Despite Promises, Buck Immediately Goes Negative in Colorado

Despite Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck’s promise to adopt a positive stance in his political ads (leaving groups like Crossroads GPS to do the dirty work against incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) for him), the Colorado Independent reports that Buck’s very first ad is surprisingly…negative:

This first ad, though, is focused almost entirely on Bennet, calling him unfair and a “rubber stamp for his friends in Washington.” Buck says Bennet has established “a record of overspending, overregulating and overtaxing.” In the last 10 seconds of the ad, Buck tells viewers his plan as Senator is to “do what’s right for Colorado, not [for] the big spenders in Washington.”

Buck’s ad comes on the heels of an ad put out earlier this month by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS. Despite the feeling that Buck would embrace a sort of division of labor approach to the campaign– allowing the Karl Rove-style independent groups to work the low road while the Buck campaign worked the high road– the ads so far produced aren’t substantially different. They’re both 30-second spots that focus on Bennet and that attack him as a typical big spending Democrat.

The Independent goes on to note that Buck and Crossroads GPS were accused of planning to coordinate campaign activities behind the scenes in a complaint filed with the Federal Elections Commission during Buck’s primary fight against Jane Norton. Now that Buck has sealed up the nomination, the Republican author of the complaint has requested that it be withdrawn, but a coalition of progressive groups are now demanding that Buck answer to the accusations before the November election.