If you’re lucky enough to listen to conservative talk radio, you know that some GOP candidates are staying away from Tea-Party groups and radio shows, others are sliding up close to the Tea Party, and some Republicans are Tea-Party-Pure, fully embracing the Tea Party, without hesitation or protection.

Speaking KNUS’ Peter Boyles show this morning, GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck agreed with guest-host Chuck Bonniwell that establishment Republicans in Colorado are “clueless,” and Buck told listeners that he witnessed a “Tea Party” meeting, at which an unnamed Tea Party leader said that if Rep. Amy Stephens wins the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, “nobody in this room will vote for her, and nobody in this room will work for her.”

But Buck has his own limits as to how far he’ll go in hugging the Tea Party.

On another Tea-Party radio show yesterday, Buck stopped short of allowing himself to be called a “Tea-Party guy.”

On KLZ 560-AM’s  “Wake Up” show yesterday, host Randy Corporon told Buck a story about a consultant advising a Republican candidate to stay away from the Tea Party. But, Corporan said to Buck, “you’re a Tea Party guy, aren’t you?”

Buck flinched.

“You know, I am a Republican candidate,” he answered. “I’m a conservative Republican candidate. I share many of the same values with the Tea Party, and I have to tell you, I am so disappointed when I look at DC and I see the infighting that’s  going on in the Republican Party there–and some of the same tension here in Colorado. It makes absolutely no sense to me. If we fight amongst ourselves in Colorado,  we don’t stand any chance of winning an election against the Democrats. They are much more disciplined and united. And so while certainly I have disagreements with other Tea-Party candidates–heck my wife and I don’t agree on what to eat for dinner–it doesn’t mean we don’t get along. But I certainly believe in the core values of the Tea Party and 9-12 groups in Colorado.

Listen to Buck (on KLZ radio) discuss whether he’s a Tea-Party candidate

Buck doesn’t say he’s a Tea-Party guy, and then he sort of does so when he says he sometimes disagrees with “other Tea-Party candidates.”

So it seems that Buck himself might have Tea-Party identity issues. Maybe he’s not so Tea-Party-Pure, even as he attacks Stephens for ranking low on the Tea-Party scale. Who is Tea-Party-Pure? Which Republicans will say they’re a Tea Party candidate? It’s a good question, and KLZ’z Corporon was smart to ask it.

Partial Transcript of Buck on KNUS this morning:

Bonniwell: I think the establishment Republicans in Colorado are as clueless as they are nationally. They just don’t get it, and having as their candidate someone who would push Amycare. I mean, that’s the best they can do, really? Wow.

Buck: I agree with you, and I don’t just agree with  you because I’m running against Amy. I was at a Tea Party meeting several weeks ago, and Ryan Call was talking about Amy. And the head of the Tea Party grabbed the microphone and said, ‘Let me explain something. If Amy wins the primary, nobody in this room will vote for her, and nobody in this room will work for her.’ We are not going to send Republicans back to Washington DC to act like Democrats. And I think that’s just a very strong part of the conservative ethos.

KFKA talk-radio host Amy Oliver urged Republicans last week to read a Facebook post by former State Senator Shawn Mitchell, in which Mitchell wrote that he’s “somewhere between distressed and appalled that GOP luminaries think it’s a good idea for [Rep. Amy Stephens] to bear the party’s standard into a campaign for federal office in 2014.”

Stephens is one of six GOP candidates vying to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Udall next year.  Also running are Tea Party favorite and recycled Senate candidate Ken Buck, mustachioed state Senator Randy Baumgardner from northwestern Colorado’s District 8, state Senator from El Paso County Owen Hill, as well as Jamie McMillan and Tom Janich.

Oliver, who doubles as a staffer for the libertarian Independence Institute, was really excited about Mitchell’s Dec. 9 Facebook post, telling listeners that “the entry of Amy Stephens in the race, and some of the subsequent endorsements that she has received, have got conservatives saying privately what Shawn Mitchell put out publicly.”

Oliver dedicated two segments of Tuesday’s show to the Facebook post, pouring over Mitchell’s writing, like you might read a religious text, slowly and respectfully analyzing it in loving detail, re-reading portions of it, pausing, and building up to what she called one of Mitchell’s “most important lessons:”

Mitchell: “Pushing Amy Stephens to the nomination will guarantee bitter debate and resentment that demoralizes the base, escalates recrimination, and urging toward party fracture, and accelerates the GOP’s recent death wish to impersonate the Whigs.

And that speaks only of the primary. If the elders and donors can carry her across the line to the nomination, what exactly do you think the Media Democrat team will do to the former employee of Focus on the Family, the co-architect of the infamous end-of session civil-buster, that killed dozens of bills on the calendar, in order to block a vote on civil unions? Whatever the merits of that move, it will be blood in the water come October. And it will be just about the only thing that unpolitical, tv-watching Coloradans ever hear about Amy Stephens.”

Oliver accurately provided context, pointing out that Mitchell’s post, which has amassed 264 comments on Facebook, states that Stephens is not a “bad Republican,” but she agreed with Mitchell’s view:

Mitchell: “In sponsoring SB-200, the Obamacare exchange, Amy Stephens bet wrong in a big way on a defining, existential battle, perhaps the biggest of the decade, maybe in our lifetime. She sided with party appeasers and corporate accomodationists against a vital, surging grass roots movement for liberty and smaller government. Even at the time she made her bet, the picture was murky, and ambitious politicians could be forgiven for being uncertain. (Once upon a time, it took me days to sort out right from wrong when Referendum C’s assault on TABOR was put before the people.).”

“I highly recommend that Republicans read it,” Oliver told listeners, even after she’s already said Mitchell’s post is a “must read” and “a great read.”

Oliver should obviously have Stephens on the show to get her side of the story.

Fresh from his top-GOP-Senate-candidate showing in the latest Public Policy Pollingsurvey, Ken Buck took to the talk-radio airwaves in recent days, bragging that he’s ahead of his primary opponents by “25 points or more” and that he “had a lot Tea Party support last time” and he has “a lot of Tea Party support this time.”

Reminded by KHOW’s Mandy Connell that he was tagged as a “gaffe-machine” in 2010, Buck said:

Buck: “Obviously, I’m more careful in what I say and where I say it and who I’m around. It doesn’t mean I don’t hold the same values. I think messaging is important.”

Connell wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with Buck had she asked him the sorts of things he’d say privately versus in public, but she could have at least listed a couple of Buck’s private utterances that Democrats used to  sledge-hammer Buck in TV ads last time around, including his infamous exuberance for banning abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, as well as his private courting then public dumping of personhood activists, whose failed amendment would have banned common forms of birth control, as well as all abortion.

Connell, who had Buck on her show Tuesday, also might have recounted some of the Buck material leading to the “gaffe-machine” tag, like his comment comparing being gay to alcoholism.

With this info out there, listeners might have wondered about the truth of Buck’s claim to Connell: “The donors know me. They trust me.” Really? On the issues, Buck said: “I’m going to put out a series of issue statements, starting in January, that will be very specific on health care, on energy, on five or six or seven different issues.”

Five! Six! or even seven issue statements! Connell could have mocked Buck for promising such incredible depth. But instead she just let him say:

Buck: “I think it’s very important for Republicans to stand for something, not just stand against something. I’m not just part of the party of no.” On health care, for example, Buck says he wants a “free-market health-care system.”

On KLZ radio Friday, Buck took a shot at candidates who petition onto the primary ballot, as planned by his opponent Rep. Amy Stephens, instead of going through the caucus process.

Buck said the petition route “bypasses the party structure, the people who work the hardest in the party, and it’s something that would be very unfortunate, if people petitioned on.”

Discussing in more detail why it’s bad for a candidate to skip the caucus-process and petition onto the primary ballot, Buck and Clark said:

Clark: Then you have the other tactic, which is simply to pay a bunch of people to go out and get a bunch of signatures and put your name on the ballot. Well, okay, we’ve all seen what happens when that happens. It’s usually not very pretty. This particular candidate, I have a feeling, is going to run a scorched-earth campaign. We’re just going to have to deal with that. Ken?

Buck: Well, I think, one, there’s a big advantage to going to the caucuses and the assembly. And that is, you go to all the counties of the state, and you ask for their support. And they work for you in the primary and they work for you in the general election. And when you put people in front of a supermarket with a clipboard in their hands, you’re not gaining support. You may think that you may have enough money to run an air game in Denver media and win a race, but the reality is that running state-wide is very difficult to win petitioning on. And so, I agree with your analysis.

Buck told Clark: “In primaries, people are going to put their best foot forward, and they’re going to put their opponent’s worst foot forward, and we will be weaker going against a candidate like Mark Udall.”

Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck and his conservative talk-show allies like to blame “the left” for distracting them from what they say are the real issues, which somehow don’t include immigration or a woman’s right to choose abortion.

But the obvious truth is that it’s Buck and other conservatives who bring up the taboo issues (immigration, abortion) on their own, because their own base voters demand to know about them!

To prove the point, during a recent radio interview, I timed the number of seconds that elapsed between 1) Buck saying he won’t talk about immigration and 2) Buck brining up his extreme immigration position on his own!

For the record, it took Buck exactly 30 seconds, from promising not to talk about it to saying, with no leftist provocation, he’s opposed to immigration reform at this time.

Here’s the proof, from KVOR’s Jeff Crank Show Nov. 9.

CRANK: Well, it is one of those things. And I talked about this earlier. It just seems to me that Republicans in the last couple of election cycles, have allowed the left—They’re very good at diverting our attention from the issues that matter….issues like immigration. The life issue. Things like that….

BUCK: Well, you’re absolutely right. The – what a Senator spends most of his or her time doing are the issues involving the expenditure of federal funds….

CRANK: Sure, and there’s no question about it. I think where the left sees their opportunity is that like, if they can bring up immigration, they know where John McCain is going to be….

BUCK: Well, and it goes to credibility, also. They don’t just want to talk about immigratioin. They want to give amnesty, and then say, “Trust us, we’ll secure the border. Trust us, we’ll develop an employee verification program in the country.” And we don’t trust the federal government. And that’s why we’re divided.

Similarly, on the Mike Rosen Show, Nov. 14, Buck said social issues like abortion are “less sigificant” for a U.S. Senator.

Then, exactly 71 seconds later (@22:00 in the podcast), Buck told a caller that individual employers should not have to carry insurance policies for their employees that cover birth control, as required with some exceptions by Obamacare. That’s not significant these days?

It was already self-evident that Buck brought his problems on himself during his last failed Senate run (See, “I am pro-life. And I’ll answer the next question. I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest.“). But just because it happened once before, shouldn’t stop reporters from pointing out the Buck phenomenon as it emerges once again.

On KNUS radio last week, Rep. Cory Gardner was pressed on whether he’d try again to block an extension of the debt limit to stop Obamacare. His answer surprised me:

Gardner: “I don’t think threatening with the debt limit is a good idea. I think that has proven to not work.”

Afternoon KNUS host Steve Kelley, who was interviewing Gardner, seemed to think Gardner should go down the debt-ceiling-government-shutdown road again, and not blink this time. So I thought Kelley would remind Gardner how fierce an advocate he’d been for using the debt ceiling in the past.

Kelley may not be a regular listener of KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show, but I am, and I remember when Oliver asked him (on Jan. 8):

Oliver: I want to ask you Congressman, are you willing to vote no against a raise in the Debt Ceiling if it doesn’t include significant spending cuts? 

Gardner:  Well, “Absolutely,” is the answer to that.

Gardner made similar comments to Kelley himself in January, saying, “We are not going to imperil the future generations of the country.  It is immoral.  It is wrong.” And on conservative KFTM, Gardner said that blocking the extension of the debt ceiling was an “opportunity to reduce the size and scope of government, and how we can require opportunities to look for savings, look for cuts, and what we’re going to do to grow the economy through common sense tax reform.  I think there’s great opportunities for us to get back on track.” (Listen here.)

So If I were Kelley, I’d wonder why Gardner’s moral outrage about the debt ceiling was so easily undermined by a tactical loss.

Same question would go to U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, who said on KLZ Grassroots Radio Colorado Aug. 27:

Buck: I’m “absolutely against raising the debt limit, period, end of story”

Is Buck ready to give up the fight on the debt ceiling, like Gardner is? Kelley should consider asking him.

KLZ radio’s afternoon drive show, Grassroots Radio Colorado, deserves to be recognized as a regular news breaker. That is, for the five of us who are already following next year’s election.

The show broke news again in an Aug. 27 interview with U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, when Buck said he’s “absolutely against raising the debt limit, period, end of story.”

Buck reiterated the point later in the interview:

Buck: “I’m not going to vote in any way to allow a[n] increase in the debt ceiling.”

Listen to Ken Buck say he’s “absolutely” against raising the debt limit

Strangely enough, Buck used a question about the budget bill to state his position on the debt ceiling, but it’s hard to believe that Buck confused the debt ceiling with the continuing-resolution budget bill.

In any case, all of Colorado’s congressional candidates should be answering questions from real reporters about the debt limit, as we approach next week’s Oct. 17 deadline for the U.S. to extend it or begin defaulting on our country’s debts.

With the stakes so high (stock market gyrations, U.S. credit-rating downgrade, economic slowdown), it’s a topic all congressional candidates and Members of Congress should address publicly.

Last month, Buck told KNUS radio’s Jimmy Sengenberger that it’s “legitimate” for the U.S. House to shut down the government to stop Obamacare.

Partial transcript of Ken Buck’s interview on KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado Sept. 27.

Ken Clark: [talking about Ted Cruz and his 21 hour speech on Senate floor] it wasn’t technically a filibuster.   And then you had the vote on cloture today, okay?  Where do you stand?

Buck: Where do I stand?  I am absolutely against raising the debt limit, period, end of story.  This country has too much debt.  It has too much spending.  We have taxed our people enough.  We have not – we have overspent, not overtaxed.  So, we need to get back to – actually, here’s a concept for both of you.  You ready for this?  You sitting down?  Thank you, very much.  How about let’s pass a budget in the United States Senate.  Would that be a  —

Clark:  What if – what if — ?

Buck: [facetiously]  Okay, we lost somebody!  We’ve got a fainter, over here!

Clark:  What’s a budget?

Buck: We got –.  No kidding!  What’s a budget?  And Mark Udall –

Clark:  I’ve never heard of it.

Buck: Mark Udall and Barak Obama have not passed a budget in a house of the United States Congress that they control now, for six years.  How on Earth is that possible?

Co-host Jason Worley:  But they’re pretty good at voting against Obama, which makes you laugh –

Clark:  But, wait a minute!  I thought it was all done by Continuing Resolution.

Buck: Yeah.  And that’s the problem.  All we do is this ‘stop and start’ kind of nonsense, and we need to actually plan on how we’re going to reduce this deficit over the next ten years, and have a plan in place.  And that’s what I would focus on.

Clark:  All right.  Very good.  So, how would you have voted on the cloture pay?

Buck: Well, I’m not going to vote in any way to allow a[n] increase in the debt ceiling.

Listen to Ken Buck say he’s “absolutely” against raising the debt limit.

Activists led by Personhood USA yesterday submitted over 50,000 more signatures than the 86,000 required to make the 2014 election ballot, making it likely voters will cast ballots next year on a measure that would add “unborn human beings” to the definition of a “person” and “child” in Colorado’s criminal code.

Backers and opponents of the measure disagree on whether it would affect abortion rights, but the fact is that supporters of the amendment, including its designated representative and a spokesperson for Colorado Right to Life, have referred to it as “personhood.”

So this means it’s likely that political candidates will face questions next year about their views on the personhood concept, under which all abortion would be banned, even for rape and incest, as well as common forms of birth control.

In 2010, the last time a personhood amendment was on the Colorado ballot, all Republican candidates for Governor and Senate supported the measure.

This year, most top-line Republican candidates are on record supporting personhood (See below), while no Democrat has done so publicly. The Colorado Statesman’s Peter Marcus has sought comments from this year’s crop of candidates, but he’s faced some resistance.

Coverage of the yesterday’s signature submission, including informative pieces by CBS4’s Shaun Boyd and the Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic, didn’t provided a tally of personhood support among top candidates. So I will supply it below:

Governor

State Sen. Greg Brophy endorsed personhood in 2008 telling 7News at the time, “Clearly it’’s always the right time to take the stand for the sanctity of life.” Colorado Right to Life writes on its blog that Brophy “supports personhood” and is “pro-life with no exceptions.”

Secretary of State Scott Gessler is apparently not on record on personhood.

Former lawmaker Mike Kopp “supports personhood” and is “pro-life with no exceptions,” according to the Colorado Right to Life blog.

Former Rep. Tancredo supports personhood.

U.S. Senate

Sen. Randy Baumgardner is “100% pro-life with no exceptions” and “supports personhood,” according to the 2012 Colorado Right to Life blog.

Weld Country DA Ken Buck withdrew his support for the personhood amendment in 2010, but stood behind is position against abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.

Sen. Owen Hill is “pro-life” and “supports personhood” according to CRTL in 2012.

U.S. House

Rep. Mike Coffman is listed by CRTL as a personhood supporter, and he has been held up by Personhood USA as a model personhood-supporting candidate. He’s against abortion for rape and incest.

Rep. Cory Gardner supports personhood.

Rep. Doug Lamborn supports personhood.

Rep. Scott Tipton is not on record as a personhood supporter.

During an interview on KNUS’ Jimmy Sengenberger Show Sat., GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck explained what he learned from his 2010 loss to Democrat Michael Bennet.

Buck told Sengenberger that, this time around, he won’t let the “liberal media” and “liberal candidates” distract him from the “issues that voters care about.” Listen to Buck on KNUS Sengenberger Show 9.21.13.

Judging from what Buck has said previously about his failed 2010 campaign, he was undoubtedly thinking about his views on social issues, like abortion, which were widely viewed as his downfall last time around.

But the ironic part is, if you think back to 2010, the most damaging single utterance Buck made, caught on video at a conservative gun gathering, showed a shocking exuberance by Buck himself to talk about his opposition to abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.

Sengenberger surely remembers Buck’s rape-and-incest comments, which were later used in TV ads, and he should have pointed out that there was no liberal media or liberal candidates present at the event, tricking Buck into going way beyond what was needed to answer a simple question about abortion.

It was all Buck. It was authentic. And the emotional intensity of his answer in this video, unprovoked by anyone, arguably cost him a Senate seat. How does this square with what Buck is saying now about how it was the liberal media that undermined him?

Ken Buck, who’s running for U.S. Senate, isn’t always so great at making up his mind about things (e.g., the personhood amendment).

So, even though Buck had tweeted his support for Sen. Ted Cruz’s crusade to shut down the government in order to stop Obamacare, it was wise for Fox31 Denver’s Eli Stokols to phone Buck to find out his latest thinking about the standoff in Washington.

Unfortunately, the Buck campaign did not return Fox31’s phone calls.

So I’ll fill in the media gap with Buck’s comments on the topic Sat. on KNUS radio’s debut of the Jimmy Sengenberger show (Sundays 5-8 p.m.).

In a move other talk-radio hosts should copy, Sengenberger injected some refreshing conflict into his conservative show by asking Buck to respond to righty Jonah Goldberg’s position against trying to shut down the government to stop Obamacare.

Sengenberger played Buck a Fox News interview with Goldberg about the passage of the House bill defunding Obamacare:

Interviewer from Fox:  Jonah, is this a Kamikazi mission?

Jonah Goldberg:  I don’t know if it’s a Kamikazi mission, there’s definitely  a lot of Kabuki theater in it. It’s like a long con, where you try to convince people to part with their money, and the trick is that the con artist is supposed to leave before they realize it’s a con. And what’s happened here is this whole ‘Defund Obamacare’ thing is, it has been exposed with the con artist still sort of left out there.  I mean, I like Ted Cruz.  I like Mike Lee, but these guys have been selling a plan that simply won’t work and they’ve been denouncing anyone who says it won’t work as prematurely surrendering, when in fact, all they were doing was just predicting where the facts would take them.

Then Sengenberger asked Buck to respond:

Sengenberger:  Is trying to defund Obamacare a Kamikazi mission or just Kabuki theater, or is there a real legitimate reason to put up that fight?

Buck: I think there’s legitimate reason, Jimmy, there. We cannot allow Obamacare to become one of the entitlements in this country. We’ve got to deal with healthcare. We’ve got to create a more open marketplace. We’ve got to give a patient centered healthcare system a chance. We’ve got to give consumers the information they need to make good choices. We’ve got to do better job at educating the public about their personal accountability for their health and give them incentives. And if Obamacare becomes a part of our cultural expectation, we have lost.  We can’t afford another huge entitlement like Obamacare.

Listen to Buck on KNUS Sengenberger Show 9.21.13

This is what Buck said on Saturday. So you’d assume he would have said the same thing if he’d returned Stokols’ call Tuesday. But, to make sure Buck’s thinking hasn’t changed over the past couple days, I’d suggest that Stokols stay after him.

In a Westword interview published today, NARAL President Ilyse Hogue says Virginia’s November gubernatorial race is “something of a test case” to find out if the anti-choice positions of a candidate prove to be his downfall, just as abortion issues tipped the electoral scales against 2010 Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck here in Colorado.

Westword’s Michael Roberts reports:

The Virginia governor’s race between abortion opponent Ken Cuccinelli and pro-choice hopeful Terry McAuliffe, which will come to a head in November 2013, a year before most of the other contests, is something of a test case, Hogue believes. Moreover, the strategy NARAL is employing there is the same one that helped elect Senator Bennet in Colorado — highlighting the anti-abortion positions of an opponent (in Bennet’s case, Ken Buck) whether or not they make them central to their campaign.

“Senator Bennet and politicians like him recognize that when the extreme positions of opponents are exposed and candidates are forced to speak to them and defend them in the public square, they lose,” Hogue maintains. “You hear politicians say, ‘I don’t want to talk about this. It’s a social issue, and people only want to hear about jobs and the economy.’ But that’s fundamentally untrue. Women’s economic livelihood is tied up with their ability to take charge of their family planning. That’s the real way Americans understand reproductive health and reproductive choice, and the extremists are very out of step with the common family experience in this country. We applaud Michael Bennet for his willingness to expose the extreme agenda of his opponent, and we think it’s a winning strategy we’d like to see replicated around the country.

 

“In Virginia, we’re seeing indications that voters who are otherwise on the fence or identify themselves as independents are being driven to not only go to the polls but vote for the pro-choice candidate when they see the extreme positions of the opponents extreme positions on choice — and Senator Bennet’s campaign provided great modeling on that,” she continues. “The protection of women to make personal decisions with their families and their doctors has not traditionally been a partisan issue. In Colorado, the laws were passed under a Republican governor [John Love, who signed a bill allowing abortion in the state circa 1967]. So, in these hyper-partisan times, we’re looking for states like Colorado to exemplify the fact that this is a family issue, not a Democratic or Republican issue, and that we expect our leaders to act accordingly.”

If you’ve been amazed at the starring role abortion issues have played on the political stage here is Colorado recently, you’ll enjoy the national perspective on the topic provided in Roberts’ piece today.