Five Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … The race for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat between incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican challenger Ken Buck was tightening in the closing days as the rivals met for their seventh and final debate at KCNC-TV studios in Denver. The 9News/Denver Post poll had the two tied at 47 percent among likely voters, marking a comeback for Bennet, who had been down by 5 points three weeks earlier in the same poll. There had been a 21-point swing in Bennet’s favor among independent voters and his lead among women was growing. (A poll released the next day by Public Policy Polling showed an identical 47-47 contest.)

Responding to a question from debate moderator Shaun Boyd, Buck blasted a third-party TV ad that attacked his position on abortion and his decision not to prosecute an alleged 2005 rape case. “There is a line, even in politics, you don’t cross. And, unfortunately, that line has been crossed,” said the Weld County district attorney, defending his work prosecuting rape and domestic violence cases. “I think what’s crossing the line is being a prosecutor and describing a victim in a rape case as having ‘buyer’s remorse,’” Bennet swung back. Moderator Gloria Neal read a question submitted by a viewer, asking Buck if he would “really make a raped child carry a child to term?” A “brusque” Buck replied that he was, indeed, opposed to abortion, but he added that the Senate wasn’t about to outlaw abortion, having only voted on “much narrower” questions. “We get caught up in these social issues when voters want to know about jobs, they want to know about unemployment, they want to know about spending,” he protested. Bennet kept the heat on. “You ran on those issues in the Republican primary, and to abandon them now, I think, is just so cynical,” he said. Given the chance to ask each other questions, Bennet persisted: “If you criminalize abortions in case of rape and incest, who’s going to jail?” Buck shook his head. “I don’t think abortion’s going to be criminalized anytime soon.” Then he shot back: “You have once again tried to take this debate off topic.” With ballots due in just over a week, the race was living up to its billing as the closest Senate race in the country.

Fifty-five Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … “Big Ed” Johnson, a former governor and U.S. senator, was waging a strenuous campaign in opposition to Amendment 3, saying the proposal to establish a “dictatorial” fish and wildlife commission would “not guarantee a single fish more in Colorado streams,” nor an extra deer or elk in the woods. It would, however, confer unprecedented and unfettered power in the hands of a four-man commission (although the proposal didn’t specify male commissioners).

“This amendment is a stick of dynamite gift-wrapped in cellophane which anyone taking a second look can see right through,” said the Democrat, who headed Coloradans for Sound Government, a group organized to oppose the measure. A section in the amendment would grant commissioners the power of eminent domain, a provision “designed to delight the eye of the unwary, but a second look at this sucker-bait should convince any realistic sportsman that positively it will not do what its advocates promise.” Johnson called on the Colorado Bar Association to comment on the “obnoxious basic legalistic points” in the measure, urging lawyers to reject adding “one thousand words of junk” to the state constitution. Voters, he said, should also reject the thought of endowing a “cozy little four-man squad of wildlife dictators” with the power to take $5 million in state hunting and fishing license fees to create their own private game reserves.

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com