By _Allison Sherry_ (http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/author/allison-sherry/) The Denver Post
Posted _August 17, 2011_ (http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2011/08/17) , 9:27 am MT Beltway (in Colorado!) Blog — Bennet defends Obama, says “radical centrist” voices need to rise up CRESTED BUTTE — Sen. Michael Bennet defended President Obama to an angry group of mostly Democrats here, saying there was some Monday morning quarterbacking on moves Obama took to help repair a broken economy and blamed most of the games in Washington on the radical wing of the Republican party. “There’s not a mayor or a superintendent in this state who would threaten the credit rating of the community for the sake of politics,” Bennet said, referring to the debt ceiling debate and the notion among some Republicans that defaulting on the nation’s debt was an option. “You have some people out there wanting to sink the ship. I have a lot of regard for the president and for the scope and scale of the challenge he inherited.” Bennet was responding to a statement from Crested Butte resident Larry Mosher, who said he was “utterly disgusted with the U.S. Congress and the U.S. president … We are afflicted with a president who doesn’t know what he believes … He doesn’t know how to fight.” Bennet’s two stops in Crested Butte and Gunnison this morning are apart of a western Colorado town hall loop through Grand Junction, Lake City and Montrose. He said to Gunnison residents the pace felt like the 2010 campaign again. Both chambers of Congress are adjourned until after Labor Day. Largely, attendees at the meetings were frustrated. A man in Gunnison said this morning, “if I didn’t know you, I woudn’t vote for you again. You guys have got to get along. And you’ve got to compromise! You guys are joking us.” Bennet pressed the room to hold politicians accountable amid constant gridlock in Congress. “In terms of these pledges and these promises and these slogans … we need to replace that as a public,” he said. “It needs to be, ‘Do your job. We expect you to do your job. Including me.” Bennet spent much of his speeches in Colorado — as he does on the Senate floor in Washington — criticizing the “political cartoons” taking place in the Capitol. People in Colorado are “so far ahead of Washington it staggers the mind,” he said. “Somehow we need to raise the radical centrist voices up who believe … we can work together,” he said. “It’s very important for us to show up to things like this, and to have a little bit of joy about the fact that we’re living in a time that the decisons we need to make are as important as they are.” -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
