After the debate, Hart said he’d tried to treat Buchanan the same as he would any opponent but acknowledged he was “wary that the public might be on guard for any possible berating of a female.” His press secretary, Kathy Bushkin, noted that it was odd the senator referred to Buchanan as “my opponent,” while his challenger kept calling him “Gary.” Curt Uhre, Buchanan’s campaign manager, said Hart’s debate performance was “smug and a little pushy” and ripped Hart’s arguments about federal spending as “scare tactics.” There were three more debates scheduled before Election Day. …

… Former Democratic state Rep. Kenneth Monfort, president of meatpacking giant Monfort of Colorado, was spearheading the “Eat Crow Club,” made up of Democrats who had quit the party and re-registered as Republicans. Monfort, who wasn’t just a former legislator but had also run for the U.S. Senate on the Democratic ticket, said he was “tired as hell” of the “voluminous regulation and paperwork” resulting from Democratic policies. “The overall growth of big government, all those rules and regulations – I’m not happy,” he said. “Maybe I’ve shifted a little. But the Democrats have moved a lot.” Over lunch with former state Sen. Roland “Sonny” Mapelli, the chairman of Monfort’s board, the two decided to switch parties. “We bitched a lot,” Monfort said. “I probably would have snuck out and changed my registration anyway, but Sonny convinced me we should do it publicly.” Mapelli agreed. “It’s our privilege to change to Republicans,” he said. “Please understand, it wasn’t an easy decision for us. We’ve all been Democratic office-holders. But we’ve got to operate our businesses, and we’ve been hampered.” Joining the Eat Crow Club was former state Sen. Arch Decker. “They’ve seen the light,” said state GOP operative Natalie Meyer. “Welcome.”

Fifty-five Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for president, rallied a crowd estimated at 10,000 in a campaign speech in Denver’s Civic Center before attending a $25-a-plate fundraiser at the nearby Hilton Hotel. Republicans are preaching complacency in a time of national peril, Kennedy charged at the rally. The Statesman reported that Kennedy was pushing back against charges hurled by the Republican National Committee chairman Thruston Morton that the Democrat’s campaign theme amounts to “sheer desertion of American patriotism and pride … and plainly gives aid and comfort to the arch-enemy of the United States and the entire free world.” “It is not dangerous to reveal our shortcomings,” Kennedy orated. “Mr. Krushchev knows full well where we are weak and where we are strong. But it is dangerous to hide these shortcomings from the American people – to say that all is well when all is in peril.” Instead, Kennedy claimed, “It is those who are satisfied with things as they are … who are in reality selling America short. It is they who have lost faith in America and the American people.”nLooking “bronzed and fit” as he arrived in Denver in the middle of a “grueling” 19-day swing through the Midwest, Kennedy was introduced by Colorado Sen. John A. Carroll at both the outdoor speech and the hotel luncheon. Carroll took his own swings at what he called Morton’s “underhanded attack” on Democrats. “This is not the first time this has happened,” Carroll said. “This charge was leveled against 20 million Democrats in 1952, 1954 and 1956. We thought this sort of nonsense would stop, but it seems a leopard will never change its spots.” …

… Columnist RNM – identified only by his initials – reported on a chance encounter with “a big galoot” outside the Grand Ballroom at the Hilton after the hoopla had cleared from JFK’s luncheon. As “innocent as a new-born lamb,” the fella asked what had been going on and then asked how the Republican nominee, Vice President Richard Nixon, was doing in Colorado. “It looks like a stand-off right now,” the columnist replied, since all polls pointed to a dead-even race. ” ‘Stand-off’?” he asked. “What do you mean ‘stand-off’?” Then the “big bundle of muscle” launched into a diatribe. “The Masons are against the Catholics,” he said. “They’re against Kennedy. There sure are a lot of Masons.” Noting that the Masons had declared otherwise in a recent magazine article, saying they were for “everybody thinking as he pleases,” RNM tried to calm the stranger’s agitated demeanor, to no avail. “The pope wants to take over the government,” the man declared. “We can’t let the pope take over the government!” Walking away slowly, RNM wrote, “I felt as though I had been caught coming out of a backhouse in a strange neighborhood.”

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com