Ken Buck Trumps Dan Maes as Craziest Candidate in Colorado

LAKEWOOD, Colo.--Wednesday night, the Denver Cruisers, a bike riding/pub-crawling organization that holds weekly summer evening bike rides through downtown, honored Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes with its first-ever U.N.-themed event. This was in tribute to Maes’ statement that Denver’s push for more bike riding was part of a U.N. takeover conspiracy plot.

Wacky conspiracy theories aside, though, Maes and Republican Senate nominee Ken Buck should have ridden an ideological tandem bike on Wednesday. Given his penchant for (in the words of the Denver Post) tinfoil-hat worthy pronouncements, you’d probably guess Maes would be the more extreme one in his opinions.

[See who joins Maes and Buck among 2010's list of bad political candidates.]

But according to the statewide political blog coloradopols.com, Senate candidate Buck is actually to the right of Maes. It’s easier to poke fun of Maes, but when it comes to public policy it’s Buck who is most at odds with the vast majority of Colorado voters.

Both of them think a 14 year old who has been molested by her stepfather should be forced to carry that pregnancy to term and rape victims should be denied emergency contraception. (Apparently, the Tea Party’s notion of small government means keeping it just small enough to fit in your bedroom.) Both of them think we can magically drill our way towards energy independence.

Maes at least pays lip service to the usefulness of Social Security and publicly-backed student loans.  Buck, on the other hand thinks seniors should be left to fend for themselves and students left to the mercy of big banks on student loans. This in a state in the top five nationally in percentage of the population with a college degree.

Unlike Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky, Ken Buck doesn’t hide from the press--he returns phone calls himself and does real interviews. He is smart and affable, which wins him both style and courtesy points. It does not, however, make his views any more mainstream or any more acceptable to Colorado voters.

• Check out a roundup of political cartoons on the 2010 elections.
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• Check out editorial cartoons about the Tea Party.