Mark Udall

Dan’s Journal - commentary

By Dan Cunningham

“Sometimes we forget that art is a spiritual path and that spiritual journeys are characterized by time in the desert.”

Julia Cameron

Tall and senatorial looking, Mark Udall, D – Colo.) Seemed relaxed and at home Saturday afternoon at Bent’s Fort Inn.

A small group had been gathered together by Bent County Democratic Chairman Alex Netherton when Las Animas was added at the last minute to a brief weekend swing through southeastern Colorado.

Netherton apologized for the small turnout, saying he’d only had time to send information to television and radio about the Las Animas stop.

Udall at first joked with his visitors, alluding to the current “family motto: Vote for the Udall nearest you.” That was in reference to his cousin Tom Udall, (D – N. M.) also a five-term Congressman who is running for the U. S. Senate in New Mexico.

At least one attendee was silently thinking about the carpetbagger issue. That question was answered. Mark Udall migrated into Colorado to run successfully for Congress in 1998, but he told the gathering his mother was a Colorado native and that he had returned to her roots.

He said his cousin Tom similarly had returned to his mother’s roots in New Mexico. Mark Udall’s campaign site reveals his father also had brief ties to Colorado. Mark’s father is Morris (Mo) Udall, who played for the Denver Nuggets before serving 30 years as a Congressional representative from Arizona.

His uncle Stewart, Tom’s father, was also a Congressman and was Secretary of the Interior under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

With a pedigree like that, Udall understandably brings an aura with him into any Democratic gathering whose members have a feel for the political history of the west.

And he also brings a fairly consistent battle-tested liberal perspective that goes back for generations and influences his contemporary thinking.

A campaign spokeswoman, Taylor West, told the Democrat that Udall has worked with Senator Allard on some issues, such as resolution of the environmental mess at Rocky Flats, which was turned into a wildlife refuge.

Within the Democratic Party, she said Udall’s lone challenger is a northeastern Colorado county chairman who is very cordial with the Udall campaign and who even helped organize an upcoming campaign stop. West said the man has said he is only running to call attention to some issues.

Because Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s Mormon background had played a role in the national debate, she was asked about Mark Udall’s relationship to his Mormon ancestors.

West said Mark’s grandfather had been a devout Mormon, his father had been a lapsed one and Mark has chosen to go another way.


The upcoming Senate race in Colorado should be a donnybrook, and so far the polls indicate a tight race between Udall and Republican front-runner Robert Schaefer, a former Congressman in the local Fourth District.

While Udall clearly resonates with the national mood on extricating from the Iraq conflict, Colorado will be a tough battleground.

Much of the economy around Denver is war-based. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other defense contractors have thousands of very high-wage workers who are directly benefiting from the defense industry and the “global” war against third world Afghanistan and Iraq.

One tenth of the nation’s black budget — perhaps $3 billion or more locally — is reportedly spent now at Buckley Field, which is far more than a sleepy Air National Guard field. A few years ago the Denver Business Journal reported that local economists became confused when the state economy stopped plunging into recession every five years due to the oil and energy cycle. They eventually realized the heavy spending at Buckley was smoothing out Denver’s historic booms and busts.

Under those large golf-ball domes in Aurora are downlinks that can listen to intelligence gathering satellites over both Europe and Asia due to Colorado’s unique location and high altitude.

Likewise, there has been a buildup in eavesdropping by others. Russia’s huge “disinformation?” agency Interfax reportedly has its world headquarters in Denver. It used to be downtown on Market Street in a guarded building that required a visitor to push a buzzer to gain admittance. It has since moved to Parker Road.

Several years ago it was reported in Catholic Family News that Denver was the global headquarters for Interfax and that more than a dozen KGB agents are routinely based there. A few years later I read in the Denver Business Journal an article about a Russian intern at Interfax, but there was no mention of spies. Most journalists show signs of either wanting to live or of just not knowing. Had I known and done the interview, I might not have asked. Or I might have.

At Colorado Springs there has been a massive buildup of military contractors and expansion of the local military bases, prompting the Department of Defense to make a grab for even more territory, the ranchlands surrounding Pinon Canyon.

(For a glimpse into how the defense industry works, I was once at a monthly Denver UFO Society – DUFOS, an apt acronym — when a member pointed to an attendee across the room. He said the man had owned a small ranch on the edge of Colorado Springs and he had lost dozens of cows due to mysterious cattle mutilations. The unlucky stockman sold out and now his former land holding was occupied by a defense contracting facility.)

The Udall campaign has already taken in $4 million to fund a campaign, even as Udall says the nation may not be tolerant of high-spending political battles any more. His campaign has described the low-budget foray into southeastern Colorado last weekend as another tactic to fight this campaign.

But money usually talks the louodest in politics. And really big bucks are flowing into Colorado’s defense industry. The family members, relatives and suppliers and communities feeding off the war time frenzy may perceive a threat to their prosperity, even as prosperity drains away from the areas not economically benefiting from the massive war spending.

In Colorado, for every rancher who knows Pinon Canyon expansion is a threat to his livelihood, there are one or more families who fear an end to the war will threaten their good times.