Tag Archives: Mark Udall

Langley Papers: Will Udall leak the CIA torture report?

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Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) is an outgoing member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has prepared a 6,300 page study on CIA torture. The CIA has blocked it from publication. Should he follow the Vietnam-era lead of then Sen. Mike Gravel (D-AK) — who famously read the suppressed “Pentagon Papers” on the Vietnam War into the Senate’s public record to force their release — and (legally) leak the torture report, perhaps along with other state secrets on surveillance abuses that he has access to? Conor Friedersdorf (among others) definitely thinks Udall should:

Using the speech or debate privilege to reveal abuses could be costly for a sitting Senator, who’d risk being stripped of his or her clearance to see classified information or even expelled from the Senate for violating the legislative chamber’s rules. Udall is a lame duck anyway, so his calculus is simpler. He need only ask himself what is right: What fulfills his obligations to his constituents, his country, and the oath of office he took to support and defend the Constitution? Preserving his ability to fight for civil liberties another day is no longer an option.

 

In retrospect, Ken Buck (and Cory Gardner) held the key to it all

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Back in February, I wrote a lengthy post seriously questioning an article in The Atlantic that suggested Colorado was the harbinger of the year to come for Democrats, as failed and notably abrasive 2010 Republican nominee Ken Buck agreed to drop out of the Senate race there in favor of Congressman Cory Gardner, the more moderate and affable establishment pick. That article basically asserted that this proved that Republicans had gotten their act together on the Senate side after major flubs cost them Senate control in 2010 and 2012.

Tonight, Ken Buck is a Congressman-elect in Gardner’s old seat (the only part I predicted correctly) and Cory Gardner is a Senator-elect, having defeated Sen. Udall in a race that I wasn’t even seriously putting on the map until this summer. It looks like Republicans will end up winning more than they need (possibly quite a bit more — it’s been a bad night) to capture the Senate, but they’ve definitely crossed the line at this point. And Gardner was a major factor in that, both dismantling what could have been an easy hold for Democrats with somebody like Buck running again and ensuring that Republicans had extra paths to victory while Democrats had extra states to defend. Gardner becoming the clear favorite in the last month basically made it obvious that Democrats were going to lose at least seven seats for sure (the fallback magic number to flip control even if Republicans choked in Kansas), almost certainly one or two more, and quite possibly more beyond that. In the end, when all is said and done (after Alaska comes in and after Louisiana’s runoff, if they don’t beat expectations at this point), Democrats are about to have lost 9 Senate seats and won none.

Even with recruits like Scott Brown proving to be duds (New Hampshire) or “offbeat” Joni Ernst beating expectations (Iowa), getting people like Ken Buck to step aside in Colorado and nominating non-fringe candidates via primary in places like North Carolina are a big reason why Republicans had a pretty easy time winning the Senate tonight. And they also very nearly won a surprise bonus seat in Virginia by nominating Ed Gillespie, a moderate Beltway Republican with extensive fundraising capabilities, to challenge Sen. Mark Warner even when it looked for much of the year like Warner might be re-elected by double digits (and not the 0.5% margin he’s currently on track to win). That’s definitely not what I was expecting in February when I wrote (in the same post) “…Virginia Republicans getting behind Ed Gillespie won’t prove much of anything since the Democrats will still win handily there.”

Which is not to say any of these winners are genuinely moderate. But they certainly talk the talk convincingly enough to not giftwrap unforced errors to embattled Democrats all over the place for a third cycle in a row.

This was always a tough year for Senate Dems with a very strong GOP advantage built in from early on in 2014, but it was not clear it would be a lock as things developed. In the end, though, Ken Buck and Cory Gardner making a smooth switcheroo in Colorado back in February was one of the major tipping points after all for Senate control. I sure didn’t see that coming. Maybe in 2015 I’ll stick to picking out minor global news stories before they become huge headlines, because I did pretty well on that front this year.

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Colorado: The return of Ken Buck

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Hey, will you look at that: Failed 2010 Republican Senate nominee for Colorado, Ken Buck, is back again to seek the state’s other seat in 2014. He’s off to a very strong start with a puzzling (yet, predictably offensive) comparison between a woman’s pregnancy and his experience battling cancer, as a way to express his opposition to a woman having a say in her personal health.

Yes, I am pro-life. While I understand a woman wants to be in control of her body — it’s certainly the feeling that I had when I was a cancer patient, I wanted to be in control of the decisions that were made concerning my body — there is another fundamental issue at stake. And that’s the life of the unborn child.

 
This dismissive attitude toward women’s decision-making abilities is absolutely in line with his past views from the 2010 cycle. It also reminds us of his “prosecutor’s discretion” decision not to charge a rapist on the horrid “grounds” that the survivor, who had been asleep, must have just made a bad call and regretted it, even though the rapist also admitted lack of consent. (More on that here.)

That all added up to Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund dropping over $800k in Colorado to run this ad in October 2010…

If Ken Buck wins the GOP nomination in Colorado, that’s probably for the best from a Democratic perspective, given that anti-woman comments like this latest cancer comparison were what helped him lose an easy race to an unelected no-name appointee. Here’s the text from my 11/3/10 post at Starboard Broadside:

Against the odds, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Col., appointed 2009) has pulled off an upset to win his bid for a six-year term against DA Ken Buck, the tea-party favorite who had led the former Denver Public Schools superintendent for months in the polling. The Associated Press has called the race for Bennet with 97.2% of the vote reported, as Bennet leads by 15,444 votes. Buck has not conceded yet.

Bennet began pulling even in recent weeks as more revelations about Buck’s views on rape, abortion, and women came to light. Bennet’s hard-hitting response combined with independent expenditures against Buck by women’s groups helped derail Buck’s campaign. This was a critical hold for Democrats, as in nearby Nevada, where Harry Reid also won a major upset to retain his seat. On a night where the Democrats lost Obama’s old seat in Illinois, it would have been yet another embarrassment for the President to lose Colorado, since Bennet only occupies the seat because President Obama appointed Sen. Ken Salazar (D) to serve as Interior Secretary in his administration.

 

This time, if nominated again, Buck would be up against an elected incumbent with very high name recognition — Senator Mark Udall.

Oh, and I haven’t even gotten into Ken Buck’s views on education. But I guess I have to end this post somewhere before it just becomes an exercise in telling someone about that nightmare you had last night.