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Ken Salazar Has Seen The Anti-Christ.

During the 2004 Colorado Senate campaign, Pete Coors really underwhelmed in his battle against Ken Salazar. Salazar, meanwhile, was able to effectively convince Colorado's voters he was a moderate. Indeed, Salazar was more conservative than Coors on some issues, such as the death penalty and drinking age laws. On just about every issue, Salazar would either agree with Coors or outflank him on the right. Salazar distanced himself from the Democrat-establishment, taking on Colorado with the populist flair of a true maverick.

He even wore a cowboy hat on the campaign trail much of the time to reinforce his "red state" image:

And it worked.

Salazar was elected with a 51% majority, more than 100,000 more votes than Pete Coors, and only 20,000 fewer than President Bush received.

One promise Salazar made during the campaign (and it was a significant issue in the race) was that he would not support efforts to deny an up-or-down vote on President Bush's judicial nominees.

Salazar broke his explicit campaign promise within mere months of going to Washington. That kind of duplicity is a prime example of why many Americans do not feel they can trust the promises of politicians.

So, because of Salazar's shameful flip-flop, groups began to call him out. One such group, Focus on the Family, ran this advertisement in Colorado newspapers (click for full .pdf):

This drew fierce reaction from Salazar. Bolstered by the "Republicans are a bunch of crazed theocons" hysteria in Washington right now, Salazar said, of Focus on the Family (via Decision '08) (via PoliPundit):

"From my point of view, they are the Antichrist of the world."

Clarifying his comments later, Salazar said:

"I meant to say this approach was un-Christian, meaning self-serving and selfish."

Salazar, revealing his true self through these comments, has clearly become an all-out Howard Dean Democrat, not the independent-minded, moderate Coloradoans believed they were electing. Salazar's status as a media darling must now be reassessed. Ambivalent Republican voters in marginally "red" states also might want to reconsider voting for "moderates" like Salazar in the future.

UPDATE:

Captain's Quarters blog has a great take on this kerfuffle.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 April 2005 10:20 AM

Comments

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at April 28, 2005 02:48 PM