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Perhaps Andrew Romanoff’s seemingly too-quiet campaign to unseat U.S. Senator Michael Bennet in the 2010 Democratic primary is about to turn up the volume.
The former state House speaker has hired a new campaign manager, Bill Romjue, an Army veteran who was previously the Iowa state director for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, reports The Huffington Post.
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A 2006 article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal notes that Romjue has worked on a long line of Democratic campaigns, including some for Gary Hart, Jimmy Carter, Dick Gephardt, and John Edwards. Bennet, meanwhile, probably hasn’t had time to think much about Romanoff’s shuffling. He’s up to his elbows in health-care reform, making the kinds of statements Republicans are sure to throw back at him in 2010.
From a liberal perspective, though, Bennet is showing some true grit in the congressional sausage factory by criticizing centrists for brokering “backroom deals” and holding important policies “hostage,” writes The Denver Post.
“I am not happy that the public option was held hostage by people in our own party. I do not support rewarding delay with special deals,” Bennet said, during a nine-minute speech on the floor.
He didn’t name names, but a few come immediately to mind, such as “public-option” killer Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and abortion foe and homestate-pork-winner Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat. Still, it comes off as a defeat. Bennet is expected to vote for the Senate’s health-care-reform bill (as opposed to holding the Senate hostage for concessions that favor Colorado).
