Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff, Democrats running for US Senate, squared off on the Auraria campus in front of an audience of about 150 supporters eager to see how their candidates would hold up.

Both candidates have reputations as the "smartest man in the room." Both are reputed to be policy wonks. Both are in their forties. And both reject nicknames - there's no informal Mike Bennet or Andy Romanoff.

Current Senate has brought change to a screeching halt

Both did well in pretty much the same way, sticking in the sharp knife rather than throwing punches. And the knife was most often stuck into the heart of the Senate rather than into each others' backs.

The US Senate is dysfunctional, they agreed, and is not serving the people. "If you like the way the Senate works, don't vote for me," said Romanoff. "I don't need to defend the US Senate," said Bennet. "I can't stand the process, just like Andrew."

Romanoff says he'll get things done

Romanoff stated that he is the man who can get things done. "Washington needs someone with the courage and conviction to fix the Senate. People are losing their jobs, health care, their homes. The US Senate is a place where change goes to die. We have to break out by not taking money from the special interests." Romanoff has chosen not to take special interest PAC money.

Oh really, responds Bennet

Bennet countered that Romanoff hasn't always been so pure. "When you were Speaker of the House, you had your own PAC, with other PAC's giving to your PAC. I didn't even know you could do that."

Bennet, the incumbent US Senator, has traveled across the state "to red, blue, and purple towns and cities." "People are completely discouraged by what's going on in the Senate," he said. "We need to construct politics that go past the dysfunction. It's not the time to give up, but to keep fighting."

Two men agree on country's problems

Both men agree on the country's principal problems: job loss, health care loss, huge deficits, greedy Wall Street, climate change, and an energy economy still too much based on fossil fuels.

Bennet noted that the deficit went up from $5 trillion in 2000 to $12 trillion in 2010, mostly because of inept policies from the Bush administration. He supports jobs bills but recognizes that the deficit is a dark shadow on the economy. Even his ten- year-old daughter understands the threat. "Let me make something clear, daddy," Bennet said of his daughter Caroline. "I'm not going to be the one paying off that debt."

Romanoff and Bennet agree too many cents, not enough sense in Senate

Romanoff said that the Senate is out to lunch. There are too many millionaires, 68 percent, and not enough members who experience the world the way the average person does. "I will do what Sherrod Brown is doing," said Romanoff, "and not take government health insurance until everyone in America also has health care."

Bennet didn't have many kind words for his fellow members of the Senate Banking Committee. "It's painful," he said, "that only 5 or 6 senators on the committee have ever been involved in the financial markets. There was nothing inevitable about this recession. Banks made decisions that were not good business decisions, but short-term, greedy decisions." He supports rules to increase capital requirements to reduce leverage and to set up a consumer protection agency.

Bennet also feels that Congress doesn't grasp the impact of its "well intentioned" laws on schools. "Washington has no clue what's going on in the classrooms of this country."

Filibuster has got to go

Both Bennet and Romanoff agree that the filibuster rule has to go. They both agree that it's impossible to be a fiscal hawk without trimming health care costs in Medicare and Medicaid. Both will increase taxes on companies that send jobs overseas. They both want to deliver higher quality health care at lower cost.

"Republicans are supporting the most expensive way of doing health care," said Bennet. "Insurers made $12 billion in profits as they dumped 12 million off the health care rolls."

It's the next generation that matters most

Bennet's key focus is on the legacy this generation is leaving for its children and grandchildren. "My daughter Caroline believes that if we don't do something about climate change by 2013, we're all doomed." "As I drive across the state," reflected Bennet, "I've gone over bridges and roads built in the 1930s, and rail lines built in the last century, and I realize how previous generations worked for us. Now it's our turn. "

"At the end of the day," summed up Romanoff, "it's not about my job or Michael's job, but about the people of Colorado who have lost their jobs. It's not about anyone's net worth, but about their human worth."

Given the low regard both men have for the sad sack state of the current US Senate, it's stunning that they'd want this job at all. At one point, Bennet said of their primary battle, "I love you, Andrew, but I just wish you'd run against the people causing all this problem." Paula Noonan, Colorado Capitol Watch

This post was published on February 16, 2010. Permalink »