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Schaffer, Udall in a battle for every last vote
U.S. Senate candidates not taking anything for granted
Herald Denver Bureau
Photo by JOE HANEL/Herald
Both candidates will maintain nonstop schedules on the vote-rich Front Range until Election Day. And they're concentrating especially hard on their power bases. Udall spent Thursday in Denver's black community, and Schaffer rallied Friday in Republican-heavy Colorado Springs.
Schaffer seeks big El Paso win
The stars are still out when the Schaffer campaign gets going on Halloween.
At a busy intersection in northeast Colorado Springs, Peggy Littleton and Vickie Broerman have just unloaded Schaffer and McCain-Palin signs from their cars.
Broerman heads back to the car.
"Are you leaving?" Littleton asks.
"Oh no, I'm just putting more signs out. Are you kidding? This is what we live for," Broerman says.
In fact, she is just getting started on a four-day blitz.
"No sleep. But a lot of excitement. A lot of walks. A lot of calls," Broerman says.
As the co-chairwoman of Schaffer's El Paso County campaign, she knows he's counting on her county to run up the score for him.
"Any statewide candidate who is a Republican needs to pull off El Paso County in a big way. And we're growing, and our base is growing," Broerman says.
Schaffer arrives just after 6:30 a.m., wearing a bomber jacket and carrying a 4-foot-by-8-foot sign.
He and his daughter, Emily, an Air Force Academy cadet, spend the next two hours on the corner as another 20 volunteers arrive. The rising sun bathes Pikes Peak in a pink glow but it's still cold enough for the volunteers to see their breath. Cars and trucks honk nonstop.
Most of the volunteers are from Colorado Springs, but a van of GOP staffers has come in from Washington, D.C., to help Schaffer make the final push.
Hendrick Vandervaart is one of them. He works for Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, and Schaffer is his favorite Senate candidate in the country this year.
"Schaffer's one of the few people running for Senate this year on the Republican side who's truly principled in his views," Vandervaart says.
Conservative Senate Republicans are the last roadblock against Democrats in Washington, he says.
After rush hour, Schaffer heads to a Colorado Springs radio station for an interview with conservative talk show host Richard Randall. He makes his case to a friendly audience about stopping Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
"We should not be handing our second Senate seat over to Harry Reid and the Democrats. It would be disastrous," Schaffer says.
Udall: 'We're going to get it done'
Mark Udall makes the opposite case.
On Thursday, he's practicing old-fashioned retail politics in Five Points, Denver's historic black community.
He meets a few dozen business and community leaders outside a small coffee shop.
The excitement about Barack Obama is palpable here.
A week earlier, Udall rode with Obama from Denver to Fort Collins, and Obama spent the 90-minute trip talking with him, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Udall's wife, Maggie Fox.
"I don't have to tell you, he's the real deal. He's inspired. He knows what a big job this is," Udall says in a short speech.
Cecelia Garcia gives Udall a hug and makes a request.
"My mama voted for you this morning. She's 94 years old," Garcia says. "When you win, send a stimulus package right away."
Udall listens.
"We're going to do it. We might do it in November," he says.
But for now, his mind is fixed on drumming up votes.
"Who wouldn't want to be on the field at this time in our history? A little extra help from each one of you - make sure that neighbor is going to vote," he tells the small crowd.
Udall and his entourage set off down the sidewalk toward a restaurant, but Udall gets distracted when he passes a historic firehouse. Members of the firefighters union have turned out reliably at Udall's events this year, and the crew at station No. 3 invites him inside for a brief chat.
He's not interrupting much - the firefighters were watching a Denver City Council meeting, where the topic is an ordinance to declare Denver a cat-friendly city.
Lunch is at Tom's Home Cookin', where they open at 11 a.m. and close when they run out of food, and you can pay any way you want, as long as it's cash.
Udall digs into a southern feast served in a Styrofoam container - catfish, corn bread, mashed potatoes and mac-and-cheese. Then he reaches across the table and steals sweet potatoes from his wife.
The last neighborhood stop is the Campaign for Change office, one of the dozens of joint Obama-Udall offices around the state. Recent polls show both Obama and Udall winning in Colorado, and the volunteers at the field office clearly are optimistic.
"You feelin' good?" a volunteer asks.
Udall says he is.
"This is history. We're about to get it done. No rest," he says. "I get paranoid about every three days. Is this real? I can't believe those polls. But I think it is real. We're going to get it done."
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