ENDORSEMENT: Bennet’s record and goals make the case for his Senate re-election — O’Dea makes a strong case against himself

If you’re looking for an affable person to share a beer and commiserate with about a long, difficult day, Joe O’Dea would fit the bill.

But if you need someone to entrust your life, and the lives of everyone around you, in as treacherous a place as the U.S. Senate, you need Michael Bennet.

It’s easy to see why Republicans nominated O’Dea, Denver’s concrete scion, to carry the GOP mantle against Bennet, the Democrat running for re-election to another full Senate term.

O’Dea’s folksy charm is the antithesis of a growing number of shrill, hyper-partisan GOP showboats screaming about the only good Democratic bill being a dead Democratic bill.

But the humble patina doesn’t cover up the fact that O’Dea is peddling the same wares as the last friendly Republican from Colorado who became a disaster after voters sent him to the U.S. Senate, Cory Gardner.

O’Dea achingly claims to be a “pro-choice” Republican on the issue of abortion and reproductive rights. But he’s only offering support for the choices he wants women to make in regards to pregnancy. Despite his nearly clench-fisted claims of being a moderate, he personally signed petitions and voted for Colorado Proposition 115, a cruel proposal drastically limiting women’s access to abortion, with the clear intent of dissolving it.

Called out on that fact, he said he didn’t read the fine print before he voted, hardly a persuasive argument to send someone to the Senate where “fine print” comes not in a couple of sentences but in mountains of legislation.

On this critical issue — directly and indirectly now turned into a national crisis because of other “pro-choice” Republicans in the Senate — Bennet has been a steadfast supporter of ensuring that the government stay out of all women’s healthcare decisions, including those surrounding abortion and reproduction.

O’Dea made clear how unaware or insensitive he is about perpetuating eons of misogyny by telling 9News in an interview that he would go to the Senate to “negotiate a good bill that brings balance to women’s rights.”

Imagine an elected representative saying they like the idea of “balancing” the rights of Black people against those of whites, or the rights of the poor against those of the wealthy.

O’Dea falls drastically short of what Colorado needs in the Senate on other fronts, where Bennet has shown courage, temperance and perseverance.

O’Dea has picked up the hollow call for building Donald Trump’s wall at the U.S. border as a solution to the nation’s decades-old immigration crisis.

“Shut the border,” O’Dea said in July when interviewed by a local right-wing talk-radio personality. “That’s easy. Build the wall. Hire a contractor. I’ll take care of it. We’ll get it built.”

The wall, like Donald Trump, has been repeatedly debunked as useful or effective.

Touting his business acumen, he should know as well as anyone how critical immigrant labor has been to Colorado and the nation for generations, and how thousands of Colorado businesses are starved for labor needs unmet because of a lack of comprehensive immigration reform.

Bennet not only continuously leads in the Senate on that reform, he was one of the “Gang of Eight” in 2013, along with GOP senators Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio. That Senate group was able to pull off the bi-partisan coup of the decade by creating legislation combining a way to provide immigrant labor, paths to citizenship, effective border security and an end to much of the human misery that’s perpetuated after the bill languished in the GOP-led House.

Bennet has long led where O’Dea falls far short even as a candidate.

O’Dea criticizes Bennet’s steadfast efforts to immediately address global climate change while growing proven industries to ensure energy independence that doesn’t destroy nearly every other economy in Colorado.

Even as thousands of Floridians suffered from yet another catastrophic weather disaster, provably made worse by global climate change, O’Dea tagged programs and legislation Bennet supports as a “far left” “war” on Colorado energy. 

He conflates partisan sound bites with sound energy policy, undermining his credibility when he naively touts himself as an independent thinker, who would be an independent voice for Colorado in the Senate.

Bennet has sponsored and signed on to legislation, consistently, that recognizes the climate crisis for what it is, a real and increasing threat to Colorado’s rural, agricultural, recreation and growth industries. Bennet has shown great fortitude in pushing back on the philosophy that reverting to energy and economic policies of the 1980s are good solutions to the problems of the decades ahead of us.

Likewise, with crime and gun violence prevention, Bennet has worked to push through sensible and practical solutions that are based on decades of data and successful implementation, not talk-radio fear-mongering. He and other Democrats and Republicans have been stymied by the GOP partisan logjam sworn to undermine political enemies at all costs, even at the expense of the nation.

Bennet’s long and well-documented track record in the Senate as a successful and persistent advocate for the working and middle class communities is needed more now by Coloradans than ever before.

Voters should send Bennet back to the Senate for another term.