You have to admire the Republicans for going to Boulder for their debate Wednesday.  It took some serious conservative backbone to descend on a town that stands for so much that Republicans do not.

But then what happened? Republicans rented a giant 11,000-seat auditorium for their debate and are treating it like a big giant bunker, keeping Boulder out.

Showing their generosity and love of the youth vote, Republicans are giving students a whopping 100 tickets for the debate, even though it will be held on the campus of the University of Colorado. A total of only 1,000 tickets total are being distributed, with most apparently going to insiders and operatives.

This has left journalists asking how many tickets do Republicans have to distribute, if they wanted to give out more? And’s who’s responsible for allowing so few people in?

The Republicans won’t tell, and you wouldn’t expect them to, given that they don’t want to offend the students, who are signing petitions and clamoring to attend. Everyone knows Republicans don’t need to give young people more reasons not to like them—beyond the existing turnoffs of the GOP positions on choice, gay marriage, climate change, etc.

And CU won’t give out the ticket number either, only saying CNBC, which is airing the debate, set the audience size and the Republicans are in charge of ticket distribution.

So, in an ironic twist of journalism, the answer to the question of how many tickets are theoretically available resides within a news enterprise. That would be CNBC.

And CNBC, modeling the behavior journalists hate most, isn’t commenting. And in so doing, CNBC is covering for Republicans, allowing them to shift blame elsewhere and more easily avoid divulging how many tickets are available and why they aren’t being distributed.

So you have the Republican National Committee saying only that the debates are designed for television–and the leader of the Colorado Republican Party even blaming the “networks” for narrowing down the number of available seats to a “very small number.”

Any CNBC reporter, or any self-respecting journalist for that matter, would want to report the truth.

But in an upside down twist on journalism, CNBC has it, if they’d only tell. It knows how many people Republicans could have allowed in their bunker in Boulder.

Dave Kopel, research director at the right-leaning Independence Institute, slapped a pat on the back of left-leaning ProgressNow Colorado, on the latest edition of Colorado Inside Out, agreeing with the state’s top online progresive organization that Republicans should let more people, especially students, view their debate in Boulder Wednesday.

“I think ProgressNow is correct that it is ridiculous that they have this 10,000-seat arena, and they’re only letting a 1000 people in,” said Kopel on Colorado Public Television’s Colorado Inside Out Oct. 23 (@31:34 here).  “If you want to do it in a TV studio with hardly any audience, go ahead and do that.  But if you’ve got it there, it should be opened up to the public.”

He’s right. It’s crazy ridiculous to limit the seating to 1,000 people, with only 100 tickets going to students at the University of Colorado, where the debate is taking place.

Kopel has clashed with ProgressNow, especially on gun issues, so it’s good to see him call out the truth as he sees it, in his role as pundit on the TV show. If you watch the show regularly, you know Kopel doesn’t always align himself with conservatives. Recently he’s praised Democrat Morgon Carroll and dissed conservative school board member Julie Williams.  It makes the show, which can get a bit sleepy sometimes, more interesting.

Before Wednesday’s Republican debate in Colorado, home of the personhood movement, it’s worth a quick review of the top GOP candidates’ positions on personhood laws, which would ban abortion by giving legal rights to zygotes (fertilized eggs).

The Personhood Alliance, a national anti-choice organization, has made this quick review easy by publishing a micro website with the abortion positions of the top six Republican presidential candidates.

Surprisingly, among the candidates listed on the website, only Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are on record as personhood supporters. Both pledged to co-sponsor federal personhood legislation, called the Life at Conception Act, but neither of them actually did so.

I wondered if Rubio and Cruz went to Washington and discovered there was no such thing as federal personhood legislation.

Of course, that’s what Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner said last year about the Life at Conception Act, even though he was actually factually a co-sponsor of the House version. On the Senate side, the legislation was sponsored by a fading GOP presidential candidate, Sen. Rand Paul.

Unfortunately neither Rubio’s nor Cruz’s office returned my call, so I can’t tell you why they have yet to hop on the federal personhood bill, as promised.

As I wrote Friday for RH Reality Check (here), Personhood Alliance spokesman Gualberto Garcia Jones thinks Cruz is more likely to fully embrace personhood than Rubio, illuminating the limits of Rubio’s careen rightward.

But, still, both Cruz and Rubio are personhood backers, which could prove to be a major vote getter as they work through the GOP primary but also a serious liability if one of them actually wins the nomination and confronts more diverse voters.

In any case, reporters looking for local angles for GOP debate stories might ask Cruz and Rubio  why we need to give zygotes legal protection under the good old 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Colorado Republican Party is blaming CNBC for severely limiting the number of seats available at its Oct. 28 presidential debate at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

But CNBC, which you’d think would advocate for maximum transparency and public access, hasn’t accepted the blame. Instead, strangely, it’s not commenting. What gives?

“We don’t actually know how many seats there are going to be yet,” said Colorado GOP Chair Steve House, discussing the upcoming presidential debate on KFKA’s Stacy Petty show Sept. 23.“The Coors Events Center holds 11,000, but networks are going to narrow that down to a very small number because, for some reason, they think that people might act out, right?”

CU is also blaming CNBC, sort of. In a statement about the limited seating, CU Chancellor Phillip P. DiStefano said: “The debate is being produced and led by CNBC. They determine the audience size, debate format and other aspects of the event. The Republican National Committee is in charge of ticket distribution.”

DiStefano said CNBC determines the audience size, but he was mum about the actual factual audience size set by CNBC for the event. It could have 1,000. It could have been 10,000. What was the number that the RNC was working with?

We know the CU’s Coors Events Center holds 11,000 people. The RNC is reportedly distributing just 1,000 tickets, with 100 going to CU students. So did CNBC determine the 1,000 number?

A CNBC spokesman declined to comment to me this morning, as it’s done before about this matter, making CNBC look like it’s covering for the RNC. That’s not an appealing role for a journalistic entity.

CNBC’s silence allows the RNC to get away with not taking responsibility for the limited seating, especially because House, the local Republican leader, is flat-out blaming CNBC.

Here’s an example of what the RNC is saying:

“These debates are designed for a television audience and the millions of people who will tune in,” said Fred Brown, an RNC spokesman, according to the Durango Herald. “We look forward to the attention an event of this scale will bring the university.”

Any CNBC reporter, or any self-respecting journalist for that matter, would find that spin revolting. But normally, a journalist couldn’t do much about it. In this case, however, the information to expose the spin resides within the journalistic outfit itself. That would be CNBC.

I’m hoping CNBC will do journalism a favor and start explaining what’s going on here.

Journalists have raised doubts about whether State Sen. Tim Neville, who’s expected to announce his campaign against Sen. Michael Bennet today, can raise the $10 million or more required to unseat the well-financed Democratic uncumbant. It’s a reasonable question, for sure, but recent political shifts could be opening bank accounts for Neville that were locked just months ago.

Colorado’s own Dudley Brown has had close ties to the collapsing presidential campaign of Sen. Rand Paul (See joint photo.). Paul has signed fundraising appeals for Brown, which so pissed off the National Rifle Association (NRA) that the NRA didn’t even invite Paul to an NRA Leadership Forum, which was attended by 12 GOP presidential hopeufls in April.

Brown may now be looking for a new gun-loving federal candidate prop up with millions of dollars. And that lucky candidate could be Neville, whose close ties to Dudley are not in dispute as you can read below if you need to.

But does Dudley have that kind of money? Well, he’s president of the National Association of Gun Rights (NAGR), which raised over $16 million in 501c4 political-attack funds, according to its lastest-available federal filing. It’s impossible to know how much of that dark money could be diverted to Colorado’s Senate race, but the money is big. And for what it’s worth, back in 2013, Dudley said his organization would spend at least $1 million on campaigns.

Dudley is also executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO), which played a key role in organizing recall campaigns and in mobilizing voters in senate primaries in Jefferson County. It’s credited for pushing State Sen. Laura Woods to actual victory last year. So there’s that.

Everyone knows Brown loves Neville, and vice versa, and it goes beyond their mutual dream of eliminating all background checks on anyone who purchases any gun anywhere, in this life or the next.

Tim Neville’s son, Joe, was hired as the lobbyist for RMGO, and less known is the fact that Joe Neville is also director of political affairs for NAGR.

And Neville may owe his first legislative victory to Brown, who went all in to help Neville win a 2011 vacancy committee appointment, to replace Sen. Mike Kopp. In a mean campaign, Neville beat his neighbor, then GOP State Rep. Jim Kerr.

Later, during his during his 2014 campaign against Democratic encumbant Sen. Jeanne Nicholson, Neville was endorsed by RMGO PAC and boasted about his ties to RMGO .

Neville stated on his website: “As a proud member of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, I was honored to defend your Second Amendment rights in the Colorado State Senate last year… I was proud to sponsor ‘Constitutional Carry’ legislation and be recognized by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners as the strongest defender in the legislature of your Second Amendment rights.”

That kind of talk may translate into the cash Neville needs to have a shot at Bennet. At least in theory. But money is just one obstacle for a conservative like Neville in Colorado.

On Craig Silverman’s KNUS morning show Saturday, former Denver Post owner William Dean Singleton said Hillary Clinton has been an “outstanding public servant” and would be a good president.

“I believed that she should have been president in 2008,” said Singleton, who’s also a former chair of the Associated Press. “I thought she was the best qualified person running and was disappointed when she lost the nomination to President Obama. I think she would have been an excellent president then, and I think she would be a good president now. She’s not the only good candidate out there, but I believe she would be a very good candidate.”

Singleton, who got to know Clinton as first lady and then when she ran for president in 2008, defended Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, telling Silverman that Clinton has been an “outstanding public servant.”

“I don’t think there’s anything phony about Hillary Clinton,” said Singleton on air. “I think she’s an outstanding public servant. And she knows how to work across party lines. She knows how to bring people together.”

You may wonder why I’d waste cheap blog space on Singleton, but he still votes on The Post’s editorial board, and I’d say he represents the opinion of mainstream businesspeople in Colorado as well as anyone.

In retrospect, Singleton said he thinks Bill Clinton was an “excellent president on the merits of his work.”

“My two favorite candidates are Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush,” he said, after trashing Donald Trump, saying he’s got the biggest ego he’s ever seen.

On Colorado politics, Singleton said he thinks Walker Stapleton will run for governor in 2018

If you follow Tom Tancredo you know he makes it clear where he stands on people, like Ryan Call (dislikes him), and places, like Mecca (bomb it).

So, even as Republicans are still warm from hugging each other, it’s no surprise that Tancredo is launching a new campaign to stop New Jersey Gov. Chis Christie’s presidential aspirations.

Tancredo doesn’t like Christie, and you can’t blame him. You recall Tancredo’s promising path to the Colorado governor’s office was upended this summer by his own party, through a vicious ad campaign orchestrated surreptitiously by the Republican Governors’ Association, which is chaired by… Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

Tancredo is fighing back now with his “Stop Chris Christie PAC.”

Speaking with Grassroots Radio Colorado (KLZ 560-AM) host Kris Cook Oct. 27, Tancredo said he’s already “filed papers” to create the Stop Christie PAC, allowing him to do “everything” he can to prevent Christie from securing the Republican nomination for president.

“He is no more a Republican than the man in them moon,” Tancredo told Cook. “He is a left wing, east coast liberal.”

TANCREDO: “You know, to be absolutely fair here, and clear, I have a bone to pick with him in particular, because of what he did during our primary,” Tancredo said on air. “You know, although, I must ad– we have never gotten along. We’ve always argued, especially about immigration. We did so publicly. I have never liked the guy. I have certainly never supported him for anything, and because he was concerned that I would, in fact, go against the [United States] Chamber o f Commerce position on immigration and make it a big deal, and I might win, he chose to spend a quarter of a million dollars of Republican money – Governors’ Association money—

COOK: Right.

TANCREDO: –to attack me, here, in Colorado. And, launder the money through Attorneys General Association.

COOK: And five other organizations.

Tancredo held off promoting his Stop Chris Christie PAC until after Tuesday’s election to avoid hurting Colorado Republicans.

“I don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt Bob Beauprez or any other Republican in Colorado during–or before this election,” said Tancredo on the KLZ show, which aired before the election on Oct. 27. “But when it’s over with, I guarantee you, I’m going after him.”

Partial Transcript of Oct. 27 KLZ-560 Grassroots Radio Colorado Interview with Tom Tancredo. See longer transcript here.

HOST KRIS COOK: Oh, goodie! We’ve got Jeb Bush, going to run for President

FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN, GOP GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE, AND GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, TOM TANCREDO: Yeah. Yeah, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, what a pair to draw to.

COOK: It will be a delightful field. My goodness, we have got to do something about this.

TANCREDO: I agree completely, and I intend to.

COOK: [chuckles] Good.

TANCREDO: I totally intend to.

COOK: Good.

TANCREDO: I’m not going to let this one go by and everybody – you know, when — how many times have you said this? “Oh, my gosh! We just don’t have any good ones to pick from, and I don’t like — .” Well, okay, that – probably very true. And if it’s Chris Christie or Jeb Bush either one, let me tell you, I think it’s a debacle in the making for the Republican Party.

And so, I have started – I filed papers a couple of weeks ago, now – probably ten days ago, anyway, –for a Stop Chris Christie PAC . And I’m going to do everything I can to do just that: stop Chris Christie. He is no more a Republican than the man in them moon. He is a left wing, east coast liberal. He masquerades, to the extent that there’s any – even attempt to pretend – any attempt –anything that comes out of his mouth that sounds relatively conservative. It’s a masquerade, because he now is seeking the Republican nomination, he is actually – I read the other day, that he is actually so afraid of the governor of Wisconsin –

COOK: Scott Walker.

TANCREDO: –Scott Walker—that he has almost purposel—well, almost entirely, kind of subverted his campaign. They are not giving him the money he needs, and why? Why? Because, of course, he is a competitor for that presidential nomination.

COOK: [sarcastically] Yeah, Mr. Christie, that is exactly the way to use your position at the RGA

TANCREDO: Yeah.

COOK: I mean, he has proven that he is absolutely unworthy of that role, and any other role in power.

TANCREDO: Well, you know, to be absolutely fair here, and clear, I have a bone to pick with him in particular, because of what he did during our primary. You know, although, I must ad– we have never gotten along. We’ve always argued, especially about immigration. We did so publicly. I have never liked the guy. I have certainly never supported him for anything, and because he was concerned that I would, in fact, go against the [United States] Chamber o f Commerce position on immigration and make it a big deal, and I might win, he chose to have – spend a quarter of a million dollars of Republican money – Governors’ Association money—

COOK: Right.

TANCREDO: –to attack me, here, in Colorado. And, um, and launder the money through Attorneys General Association.

COOK: And five other organizations.

TANCREDO: Five other organizations. You, — God bless you, you were the best interview we ever had on that issue, because you had done your homework and you knew what they had done. Uh, I’m telling you, it’s, I think, unconscionable and I definitely want to make an issue of this, but I want to add somebody to it, and that would be,–let’s – I might start another 527, saying, “Let’s, you know, stop Jeb Bush.” Let’s try to do this before they get a foothold in the–

COOK: Right.

TANCREDO: And get out–get to people, — let them know who they really are. And I mean, I’m totally going to do this. I certainly am for Christie.

COOK: good.

TANCREDO: Um, and we will take our – we will do our first whatever we’re going to do right after the election. I mean, I don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt Bob Beauprez or any other Republican in Colorado during–or before this election. But when it’s over with, I guarantee you, I’m going after him.

COOK: November – the 2016 election season starts on November 5th, 2014.

TANCREDO: That’s right. That’s right.

COOK: And if you don’t get that, if you don’t understand that, you’ve got to wrap your brain around it. Because if –we cannot do what Republicans always do, which is disappear after the midterm general, and not show up again until the day of the – or the two weeks leading up to the primaries in 2016, that is not the way that this works. If we’re going to win, and if we’re going to win for conservative principles, we have to be out there on the ground. We have to be making those touches with unaffiliated voters. We need to make sure that stuff is happening, and that they understand what the Republican Party really stands for, and what conservative principles are.

TANCREDO: Yeah, well, and our job is to make the Republican Party stand for something.

COOK: [chuckles] That’s right.

TANCREDO: And then—

COOK: It’s a two way street, yeah.

TANCREDO: Absolutely. But, if we win this election, –generally speaking, I’m saying, both in national elections and Colorado elections,– if we do well, if we end up winning — winning control of the Senate, and if we do nothing to actually change the direction – not just slow down the movement to the precipice, –

COOK: Right.

TANCREDO: –but change the direction of this country, if we just watch it, for fear that if we really did change it, we’d all get thrown out of office again, well, I’ll tell you, if that’s it, then there’s no need–. Why should we work hard—any of us–for the status quo to be slowed down? We have to see in these people who are running, the willingness [and] the desire –and the ones who win—the desire to change. Because, oh, I tell you, I can—this is the –my nightmare, is a Republican Senate that refuses to either impeach, repeal Obamacare, um, repeal whatever he’s going to do to us in a few months, with regard to immigration.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky did not appear in Denver this week for the Colorado Renewal Project’s “Rediscovering God in America” event in Westminster, despite widely distributed promotional materials stating that the Kentucky Senator would be in attendance as a “special guest.”

Paul was never planning to come to Colorado at all, Paul’s press office emailed me Friday, referring to organizers of the event.

“That was an error on their part,” wrote Paul spokesperson Sergio Gor.

Paul’s visit to Colorado appears to have been organized by evangelical political operative David Lane, who organizes meetings between Republican presidential contenders and pastors in swing states. Lane is associated with the American Renewal Project, which advocates for more involvement by Christians in politics.

Numerous efforts get a comment from Lane or any organizer of the Colorado event were not successful. It was not clear who sponsored Colorado’s pastor event this week, but similar events in the past have ties to Colorado for Family Values and the Christian Family Alliance of Colorado.

Paul’s visit to Colorado raised eyebrows because Colorado senatorial candidate Cory Gardner has been telling reporters that there is “no federal personhood bill”–and Paul is the unabashed sponsor of a federal personhood bill, called the Life at Conception Act.

Last year, Gardner cosponsored the House version of Paul’s legislation, also called the Life at Conception Act, which would ban all abortion, even for rape, as well as common forms of birth control.

Paul appears to have attended one of Lane’s conferences for pastors last month in South Carolina, along with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who’s been a repeated speaker at Lane’s “Pastors and Pews” events this year.

“We have a constituency that we’re mobilizing. My goal is to restore America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and reestablish a Christian culture,” Lane told U.S. News’ David Catanese in September.

“Huckabee’s done maybe every one,” Lane told Catanese. “He’s been in 10 or 11 states with me. But I invite all of them. I’m an honest broker.”

Correction on 7-19-2013: Obama told a Telemundo Dallas reporter that he didn’t want to speculate on whether he’d use his executive powers to stop deportations of undocumented immigrants, if Congress doesn’t pass an immigration reform bill. Obama did not say this to Telemundo Denver reporter Maria Rozman, as reported previously here.

———————-

In a one-on-one interview with Telemundo Denver anchor Maria Rozman about immigration reform, President Barack Obama re-affirmed his commitment to creating a “path to citizenship” for 11 million undocumented immigrants. Obama told Rozman:

“It does not make sense to me, if we’re going to make this once-in-a-generation effort to finally fix the system, to leave the status of 11 million people so unresolved. And certainly for us to have two classes of people in this country, full citizens and people who are assigned to a lower status, I think that’s not who we are as Americans. That’s never been in our tradition.

Rozman was one of four Hispanic journalists from around the country invited to the White House Tuesday for one-on-one interviews with Obama.

Rozman told me she got the invitation “out of the blue”  via a call on her cell phone on Friday evening.

“I said ‘yes’ immediately,” she told me, “without knowing for sure that it wasn’t a prank. I was looking at the time, because I had to be on-air for my newscast. I said, ‘yes, sure thing, can you send me an email.’”

Rozman was on a plane Monday and spent all day Tuesday in the White House for the five-minute interview, briefings, and tours.

Rozman said that the White House didn’t screen her questions for Obama on the immigration issue.

A bipartisan immigration-reform bill cleared the Senate but House Republicans have said it’s dead on arrival.

Rozman told me that she was on the White House lawn when an armed and shirtless intruder prompted a massive security response.

“Police were everywhere,” Rozman said. “I was just hoping it wasn’t one of those movies.”

See the interview here.

During the last election, Denver’s local NBC affiliate (9News) hired Denver University graduate students to help reporters check the facts in election ads.

“We essentially created three temporary jobs with a set number of hours each week to study as many ads as possible,” 9News Assistant News Director Tim Ryan told me via email. “What we assumed, which turned out to be true, was that we would see an extraordinary number of political commercials in Colorado in 2012 and needed additional staff to keep up.”

Ryan says the additional help allowed 9News to produce 44 ad-check stories during the 2012 election cycle–and it gave the student researchers some real-life job experience.

“Our researchers produced very detailed examinations of each spot, then our permanent reporting staff (Brandon Rittiman, Chris Vanderveen, Matt Flener, Todd Walker) turned that detailed research into television stories,” wrote Ryan.

9News calls its ad-check stories  “Truth Tests,” and they won a Cronkite/Jackson prize and other national praise.

“The reason this was successful is all about volume.  At any point in time, there might be commercials from the Obama campaign, the Romney campaign, interest groups in support or opposition to both candidates, as well as a number of competitive congressional campaigns that also included spots produced by candidate campaigns as well as interest groups.  In other words, there was a tremendous stream of ad content that needed attention, and the only way to do that effectively is hire additional staff.”

Local TV stations should hire more real-life-professional journalists, but short of that, it’s a no brainer to employ graduate students for fact checking, especially in swing states where political ads bring in millions of dollars.

But Ryan doesn’t know of other stations that have done it. “We certainly think it could be a model for other organizations, but newsrooms would have to balance the cost vs. the number of spots requiring study.”

I checked around and it appears that no other station in Colorado–or the country–has tried a similar arrangement.

“I’m not aware of those relationships, but I wouldn’t be shocked if there were some,” said Mark Jurkowitz, Associate Director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. “Student journalists are contributing in more robust ways to news. In Boston, investigative journalist students have written for local media. Graduate students are 0ld enough to perform the task, under the assumption they’re properly trained to the point that you are confident they are looking at things the same way.”

Deborah Potter, who’s the Executive Director of NewsLab and writes frequently about the local TV news industry, doesn’t know of any other stations that have hired graduate students to “fact check” political ads.

“I’ve often wondered why more stations don’t partner with colleges and universities in their area on projects that involve research,” Potter emailed me. “As long as student work is supervised by professionals, I don’t see much downside in this kind of arrangement.”

“They were closely supervised and they trained in terms of reliable sources,” Ryan told me. “Their jobs didn’t require source building, or other pieces of journalism that are more difficult. It was database work. And at the end, the experienced political journalist had to decide what to call the ad. Was it true? Exaggerated?”

And if an error slipped through, Ryan said, 9News would hear about it. “As you know, the campaigns watch everything and would take issue with anything they thought was wrong. And we’d respond.”

Ryan expects to hire graduate students again for the 2014 election, but nothing is finalized. Until then, staff reporters will probably check political ads as they air.

I suggested that TV stations that are too stingy (sh0ck) even to hire grad students might partner with a professor and find a graduate seminar class to take on an ad-check project for free. No money!

Ryan said this could be a “definite possibility,” but cautioned that  “management could be a bit more challenging.”

“But if you had the right class, it could work, especially for stations that don’t have the resources,” Ryan told me, adding that his station “partnered” with Denver University to find graduate students this year, working with a DU staff person as a point of contact.

9News’ emphasis on fact-checking political ads began in 1998 as a series called “Spotcheck,” done in conjunction with Denver Post reporter Mark Obmascik, according to Ryan.

“In the 2002 cycle, we continued to work with the Post but called the project ‘Adwatch,'” Ryan wrote. “Adam Schrager began producing them as Truth Tests for the 2004 cycle, which we repeated in 06, 08 and 10 (as well as occasional off-year efforts like Denver mayoral campaigns).

The concept of checking political ads on local TV was apparently pioneered in Denver by Channel 7’s John Ferrugia, in a project called “Truth Meter” ,in the 1990s.