I can see the veins bulging out on the necks of conservatives across Colorado when they hear that Denver Post publisher Dean Singleton thinks the Republican Party is “dead in Colorado” and that he doesn’t expect to see another Republican president elected in the United States in his lifetime.

If that’s not vein-popping enough, Singleton went on to say that Udall will win big in 2014, Colorado’s next Attorney General will be a Democrat, and there’s no one in the United States of America who won’t take his phone call.

That’s what Singleton told KHOW’s Peter Boyles March 1 during the 6 a.m. hour:

Boyles: The Republican Party, for all intents and purposes, is dead.

Singleton: I think it’s in trouble nationally. It’s not in trouble locally. I mean, Republicans control 30 State Houses.

Boyles: But I’m talking about in Colorado.

Singleton: I think it’s dead in Colorado.

Boyles: I think it’s dead in the country.

Singleton: It’s not dead–

Boyles: You think we’ll ever have another Republican President in our lifetime?

Singleton: Ahh, no.

Boyles: I agree with you.

Singleton: And it really doesn’t matter whom the Republicans put up. Republicans, in my view, won’t win another presidency in our lifetime.

Listen to Dean Singleton tells Boyles GOP is dead in CO 3-1-2013

Singleton amplified on these thoughts during 7 a.m. hour March 1:

Singleton: The Republican Party is not dead. The Republican Party controls 30 State Houses. Because of redistricting and gerrymandering, Republicans have the chance to hold the House from now on, because most their congressional members come from safe seats. But if you look where their electoral seats are, the Republicans just can’t play at a presidential level. They can’t win in enough states to have enough of the Electoral votes. So I don’t think we will see another Republican President in our lifetime.

Boyles: I don’t either….

Singleton: Republicans have two elected state-wide office holders, the Treasurer and the Attorney General. The Attorney General is not running for re-election, so that will go Democratic. .. [BigMedia comment: Colorado’s Secretary of State is also a Republican.]

Boyles: Is it because of the party or is it the candidates they choose?

Singleton: Well, it’s both. The party has shifted so far right that that’s the kind candidates they pick. And they pick candidates that aren’t in the mainstream. And you see the growth of Colordo, and where the growth has come from demographically. I think Colorado is probably a Democratic state from now on.

It is a Democratic state today, and I don’t think it’s going back. I’m an independent. I’ve never registered for either party, and, in fact, the first Democrat I ever I voted for for President was Barack Obama. So I’m not a Democrat, but when you go to vote you, you have the choice of two candidates. And you pick the best candidate if you’re thinking straight…

You’ll see a lot of Republicans trying to get back in the game statewide, but I don’t see it happening. I don’t think it’s necessarily good. I just think it’s what it is… The Republicans don’t have a candidate to run against Udall in 2014. They have nobody to run.

Boyles: It’s a year away.

Singleton: And they don’t have anybody to run against him. Part of it is, nobody wants to run against him, because he’s going to win big. So, why do it?.. I find it sad that in 2014 we won’t have a spirited Senate race. There just won’t be. That’s not the way democracy was supposed to be….

Boyles: Is there anyone who won’t take your phone call?

Singleton: Not that I know of.

Listen: Singleton on Boyles, says Udall will win, discusses prostitution-scandal reporting, explains why CO GOP dead, and more 3-1-13

As Publisher of the Post, and founder of MediaNews, Singleton can air his opinions, and he has strong ones, even tantrum-like explosions, one of which manifested itself in a front-page editorial screed against Bill Ritter and unions.

Still, no one who actually reads The Post would expect Singleton’s pessimism about the Colorado GOP to leak into the news reporting, in the form of reporting that would hurt Republicans.

So please, let’s not hear fresh cries of unsubstantiated media bias.

If I’m a conservative, and I read what Singleton has to say, I wouldn’t get mad. I’d take it seriously, thank him for the honesty, and re-subscribe.

You wonder how anyone could read former Colorado Senator Hank Brown’s recent comments to Republicans, that a federal candidate’s position on abortion really doesn’t matter, and not think of failed Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck, Rep. Cory Gardner, and others who made similar statements, even though a quick Google search shows just how incredibly important abortion issues are in politics at the federal level.

Here’s what Brown said Thursday, as quoted by the Colorado Statesman:

Noting that he suspected most of the Republicans in the room disagreed with him about that — and adding that “Colorado, as you know, is the second-most pro-choice in the nation” — he argued that the [abortion] issue shouldn’t take center stage in elections because it’s out of the hands of politicians in Washington and just divides voters.

“The reality is, that’s a constitutional interpretation. The people you elect on that issue don’t have anything to do with that. You don’t vote on allowing or not allowing abortion in the U.S. Senate or the U.S. Congress. It’s never even an issue,” he said, adding that most Republicans agree the federal government shouldn’t subsidize abortions.

“So for Republican candidates, there isn’t any aspect of that pro-life, pro-choice issue that ever results in a vote in Congress,” he said, noting that in rare cases Senators can weigh in on the fitness of Supreme Court nominees and influence longer-term policy on abortion.

Thank goodness reporters in Colorado didn’t let Ken Buck get away with it when he said essentially the same thing last year.

Here’s a fine example of a reporter holding Buck’s feet to the fire in one televised debate, if you want to take a trip down memory lane. That’s just one case of Colorado journalists doing their jobs and mapping out the steps of the abortion buckpedal for citizens. The Ft. Collins Coloradoan didn’t let Gardner forget his stances on abortion either.

If you look at what happens in Congress, you can see that reporters are obviously right that these issues are not just abstract theoretical distractions, like Hank Brown would have you believe.

They make a big difference in politics as practiced in the Beltway, where you can’t predict what votes will be taken for what reason and when.

Remember that Obamacare almost fell apart over abortion wedge issues, with Democrats and Republicans falling on both sides.

And in March, abortion issues, including a dispute over funding for Planned Parenthood, nearly shut down the federal government, as negotiations stalled, with Gardner and Tipton among those digging in their feet on abortion. Also on the disputed chopping block were federal funds for international organizations that provide women’s health care in the world’s most impoverished countries, where the absence of these services translates into hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.

Maybe some people don’t want to take it seriously that the national GOP platform calls not only for an anti-abortion amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but also for legislation changing the definition of a person under the 14th Amendment to include fertilized eggs, or zygotes. But how can you not take this seriously, given the strange unpredictability of abortion politics and that the GOP has a shot at controlling both houses of Congress and the White House in about a year?

Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Cory Gardner, Mike Coffman, Doug Lamborn, Scott Tipton, or any other federal candidate, can’t say they favor personhood and then expect it to mean nothing to reporters. Sorry.

Reporters know that one of their most basic functions is to air out issues so citizens can understand where the candidates stand and what they’ll do if elected.

And so, Hank Brown, with due respect, journalists were right in 2010 not to accept the GOP post-primary cries that abortion issues mattered so little compared to jobs that they need not be discussed. And they should continue to matter a lot to journalists today and every day.

GOP chair Ryan Call was on Jon Caldara’s “Devil’s Advocate” TV show on KBDI Friday, and the pestiferous Caldara was ribbing Call about how the Colorado GOP inevitably bungles things up when it comes to elections.

Call was mostly unflustered, and managed to stay on his central message, which was his desire to elect Republicans, with support from a rainbow of GOP tent dwellers.

But one of Call’s explanations for the GOP bungle in 2010, was at a minimum misleading, and Caldara, being the GOP gadfly that he can be, should have called him on it (no pun intended).

Call said:

“Our challenge was that we did not have the resources to effectively counter the millions of dollars that was flowing in from out of state to effectively paint Ken Buck as an extreme candidate, which he wasn’t.”

Interesting, I thought, given that former GOP chair Dick Wadhams told the Greeley Tribune that  outside groups spent as much in Colorado backing Buck as they did supporting Bennet.

And the Sunlight Foundations, which tracks communications expenditures, shows that Wadhams was right. The outside foes of Bennet and Buck spent about the same amount of money in Colorado. Among these outside groups, you recall, Colorado was the most popular place to spend money in 2010. Just under $33 million was spent. (Communications expenses constitute the he vast majority of campaign expenses by outside groups, which most often do little else other than buy TV ads.)

Asked if he knew that spending by outside groups backing Buck was about the same as the pro-Bennet side,  Caldara told me he “didn’t know it or didn’t know it the other way.”

“I’ve not gone through the reports for all the different groups involved in the Senate race,” he said.

I gave Caldara the facts on campaign spending by outside groups, and as someone who clearly doesn’t like anyone to make up excuses for the problems of the Colorado Republican Party’s problems, Caldara should record straight for his audience during his next show.

I listened to Call on KCFR’s Colorado Matters back on April 11, and he again suggested that the GOP was outspent on the Senate race, but he didn’t say it directly:

The challenge in the Senate race, quite frankly, had to do with spending from outside organizations that mischaracterized our district attorney’s record and position on many issues….

We saw a tremendous amount of spending by outside organizations, not the party committees, but outside groups that really are ultimately unaccountable to the voters, really weighing heavily in on that Senate race. Much of it was money coming in from out of state. I think they mischaracterized Ken Buck’s positions on many issues in a way that really hurt him, particularly among suburban women.

Call also acknowledged that Buck’s own bungles hurt him in the election, but I think here again he was at least creating the impression that the GOP was outspent by out-of-state interests

If he continues to make this suggestion, either directly or implied, journalists should clarify that this was not the case in 2010.

You have to wonder whether Dick Wadhams would have been re-elected this weekend, if he’d run for another term as CO State GOP Chair.

It’s a fun question, and reporters should try it out on some of the GOP insiders gathering Saturday to elect a new state party chair.

I don’t recall any Republican wishing Wadhams hadn’t resigned. You don’t hear it from the activists at the state chair forums. You don’t hear it from the state chair candidates themselves, some of whom will go as far as to say they consider Wadhams a friend.

You have to conclude that the Colorado GOP machine would have booted him out anyway.

Not as much for failing to unite the different Republican factions in the state, which you’re hearing a lot about these days, but for not doing the basic blocking and tackling (tracking, smacking, etc.) that he was supposed to be so good at.

The insinuation that the State GOP didn’t do its basic job during the last election cycle put Wadhams on the defensive well before he announced he wouldn’t run again for state chair.

Before he gave up, Wadhams tried to fight back, as he told the Greeley Tribune way back in January.

Wadhams, who said Buck ran a strong campaign and should be lauded for his accomplishments, said the role of outside groups can be overstated. He noted that conservative outside groups such as Crossroads GPS spent as much in Colorado as independent Democratic groups did. And, he said, trackers don’t always make a decisive difference in the campaign.

“Sen. Bennet was tracked. In 2009 after he got appointed, we had somebody filming him as he ran around the state. In 2010, the Republican Senatorial Committee did as well,” he said. “The tracking serves to remind candidates that there’s never a moment when they can let their guard down. A candidate has to be careful of what they say regardless of where or when in the process they’re talking. Tracking only works if you say something controversial.”

Could a man who felt he had to say this to a reporter be re-elected this Saturday. Probably not.

The 10 Commandments always make for good conversations. For example, do you prefer the version that includes “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife?” Or the version that shortens this to “Thou shall not covet?”

Trouble is, most everyone I ask, except my mother-in-law, can’t recite the Commandments. Most people remember some of them, but the middle group trips them up. The ones like, “Remember thou keep holy the sabbath day.”

In any case, I was asking people about the Commandments last week because a U.S. Court of Appeals in Ohio ruled Wed. that a county judge violated the constitutional separation of church and state by hanging a  poster listing the 10 Commandments in his courtroom.

Not a huge story, of course, but one that’s been dragging on for a while and has developed a following.  And it’s a story with a Colorado angle that local reporters missed.

During the 2010 primary U.S. Sen. candidate Ken Buck, U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner,  State Sen. Ken Lambert (SD 9), State Sen. Kevin Grantham (SD 2), Rep. Mark Barker (HD 17), Rep. Jon Becker (HD 63), Rep. Ray Scott (HD 54), and Rep. Libby Szabo (HD 27) apparently  filled out a survey indicating that they support “public posting of 10 Commandments.” It was the Christian Family Alliance Candidate Survey.

Buck’s back in Weld County, but the ones doing people’s work, do they still favor the public posting of the 10 Commandments, even though it looks even more definitively like the law does not?

Maybe you’re thinking this is a waste, and we should move on to a more timely topic.

But it’s obviously worth a reporter’s time to track back and find out what candidates are thinking about their election pledges, especially when the issues involved are in the news.

Much has been written about the trap Colorado Senate Ken Buck fell into when he positioned himself on the far right of the political spectrum, advocating, for example, a ban on common forms of birth control. These far-right positions helped Buck beat his opponent Jane Norton in the GOP primary, but they tied him in knots later, as he tried to say no one cared about the social-conservative issues that Buck had passionately endorsed in the primary.

Compared to a far-right pledge on abortion, a promise to support posting the 10 Commandments may sound like a throw away.

But just in case you’re like me, and you can’t seem to remember the Commandments, here’s one common version:

1. I am the lord your god.
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the lord, thy god, in vain.
3. Remember thou keep holy the sabbath day.
4. Honor they mother and father.
5. Thou shalt not kill.
6. Thou shalt not commit adultry.
7. Thou shalt not steal.
8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.

So, as can see, we’re not just talking about, Thou shalt not steal, here.  

My own atheism biases me, but can anyone explain how it possibly doesn’t mix church and state for the government to post this religious list. They best argument is, well, the government already allows public displays of religion on government property with government funds. But this is more extreme than, “Merry Christmas.”

Messages to Gardner, Szabo, and Becker were not returned on Friday.

One of the core functions of journalists, when you think about it, should be to track campaign pledges.  It helps people understand the election process, the dyanamics of a primary versus the general election, for example. It helps illuminate candidates’ commitments to doing what they say they’ll do, which is clearly a major concern of voters these days. Generally, reporting on campaign promises helps voters make informed decisions, which is, again, a big part of what journalism is about.

Regardless of where you come down on this, journalists should be in the business of tracking campaign pledges. And this is an interesting one.

Bob Kinsey came really, really close to becoming Colorado’s version of Ralph Nader this year.

As Colorado’s Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Kinsey got 2.1% of the vote Tuesday. Bennet beat Buck by a 1.1% margin, with 97% of precincts reporting.

Kinsey says many of his supporters wouldn’t have voted at all, and others might have voted for Buck. Still, if Green Party voters here reflect the Green Party voters in Floriday for Ralph Nader in 2000, then Kinsey took more votes from Bennet. Had the race been close enough, this could have swung the election to Buck.

Does Kinsey have regrets?

“Well you know what, Bennet is in favor of increasing military spending. Neither one [Buck or Bennet]  is going to challenge the military any more than Obama is. No I have no regrets. I have no regrets that I tried to get this country to talk about the military.”

Kinsey, who got about 2% of the vote when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2008, was almost invisible in the Denver media this election cycle. His name appeared once in The Denver Post over the past year. He said he got some decent coverage statewide, but not much, even by left-leaning outlets like KGNU radio in Boulder. I asked him what the media missed in not covering him.

“My major focus is foreign policy,” he said. “I want to cut the military budget by 75% and use that money to create jobs. If you include in miliatrey spending the drug war, Homeland Security, the CIA, and other agencies, that’s over a trillion dollars a year. The AFSC calculated that you could provide every unemployed person with a $50,000 job and the U.S. would still spend more on the military than any other country in the world.”

In 2008, Democrats worried that Kinsey could tip the election away from Mark Udall. They worried again this year. But Kinsey will be one Green candidate they won’t have to worry about when Udall is up in four years.

“I am 73-years-old,” Kinsey told me when I asked if he’d run again. “Next time around for Senate, I’d be 77. What I plan on doing is trying to get the Green party to get some other good candidates and build a party. I don’t think so. I’ve done it three times, once in the 4^th Congressional [2004] and twice for Senate, and  I gave people the opportunity to vote against militarism, and I got 35,000 votes.

I don’t have the energy at 77 to do it again, but I will continue to speak out against militarism.”

Tough follow-up questioning is so much more fun to watch than the wimpy kind…-and it makes for better informed voters besides.

Case in point: CBS4′s Gloria Neal’s exchange Saturday night with Ken Buck over the question, “Will you really make a raped woman carry a child to full term?”

Fair question, but Buck didn’t answer it, prompting Neal to ask it again.

Buck responded by arguing that “we need to stay focused on the issues that voters in this state care about, and those are spending and jobs.”

Neal responded:

“Social issues are important to the voters in this state. I am one of them. So I need you to answer that question, because in addition to votes and jobs and all of that abortion is very important, and when you start talking about rape and incest, that is important to the voters. So, please, answer that question.”

Buck then said:

“I am pro-life, and I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape and incest.”

As a debate moderator, Neal gets credit for noticing that Buck said voters don’t care about social issues. It’s a lot harder than it looks to realize that, yes, Buck had just said voters don’t care about social issues, like choice.

Was Neal right to tell Buck that voters do care about social issues? Absolutely. Plenty of polls show that voters, especially women, care about these issues. Otherwise, you can bet Bennet wouldn’t keep harping on them.

Was she right to say that she is one of those voters who cares about social issues? Yes, she’s entitle to say this, as  a journalist representing the public.

Neal just needs to be fair to both candidates, which she was.

A headline in today’s Denver Post reads, “Buck clarifies comments on global warming ‘hoax.’”

One problem: As you know if you read the article, Buck never clarified his comments on the matter. His campaign spokesman, Owen Loftus, did.

So the headline, most likely written by an editor, didn’t accurately reflect the article, written by a Post reporter.

It’s a significant error to someone like me who likes candidates who talk to reporters themselves. (And I like reporter who insist on this when possible.)

But I might not bother to point the headline out if not for the fact that Buck himself hasn’t been quoted in The Post much lately. Instead, he mostly, relies on his spokespeople. (To be fair, so does Bennet.)

But the headline gives readers the impression Buck is out there fighting for himself with reporters, when, in fact, in this instance–and in by far most cases in Post articles published in October–his spokespeople were the ones to talk to reporters.

“Sen. Inhofe was the first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated,” Ken Buck said yesterday, The Coloradoan reports today. “The evidence just keeps supporting his view, and more and more people’s view, of what’s going on.”

Even if you think global warming is a hoax, like Ken Buck apparently does, it’s simply inaccurate to say that that “more and more” people share this view, at least the people who count the most: scientists.

“The trend in the scientific community has been to make more and more certain statements about global warming, and more importantly that it’s caused by pollution,” said Dan Lashof, Director the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate Center.  ”The claim that more and more scientists are saying this is just a lie. The U.S National Academy of Sciences this year affirmed the science [supporting global warming] in a comprehensive study called America’s Climate Choices”

The Colorado Independent points out today that Buck’s views on global warming put him once again on the scientific fringe, continuing a trend from Sunday when he called sexual orientation is a choice.

Buck, who’s called himself a global warming skeptic in the past, also apparently stepped up his anti-global warming language for the ears of Inhofe, raising legitimate question again for reporters about his willingness to say whatever he thinks he needs to say to gain the love and support of the specific audience that’s in front of him.  I can’t find a case where Buck has said that global warming is the “greatest hoax that has been perpetrated” or anything quite this extreme on the topic. Let me know if you find this, please.

Reporters should ask Buck for his views on other scientific topics (e.g., evolution, extraterrestrials, health/tobacco, food labeling, endangered species) and whether he is uncomfortable being at odds with mainstream scientific thought…-and whether his other views on other scientific topics, like is thoughts on global warming, are even more extreme than previously expressed.

If you’ve been watching the evolution of political blogging at The Denver Post, you know that the Spot blog, is by far the best effort yet, way better than the newspaper’s blog in the days when rightie Ross Kaminsky wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, while his left-leaning Gang-of-Four counterparts were often AWOL, along with any audience to speak of.

Now, with Kaminsky safely booted back to his Rossputin blog, The Post’s political blog features bylined reporting, fact-based with breaking news and some humor but without rumor and slander.

The Spot also offers two opinion writers (sometimes more, but rarely): right-leaning Chuck Plunkett, who posts as much as once per day, and libertarian David Harsanyi, who posts less frequently.

I’ve got nothing against Plunkett and Harsanyi. I respect both of them.

But it’s obvious to me that the Spot, by adhering to basic journalistic standards in the vast majority of its blog posts, strives to be fair and accurate, like The Denver Post generally.

And featuring two right-leaning opinion bloggers, amid the eight news writers, isn’t fair and doesn’t reflect well on The Post’s commitment to even-handedness.

So, for example, last week. On Tuesday, the morning after the 9News-Post-sponsored Bennet-Buck debate, there’s Harsanyi bashing Bennet on health care, with no blogger offering counter-spin.

And Wednesday morning, there’s Plunkett defending Buck in the “buyer’s remorse” case.

Then Plunkett is at it again on Thursday, trotting out a rape victim who praises Buck’s treatment of her.

The previous week, Bennet got unfairly punched in the mouth by Plunkett, in a Spot piece titled, “Bennet ought to drop his hypocritical strategy.” 

I know Plunkett doesn’t always side with the GOP (e.g., McPlagiarist), but he seems to be on a particularly conservative jag of late (See list at end of this post.)

Since the primary, Plunkett wrote eight pro-Buck posts, versus four siding with Bennet. Harsanyi tossed in five more attacking Bennet and, no surprise, none favoring Bennet. (Well, that’s not exactly right. Harsanyi posted a piece Friday pointing out that even though he “fundamentally” disagrees with most of Bennet’s policy positions, Harsanyi doesn’t believe Bennet hates the Broncos, as Republicans claimed. And on Friday Plunkett posted The Post’s endorsement of Bennet.)

I emailed The Post’s Editorial Page Editor Dan Haley, who’s in charge of the opinion posts on the Spot, while Political Editor Curtis Hubbard oversees the news posts.

I asked Haley if he thinks the situation is fair and, if not, if he’d balance out the Spot by adding a couple left-leaning opinion writers from the editorial page.

I suggested that, with the election raging, the Spot should dump Plunkett and Harsanyi for the final weeks of the election season, in the name of basic fairness. Or balance them out immediately.

His response:

You make an interesting point, and one I hadn’t thought of. When we created The Spot, the idea was to join forces with the citydesk reporters, so we could have one strong blog (with news and views) rather than two weaker blogs. I’ve encouraged everyone on my staff to blog, but I don’t make it mandatory. Given our staff size, our main goal each day is to produce two editorials and create a compelling op-ed page. (Of course, online and social media have taken on a bigger role, as they should.) I have no plans to ask David and Chuck to stop blogging during the campaign because I think their contributions are a valuable part of the blog, in specific, and the public discourse in general. But I do think we should encourage more of our left-leaning editorialists and columnists to do more blogging for more balance, and that’s a broader discussion that we should have here.

Also, I would argue with your characterization of Chuck Plunkett’s blog posts. While those you point to can be viewed as conservative, or right-leaning, he also has written numerous posts that could be seen coming from the left, if you feel the need to put everything in a neatly labeled box. Beside critiquing Scott McInnis and Dan Maes, for example, he has taken on Tom Tancredo in a few posts, including one after Tancredo called for Obama’s impeachment. He also has defended Michael Bennet in numerous instances and criticized Dick Wadhams when he tried to lump Hickenlooper and Ritter together as “Hickenritter.”

I was obviously happy to receive this, since Haley essentially agreed with me that more left-leaning posts on the Spot would bring more balance, and he seems ready to move in this direction.

Though I’d dump Harsanyi and Plunkett now to achieve immediate fairness, I wouldn’t eliminate them or the opinion posts from the Spot forever. I like the news-opinion format of the blog, as long as it’s balanced.

The question is, how to achieve balance in the long term?

Adding posts by left-leaning bloggers is the place to start, obviously.

It’s also a necessary to acknowledge that Plunkett leans right.

Harsanyi, for one, doesn’t think so, as he told me in an email, that Plunkett is a centrist.

Asked if he thought of himself as right-leaning, Plunkett wrote that “free-market libertine” had a “nice ring to it.” He emailed me:

“I think of myself as a centrist. So do others who know me well. I’m progressive on social issues like gay rights and a woman’s right to chose. I’m passionate about protecting the environment. But I am skeptical of government over-reaching in many ways, and I am a free-markets kind of guy, as long, of course, as those markets are conducted under the rule of clear and reasonable laws and regulations. In my life, I have voted more often for Democrats than Republicans, but it is true Democrats have deeply disappointed me of late. I also think Republicans share the blame in the present situation.

 So no, I don’t lean GOP. I no longer lean Democrat. I don’t even know if you can say I lean Libertarian. What I think is going on is you and others are seeing a Chuck Plunkett who is a centrist by nature but who is writing and commenting during a unique time in our history when the conservatives are generating much of the energy.”

Looking back at Plunkett’s writing, I have to agree with him that he’s not partisan, for sure. He’ll take unexpected positions.

But before you believe he’s Mr. Centrist, read the following excerpt from a speech he gave at conservative gathering Sept. 15, called “Denver Liberty on the Rocks.”

Plunkett describes how he want back two years ago, after he joined the Post editorial board, and read “key passages” of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which was an “exciting and affirming” experience. “I thought it was an overwhelmingly positive message, and I note that you guys think that way,” he said, adding that a lot of Americans “don’t see that free markets could structure a beneficial society.”

“Vast segments of our population either believe or act like they believe that Americans only enjoy their standard of living at the expense of others,” he said.  “They experience guilt when they ought to experience gratitude. They don’t understand that wealth creates wealth. They don’t understand that the poor countries in the world are almost always poor not because Americans are stealing all of their resources, but because their governments prevent free markets from forming and empowering their people…-because over-reaching governments won’t help them make money. You need to frame the narrative so more people understand that.”

“Too many Americans believe that here at home only the rich get richer,” he told conservatives. “You hear that all the time that the system has gotten rigged somehow against the middle class and especially against the poor.”

I know the political center in the United States has been moving steadily to the right, but if this quote represents the new center, the right has been moving so fast I lost track of it.

I mean, the Spot needs a voice to stand up for unions and government interventions in the economy to create economic equality–countering Plunkett and Harsanyi.

Still, the addition of more progressive blog posts on the Spot, written by other writers, would help balance the blog.

But it won’t solve the fairness problem because it’s true what Haley says: Plunkett in particular and even Harsanyi will sometimes attack conservatives and their ideas.

So you could run into a situation, like during this year’s primary season, when Plunkett was in his “McPlagiarist” period, when the Spot’s opinions could tilt left, instead of the current rightward tack.

That wouldn’t be fair either.

So it’s up to Haley to flag situations where the Spot starts to look one-sided, favoring one candidate or view, whether left, right or center. Or when it’s doing the opposite. This makes The Post look bad, and right now that’s what’s happening. There are plenty of opinion mongers out there to make the situation right, if need be, on short notice.

I’m not alone in thinking that newspapers will survive only if they can convince people that they are the source for credible, fair, and accurate information…-even on their blogs.

By sponsoring a blog that tilts rightward, particularly in a Senate race that has huge national implications, The Post isn’t doing itself or us any favors.

A SUMMARY OF RECENT OPINION WRITING ON THE SPOT BLOG

 The vast majority of Spot pieces are not opinion. They are written by Denver Post reporters Lynn Bartels, Michael Booth, Karen Crummy, Jessica Fender, Tim Hoover, Michael Riley, and Allison Sherry. Political Editor Curtis Hubbard also contributes.

Opinion pieces are mostly written by Chuck Plunkett and David Harsanyi

A sample of recent Spot posts by Chuck Plunkett:

• Oct. 18: Buck’s gay gaffe and what Republicans should learn from it (States that Buck’s views are wrong.)
• Oct. 15: Denver Post picks Bennet for Senate
• Oct. 14: Rape Victim Praises Ken Buck for his assistance (Reports on rape case in which victim praises Buck)
• Oct. 13: Sex and Politics in the Senate Race (Supports the way Buck handled rape case)
• Oct. 12: Dan Maes blames his supporters for believing in him
• Oct. 7: Did GOP just drop Dan Maes? Really?
• Oct. 6: Bennet ought to drop his hypocritical strategy. (Slams Bennet ads)
• Sept. 24: WhoSaidYouSaid catches its “They Spend You Pay” stride (Praises free-market website)
• Sept. 9: Bennet gets it right (supporting Bennet positions against more stimulus funds and Afghan war)
• Sept. 8: Hickenlooper’s strange bedfellows
• Sept. 3: Maes snubs reporters; proves pundits right
• Aug. 31: NRO finds Bennet also faults stimulus as “immoral” (digs at Bennet for faulting bill he supported)
• Aug. 27: More on Bennet’s “Nothing to show for it” comment (defends Bennet remark.)
• Aug. 25: Bennet’s “Nothing to show for it” comment” isn’t really a bombshell (adds context and defends Bennet remark)
• Aug. 24: Bucking the Federal footprint (defends Buck against extremist label by NYT)
• Aug. 13: Buck to use candor against crazy label (explains how Buck will answer charges of extremism)
• Aug. 13: On trying to label Ken Buck (Suggests Buck perfectly represents GOP)
• Aug. 12: Team Buck versus Team Obama (Suggests national GOP will like Buck)

David Haransyi’s sample Spot blog posts:

• Oct. 15, 2010, “Does Michael Bennet want Kyle Orton to get injured?” Um, no.
• Oct. 12, 2010, Where’s Michael Bennet on health care? Anywhere he needs to be (bashing Bennet)
• Sept. 9, 2010, What is Dick Morris talking about? (defending Ryan Frazier)
• Sept. 7, 2010, So let me get this straight-.  (questioning poll showing dead heat in U.S. Senate race)
• Sept. 3, 2010, Who is Michael Bennet? (bashing Bennet)
• Aug. 26, 2010, “Oh, the hypocrisy (Suggests Bennet is a hypocrite)
• Aug. 11, 2010, What the Atlantic and others got wrong about Colorado (saying Buck will be tough candidate)

Alicia Caldwell is a Post opinion writer, but her posts on the Spot are not hard-edged like Plunkett’s. She wrote last week that U.S. Rep Jared Polis and State Senator Michael Johnston appeared on Time Magazine’s list of rising stars of U.S. politics. She wrote wrote Aug. 24, spotlighting a Washington Post piece that quoted Buck lauding the Tea Party movement but distancing himself from it. Before that, in an Aug. 20 piece titled Buck gets no love from the NYT, she wondered whether Buck’s being labeled “extreme” in a New York Times editorial would hurt or help him among moderate voters in Colorado. She wrote three other pieces in August and more frequently in July, mostly passing on information from other media outlets, some of it left-leaning.