Next topic.”

Toward the end, they had a discussion of energy policy. Fawcett spent his time discussing the need to find alternative sources of energy, and to persist on that goal even if/when the price of gas goes down. He pointed out that the market fluctuations had also caused interest in alternative energy research to fluctuate, and we needed to be more consistent with that kind of research. He pointed out that this was not an issue only with energy costs, but obviously with foreign policy, as well.

Lamborn’s answer was much simpler. Point one: Drill on public lands, including ANWR. Point two: “let the free market work.” Yeah, because the oil companies have been pretty good at solving this problem on their own for us so far.

If it sounds like it was a fun debate, that’s because it was. I must say that I don’t recall a debate so lopsided as this one that I’ve seen. Reporters from both the Rocky and the Post were there, so there should be some interesting articles in the Denver press tomorrow morning.

The craziness didn’t stop when the debate stopped. After the Congressional debate, there was a ten-minute break before the legislative debates began. Lamborn spoke to a couple of supporters on his way out the door, but he and his staff cleaned up their stuff and got on the road back to Colorado Springs about as fast as possible. Many locals at the debate found the behavior (hmm… were they “cutting and running”?) rather rude, especially when you consider that Fawcett and his team stayed to listen to the legislative debate. “It’s insulting,” one local voter told me. “It’s as if he doesn’t care about our issues to not stay and listen to the House and Senate candidates. It’s not only insulting to us, it’s insulting to those candidates!”

Doug Lamborn. He still hasn’t figured out how to run a campaign without ticking off the voters.

As for the remaining half of the debate, let’s just say that the Legislature really needs to have Rep. Buffie McFadyen (HD47) back for another term, joined by Anna Lord (HD21) and Mickey Griego (SD2).

I took a lot of pictures, but I don’t think I’ll have them up until mid-day tomorrow.