Sen. Michael Bennet’s first ad for November sounds like something his opponent produced. That’s because the senator is out of touch with Colorado. He has left our state worse than he found it and cannot see it while hiking in the mountains.

The ad features Bennet walking along a mountain trail, with popup photos of his beautiful wife and children. No doubt this is a good man with a good family. So far, so good. Then it gets weird.

“Susan and I have taught our girls: leave things better than you found them. But common sense like that has been lost in Washington,” Bennet says.

Indeed. Washington cares nothing about leaving things better outside the beltway. Inside the beltway, Bennet, President Joe Biden and other entrenched politicians smother wage-earning, business-owning Americans with excessive taxation and regulation. None of it makes their lives better.

Since Bennet returned to his hometown of Washington as an appointed senator in 2009, Colorado has given him 13 years in which to leave Colorado better than he found it.

In 2009, Colorado was a famously safe, relatively affordable, low-crime environment. This was a fun and peaceful place to visit and live. Today, we’re known globally as a high-crime druggie state that makes Amsterdam seem like Utah. To drive through Denver is to drive through a landscape of homeless encampments. In a more sincere and relevant ad, Bennet would walk along a Colorado sidewalk littered with tents and propose a solution.

Today, as Bennet talks about leaving things better, Colorado has a fentanyl overdose crisis that kills more young people than anything else. It has an inflation rate that exceeds the national average. Colorado leads the country in bank robberies and car thefts. The Colorado River Basin is in crisis. Federal forests throughout Colorado are so poorly managed we constantly fear the next deadly wildfire. During Bennet’s time in the Senate, Colorado’s public schools have produced declining outcomes for children.

Bennet has neglected limitless opportunities throughout his 13 years in the Senate to mitigate these problems. He could have pushed for border control measures to slow or stop the flow of fentanyl. He has done nothing to solve this problem. Instead of discouraging drugs, the senator boasts of floating the most permissive marijuana bill in history.

Just before Colorado’s historic spike in crime, Bennet helped demonize law enforcement. In 2020, Bennet joined fellow Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, and then-Sen Kamala Harris, of California, in a bill to “hold police accountable in court” when things go wrong during dangerous and complicated encounters with suspects. He bragged about a similar law passed by the Colorado legislature. He’s all for regulating cops without much apparent concern for crime victims.

By supporting all of Biden’s spending and energy policies, Bennet has contributed to inflation and record-breaking gas prices. If Biden wants it Bennet supports it. The Democratic Party’s extreme base has radicalized Bennet no less than Biden. The respectable moderate image our senator achieved years ago is nowhere to be found.

Maybe that’s why the rest of the ad talks about his three top issues — the matters so pressing they comprise the entire substance of his maiden commercial of 2022.

To leave things better in Colorado, Bennet explains, “I’m fighting to ban members of Congress from ever becoming lobbyists… I’m not taking a dime in corporate PAC money… I’m working to stop senators and congressmen from making personal stock trades.”

Oh, thank God! This should comfort Coloradans who fear their teenagers, young adults, or infant grandchildren will die of poison crossing the border. With this ad, we can expect a reduction in violent crime. We shall no longer worry about thieves taking cars we can’t afford to replace. No more concern about affording food. And, of course, he’ll help the people living on sidewalks with needles in their arms.

Senator, commonsense tells us few Coloradans lose sleep contemplating the personal stock trades of your Washington colleagues. It is hard to imagine an ad that more loudly screams “Washington insider” — a politician walking a pristine trail while ignoring the squalor on the streets.

A Gazette news article says Bennet’s rush to advertise creates “a distinction Bennet’s campaign says points to the incumbent’s massive cash advantage over Republican challenger Joe O’Dea.”

Nobody cares. Spent like this, Bennet’s cash might elect O’Dea — a lifelong Coloradan adopted by a longtime Denver cop. As Bennet talks about esoteric inside-Washington concerns, O’Dea addresses crime, the overdose crisis, inflation, education and homelessness — the problems he sees every day.

O’Dea — a self-made construction tycoon who provides good jobs — watched his state get worse during Bennet’s 13 years in the Senate. Bennet can’t win by claiming he makes things better than he found them. Everyone knows that has not been true for years.

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board