Mark Udall

Mark Udall, the outgoing Democratic senator from Colorado, may be a lame duck, leaving office in less than a week. But his most important work in the Senate may still be before him. For the week he remains in office, he still sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He worked on that committee’s epic, 6,700-page, still-secret report, the “Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program,” otherwise known as the torture report. The intelligence committee has recently released a heavily redacted declassified executive summary of

Was it Hickenlooper or was it Obama? Was it Michael Bennet or was it Harry Reid? Was it Ebola or was it ISIS? Was it the six-year itch or a full-body rash?

Colorado's Cory Gardner is already a spooky fellow, which makes him an ideal candidate for a Halloween-themed interactive website launched by Senator Mark Udall's campaign.

Just over a year ago, state Senate President John Morse was recalled from his Colorado Springs seat for playing a leading role in passing gun-control measures in the state legislature that now require universal background checks for all public and private gun sales as well as banning magazines holding more than 15 rounds. This year, he’s helping gun-control advocacy group Colorado Moms Demand Action establish an independent expenditure committee to support candidates running for the state legislature.

Colorado Rep. and U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardner has made his career on the idea of personhood, even as he infamously flip-flopped in light of how terrible of an idea it is if he wants to get elected. When "Cosmopolitan" ran a story on the controversial legislation, highlighted by his role, Gardner's campaign reacted in the most unsurprising manner possible: Making fun of women's magazines.

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardner has his talking points on energy down pat. It’s total BS, of course, but he’s got great delivery. Who cares if his jobs statistic suggests that a ban on fracking — which isn't even on the ballot — would kill 120,000 jobs overnight? Especially if that number relies on the belief that a ban would result in the closing of every gas station in Colorado?

A TV ad-buying company with close ties to Republican Party leaders reserved a whopping 1,326 spots in the Denver market this fall, but the station receiving the $740,070 contract removed it from public view when a reporter tried to learn who was footing the bill. The deleted ad reservation at Denver’s KMGH Channel 7 came from Target Enterprises, a Los Angeles-based firm whose client list includes top Republican candidates and well-known conservative groups.

For years, Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall was a lonely critic on Capitol Hill of anti-terror surveillance laws he said were ripe for abuse. He teamed with Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden to demand lawmakers redraft the Patriot Act to bolster civil-liberty protections. Those efforts got a boost in 2011 when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul joined them, and their small movement took off when NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year leaked vast digital evidence that the abuses the senators were warning against were a reality that had to be addressed.

It's no secret that State Rep. Cory Gardner has a problem with the personhood issue. His campaign for U.S. Senate recognized the trouble almost immediately — the issue has been repeatedly crushed at the polls in Colorado — and made a somewhat surprise move in March to announce that Gardner has flipped (sort of) on his support for of the notion that a U.S. citizen with full legal rights is created BEFORE conception. Because that will make abortion disappear forever. Unfortunately for Gardner, trying to remove the personhood label has proved much more difficult.

The Republican base (increasingly to scale).
A great analytical piece from Politico's Todd Purdum this weekend makes points that observers of Colorado politics should keep in mind, and have been borne out by Colorado's recent political history as we'll explain:
It’s the