Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Udall brought a liberal superstar from Massachusetts and a nationally prominent pro-choice advocate to Jefferson County on Friday afternoon to rally volunteers preparing to contact voters ahead of what could be one of the key Senate races in the country.“I know it’s hot in here, but it’s hot in here for a reason,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren smiled, speaking to more than 300 sweltering folks who overflowed the Democrats’ combined campaign headquarters in Wheat Ridge. “It’s hot in here because we’re working hard.”

Warren and Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, urged supporters to reelect Udall and fellow Democrat U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who faces a challenge from businessman and former Jeffco GOP chairman Don Ytterberg.

The choice between Udall and his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, couldn’t be more clear, said Warren, considered a leading potential presidential candidate if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opts against running in 2016.

The fall election, she said, revolves around the question, “Whose side do you stand on?”

There are Republicans, including Gardner, Warren said, who believe that “women are just fine.” As the crowd gasped and guffawed, she ticked off the purported reasoning of her political opponents: Women, she said, are worth 77 cents on the dollar and can make “many” of their own health care decisions.

“And there are people who believe,” Warren continued, pointing to Udall at her side, “that equal means equal and a woman is entitled to equal pay and control over her own body.”

“Who’s gonna be there — not some of the time, not when it’s convenient, not when the race is looking a little tight and women are looking a little feisty,” she thundered. “Who’s gonna be there for women all of the time? The answer is, Mark Udall.”

The appearance by Warren and Richards — Warren also attended a lunchtime fundraiser with Udall — is a swing back at Gardner, who released a TV ad this week touting his bid to make the birth control pill available over the counter, a proposal opponents say would make birth control too expensive for some women and could pose health risks for women who take the pill without a doctor’s supervision.

The Udall campaign has hammered Gardner for months on his previous support for the state personhood amendment, which would give legal rights to fertilized embryos and could ban some forms of birth control. The Republican said he changed his mind about the measure soon after getting in the race this spring, although critics point out he continues to sponsor federal legislation that amounts to the same thing.

Richards noted that her late mother, then-Gov. Ann Richards of Texas, headlined a rally in Colorado for Udall when he was first seeking a congressional seat in 1988. There was one rule she set when deciding whether to campaign for someone: “You had to be 100 percent in support of women’s rights and women’s reproductive health,” Richards said.

“Mark Udall has been a fighter for women, for women’s health care access, for women’s reproductive rights, for women’s equal pay, for minimum wage, for everything that makes life better for women,” she said. “And Cory Gardner wants to roll the clock back 50 years.”

Richards stressed that the volunteers who filled the campaign offices — and spilled out onto the lawn outside, some peering in through the windows — potentially had the outcome of the election in their hands.

“This is an election about who gets our folks out to vote,” she said as volunteers waved their canvas packets.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet — not only Udall’s cohort in the Colorado delegation but also the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party organization working to keep the Senate gavel in Democratic hands — stressed that voter turnout would be key.

Bennet won a full term in 2010 during a Republican wave year by what amounted to one vote per precinct, several speakers noted. “That vote is in your packet,” said campaign organizer Courtney Cronin, after asking volunteers to raise their folders filled with contact information for voters.

A spokesman for the Gardner campaign said in a statement that Warren’s visit was both telling and “concerning.”

“It’s concerning Senator Udall would invite such a staunch opponent of Colorado’s energy economy to campaign on his behalf,” said Gardner press secretary Matt Connelly. “Senator Warren is opposed to expanding (liquified natural gas) exports, wants more regulations on fracking, and has joined Senator Udall in opposition to the Keystone Pipeline. If you needed any more evidence that Senator Udall is too extreme for Colorado, look no further than who he surrounds himself with on the campaign trail.”

Pearl van Haveren grinned ear-to-ear after snapping some photographs with Warren.“I love her, and I think she has the best ideas for women and for this country, and for the unjustly-treated in this country,” van Haveren told The Colorado Statesman. “If Hillary doesn’t run, she should, and I would campaign for her as hard as I would for Hillary. She’s in the right place.”

The night before the Jefferson County rally, Warren made her first appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, where she talked about the importance of raising the minimum wage and promoted her book, “A Fighting Chance.” The Los Angeles Times has reported that Warren has raised more than $3 million for Democratic Senate candidates.

Richards headlined a reception opposed to Amendment 67, this year’s version of the personhood amendment, on Thursday night in Denver. The fundraiser, thrown by Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado, included awards for four state lawmakers, dubbed the organization’s 2014 “Champions of Choice” — state Sens. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood, and Jeanne Nicholson, D-Black Hawk, and state Reps. Mike Foot, D-Lafayette, and Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood.

The state Republican Party welcomed Warren to Colorado, contending that her presence helps highlight Udall’s extremism.

“We are thrilled Sen. Warren will be touring the state with her ideological twin, Mark Udall,” said Colorado Republican Committee communications director Owen Loftus, in a statement. “If they have it their way, Colorado’s energy industry will be completely destroyed, federal spending would be even higher, and Americans will be subjected to even greater federal mandates on their healthcare choices. These radical positions might work in Massachusetts and Washington, but they don’t work in Colorado.”

— Ernest@coloradostatesman.com

See the September 5 print edition for full photo coverage.