Joe O’Dea, the GOP challenger to Sen. Michael Bennet, visited La Plata County for the first time since the primaries this week. He stopped briefly in Durango after holding a campaign event Monday afternoon in Pagosa Springs. Former state Sen. Ellen Roberts confirmed she had a private meeting with O’Dea on Monday to discuss issues important to the region.
According to O’Dea, about 50 people attended the event in Pagosa Springs, which he held at the Den Restaurant. Although 49% of La Plata County voters are unaffiliated with a political party and the remaining 51% are approximately evenly split between the Democratic and Republican parties, O’Dea has not held a public campaign event in the county since March.
In their private meeting Monday, Roberts said O’Dea sought input on issues relevant to the region. She said the two discussed the Colorado River crisis as well as Front Rage dominance on political and policy issues, and that she reinforced how important it is for O’Dea to get to know the region.
“I am comfortable he had done that,” Roberts said. “He let me know all the places he’s going to be in the next week and many of them are western and out on the eastern plain, so I’m comfortable that he’s spending a lot of time with the whole state and not just the Denver-metro area.”
Despite the brief stop in La Plata County, O’Dea took 15 minutes to settle into a booth Tuesday morning at the Lone Spur Cafe with a Durango Herald reporter before leaving for Denver.
The O’Dea-Bennet race splashed across headlines after tensions between the two reached a boiling point during their only televised debate Friday. O’Dea repeated a claim that Bennet has written only “one bill in 13 years that became law.” Bennet responded that the claim was not true, calling O’Dea a liar.
The claim rests on the fact that many of the other bills Bennet has written have become incorporated into other pieces of legislation but have not been passed as stand-alone laws.
“I think it shows, you know, that he’s not afraid or he’s afraid to buck his party,” O’Dea said when asked why he continued to pursue the allegation. “... I’m staying on my message. It’s resonating with voters and they’re ready for a change.”
O’Dea has promised to lead in the mold of Sen. Joe Manchin, who he says is an example of how a senator ought to buck his or her party to serve a state. He says Manchin’s work to approve the permitting of a pipeline in West Virginia is exemplary of the way that a senator should put a state first – however, Manchin backed off that legislation after colleagues from both sides expressed disdain for the amendment. If the statistics on Bennet’s work during his time in the Senate are to be interpreted the way O’Dea has repeatedly done, Manchin has also only written one bill that has been passed into law.
O’Dea also said he would not support clean energy tax credits long-term – the kind of tax credits that lead to the development of commercial-scale clean energy developments such as the proposed Hesperus Solar Project. Primergy Solar, the developer of the project, says it would contribute $37 million to the county’s coffers over the next 45 years. O’Dea tracked back to talking about natural gas when asked about his stance on clean energy.
“I’ve been a supporter of raising energy (production) – all of it – wind, solar, nuclear,” he said. “I think we should take a look at nuclear, really do. We’ve got good, clean nuclear now that we can actually use without having to worry about an issue. I also believe we should keep using the cleanest gas molecule in the world, which is produced here in Colorado. And so I’ve been an advocate that we push all of the energy stuff, we need more energy right now.”
Although O’Dea has steadily gathered support during the campaign, Bennet still holds an eight-point lead over him according to the most recent polling.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
