TEA PARTY MASSACRE

When Scott McInnis announced his plans to run as a Republican for governor of Colorado in his hometown of Glenwood Springs, he got a hero’s welcome. He looked unstoppable, beaming beside his wife Lori as he called out names of old friends who had turned out to see him in a warehouse on the edge of town decked with campaign signs.

He sported cowboy boots and jeans, and he glowed as country singer Michael Martin Murphy turned “Home on the Range” into a political anthem. As he criticized Democrats and made a plea for “jobs, jobs, jobs,” McInnis seemed to be the right man with the right message for Republicans hoping to make the most of discontent with Democrats and the Obama administration.

McInnis was a natural GOP choice for governor. A former Congressman turned lobbyist, he had name recognition and charisma. He had a successful political track record, and a not-too-far-to-the-right reputation that seemed like an easy sell in a middle-of-the-road state at a time when Democrats were losing their luster.

Then, the unexpected happened.

Special Report

Ranchers arrived at hotels, at campgrounds, anywhere they could find to sleep in Fort Collins last night in preparation for today’s meeting jointly held by the Departments of Justice and Agriculture to address competition--and, more precisely, the lack of it--in livestock industries.

Advocates for the cattle industry, R-CALF USA chief among them, pushed to fill meeting rooms at Colorado State University this morning as speakers from the federal and state levels gave their takes on enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, which is in place to guard against monopolies in meatpacking.

That law, Montana’s Attorney General Steve Bullock told the crowd, needs “a new set of dentures.”

Dept. of Justice antitrust attorney, Christine Varney, chimed in: “I don’t know what the answer is, but I sure know there is a problem.”

Prior to the start of today’s one-day conference, reporter Jamie Folsom began talking to and photographing participants about why they traveled to Fort Collins, what their issues are and what they hope will come out of the meeting:

GUEST COMMENTARY

Whether or not you care about the recovery of grizzly bears, we face a serious challenge today of how to protect the safety of people who live and recreate in grizzly country, as whitebark pine, the driver of the health of the population for Yellowstone grizzly bear population, continues to suffer from a climate-driven beetle epidemic. At this critical juncture, it has been confusing and unconstructive to see grizzly bear management agencies flip-flop on the fundamental question of whether or not whitebark pine matters to the Yellowstone grizzly bear population, and the effects of its loss on human-bear conflicts.

Colorado Event

Billings-based R-CALF has ambitions. The association that backs cattle-raisers is urging people to get to Fort Collins, Colo., on Aug. 27th for “the largest gathering of rural Americans in the history of the United States.”

The big deal is a federal-level workshop about competition in the cattle industry. It’s being hosted at Colorado State University by both the Dept. of Agriculture and the Dept. of Justice, which has lately expressed a willing ear on accusations of meatpacking monopolies.

To get the word out, R-CALF’s cowboy-hat-wearin’ CEO, Bill Bullard, has been traveling the country, preaching to anyone who will listen about the degradation of the cattle industry and the importance of the Fort Collins event. NewWest caught up with him “somewhere in southwest Minnesota.” He’d recently left Redwood Falls, MN, and planned to be in D.C. tomorrow. Before that, he’d been stomping around Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming as he attempts to get 25,000 people to the one-day conference he calls “unprecedented.”

Colorado Politics

Michael Bennet may have been uneasy about getting a nudge or several from the White House, but that was prior to his victory yesterday in the Democratic primary for Senate in Colorado. The margin wasn’t huge--54.2 percent to 45.2 percent, according to the Denver Post--but it was enough for the New York Daily News to headline its story, “President Barack Obama’s Colorado victory: U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet win good news for president.”

Bennet, appointed to fill out Ken Salazar’s term when he was tapped to head Interior, beat out Bill Clinton’s horse, Andrew Romanoff. Now Bennet will face Ken Buck, a prosecutor and Tea Party favorite, according to Associated Content’s Mark Whittington, in the general election.

The White House has been quick to get its share of the pie. On Wednesday, officials gave reporters a list of what was done by Obama’s camp to help Bennet--including robocalls featuring TV star George Lopez. As reported by the Denver Post, these same officials’ goal was to show that its political operation still has the goods after recent Democratic losses in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

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Congress last had a pay cut in April 1933, during the worst of the Great Depression.

A bill to end that 77-year-long era, H.R. 4720, sponsored by Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz. and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers was introduced in the House of Representatives in March.

If the bill becomes law, salaries for all senators and representatives would be cut by 5 percent, which would save $4.7 million, and block automatic increases in congressional salaries for 2011.

“The American people have had enough of Washington politicians refusing to live up to their responsibilities,” said Rep. Kirkpatrick. “If elected officials are going to say that this country is facing its most difficult economic times in generations, then they need to act like it.”

VILSACK TO MAKE ANNOUNCEMENT JULY 8

Updated July 7, 1 am: Baucus Continues to Support Open Fields.

Nobody ever accused the federal government of moving rapidly, even with congressionally mandated programs. And the long-ago approved new hunting access program called Open Fields is excellent testimony to that axiom.

After an extensive lobbying campaign by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited and many other conservation groups, Congress included $50 million in the 2008 Farm Bill for Open Fields, a new, innovative program to help fund dwindling public access to private lands, perhaps the greatest threat to the sport of hunting in this country. 

Mount Sneffels and Lizard Head Public Lands

A bill that would protect some of Colorado’s most picturesque mountains cleared committee this summer and will head for a full vote of the House soon.

The San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act introduced by Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, proposes to permanently protect 60,000 acres in Southwest Colorado, designating half of them as wilderness. The area includes the slopes of Mount Sneffels and Wilson Peak, two of the state’s “fourteeners.”

Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act

Now, it’s four out of four in Idaho and Montana.

On Friday, Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) joined Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Montana’s Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester, both Democrats, in co-sponsoring S. 868, the Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act, which would repeal most provisions of the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act (FLREA), the law federal agencies use to charge fees for accessing public lands.

GUEST COMMENTARY

Over the last few years I’ve noticed something interesting about our ongoing climate change discussions. It used to be that logic and knowledge were the keys. We looked at the best available science, weighed the predicted costs of action versus the predicted costs of inaction, and then considered the most appropriate alternatives. Businesses use this kind of approach all the time. It’s called a “cost-benefit analysis.”

Recently, though, our climate discussions have slowed and even stalled. Not because of the science, which remains irrefutable, or because of the proposed solutions, which are generally still feasible, but because so-called climate skeptics are doing their best to muddy the water and raise doubts about the issue.