April 23, 2005
By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News
WASHINGTON - The phones rang a couple times each minute. E-mails came fast and furious. And by the close of business Friday, Sen. Ken Salazar's staff had heard from thousands of folks either angered or heartened by his verbal attack on the state's biggest evangelical Christian group.
Salazar won back some old friends and made some new political enemies this week, after he accused Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family of using "un- Christian" political tactics to clear the way for controversial judicial nominees.
"I am a Christian and a clergyman," one e-mail began. "I agree with you that the right-wing is threatening religious freedom and attempting to establish a theocracy. Thank you for taking a stand for religious freedom."
"You ran as a man of faith," another e-mail began. "And now that some of the faithful are turning against you, you are accusing them of being against you for political reasons. The bottom line is that Focus on the Family wants these judges because they agree with Christian ideals - ideals that you claim to have - not because they are Republican or Democrat."
Salazar's office provided copies of the e-mails it received, with the senders' names removed.
The senator ignited a firestorm at a news conference Wednesday, when he blasted ads from the political arm of Focus on the Family pressuring him to change U.S. Senate filibuster rules and allow up-or-down votes for seven stalled judicial nominations.
The former Democratic state attorney general lashed back, suggesting that Focus on the Family was "hijacking" Christianity, becoming an appendage of the Republican Party and trying to turn the U.S. into a religion-dominated "theocracy."
That drew an angry response from Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. In an open letter to Salazar on Thursday, he said "the excuses and personal attacks must stop."
"The real 'abuse of power' in the Senate is coming not from the Republicans, but from Democrats who are defying 200 years of Senate tradition in an attempt to hold on to the only power base they have left: the courts," Dobson wrote. "Isn't it time you stopped hijacking a process that has served us well throughout our nation's history?"
A Virginia group called The Judicial Confirmation Network created a Web site, www.salazarwaffles.com, highlighting Salazar's pre-election statement saying he supported giving qualified judicial nominees an up-or-down vote.
"If we can't trust Ken Salazar to stick to his word on the most important issue of the day," it said, "how can we trust his word on any other issue important to the people of Colorado."
Since Wednesday's news conference, Salazar's Denver office tallied 416 phone calls supporting Salazar's stand and 2,218 calls opposing him.
Many of those were repeat calls from people reading the same prepared scripts, spokesman Cody Wertz said.
The Internet was buzzing about the conflict. At the liberal-leaning DailyKos Web site, dozens of Democrats praised Salazar, saying his attack on Focus on the Family made up for Salazar voting with Republicans on President Bush's Cabinet appointees, class-action lawsuit reform and legislation that will make it harder for people to shield credit-card debt when filing for bankruptcy.
"Ken Salazar is dead-on," one person wrote on a Rocky Mountain News forum asking if people agreed with his "theocracy" charge.
Political analyst Paul Talmey sees little political risk for Salazar.
"So he angers some very conservative Republican group. So what? That helps him more among Democrats than it hurts him among Republicans," he said.
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