Michael Bennet announces his plan to petition his way onto the Democratic primary ballot, and The Denver Post’s Spot blog rushes to GOP chair Dick Wadhams for a comment, which is reportedly one word, “Wow.”

This insightful utterance is then placed by the Spot in the opening paragraph of its post on Bennet’s decision:

Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams could only say, “Wow.” That’s it, one word.

After this opening graf, the rest of the article, titled “Bennet move surprises Republicans, Romanoff,” quotes Romanoff and Bennet spokespeople, and explains the process for petitioning on the ballot. A later Spot post, on the same day, has the title “Bennet wants to meet more voters,” and this time, thankfully, the Republican attack quote is not included.

Fast forward to yesterday when Jane Norton announced that she would be petitioning her way on the Republican primary ballot.

The Spot’s post on Norton’s decision not only didn’t lead with the Democratic response to Norton’s move, but it didn’t quote a Democrat at all.

Instead, the piece focused on internal GOP politics, quoting Republicans, which is what you’d expect. After all, Republicans are the most important players in a story about the Republican primary. Just as the Democrats are the most important players in a story about the Democratic primary.

I know that The Spot is supposed to be conversational, and a good quote or quip can count for a lot.  Still, it was tacky to give Wadhams such a platform, as if he were a celebrity or a guru or something, for his shallow “Wow” attack quote.

And it was wise of the Spot not to make the same mistake twice and put the Democratic equivalent of “Wow” in paragraph one of Norton’s story yesterday.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Colorado U.S. Senate, Denver Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.