Dean Boehler’s Emerging Campaign Shows 2010 Election Uncertainty

Update: For comparison, a video of Ellen Roberts’ SD 6 assembly speech also has been posted.

It’s been a few months since I provided an update of Colorado state senate races. I rated Senate District 6 — in southwest Colorado, on the other side of the state — as the number one Republican target, noting with current Rep. Ellen Roberts remaining on pace fundraising with Democrat incumbent Bruce Whitehead that, “This seat remains the closest to an automatic party switch in the fall.”

But the people of Senate District 6 will have something to say about the matter first. Last Saturday the late-entry campaign of San Miguel County’s conservative Dean Boehler took some state political observers by storm by capturing 66 percent of the delegate vote at the SD 6 Assembly. The Boehler campaign has put together an 8-minute video featuring the candidate’s Assembly speech:

It’s hard to imagine something like this happening in any of the other recent election cycles. But Boehler’s upset assembly win demonstrates the energy and enthusiasm in 2010’s local surge of Tea Party and 9/12 groups. How far it will take the conservative newcomer remains to be seen. I will restate what I’ve said before many times: The biggest impact these groups can have this year is on state legislative races.

GOP primary election voters are not necessarily of the same mind as assembly delegates. Dean Boehler no doubt is busy working behind the scenes to throw together a grassroots campaign machine that can make him competitive in the fall. The political theme of the year is not to take anything for granted.