Politico.com ran a piece entitled “President Obama touts Michael Bennet as an outsider” about Obama’s visit to Denver to help Senator Michael “Who?” Bennet raise money for his campaign.  The events which reportedly raised about $675,000 (though that number could be exaggerated to try to scare Andrew Romanoff) served to show two things.

Obama still has plenty of supporters, including rich supporters.  And Bennet knows that he’s going to need an enormous amount of money to have even the smallest chance of winning.

Obama said Bennet could become an “outstanding” Senator.  This means that he isn’t one now.  And while Obama is trying to show the public a way to give Bennet a pass because Bennet is a “rookie", I see the whole series of events as Obama supporting the Senator who is one of the least likely Sentaors, especially from this part of the country, to vote against him.

Bennet’s supine legislative position is no less than pathetic.  He’s utterly willing to sell out his state and the nation, to go so far as to say he wants to pass the Democrats’ disastrous health care “reform” bill through the budget reconciliation process despite what he must know to be the public’s deep antipathy toward the legislation.

There is no doubt that money is an enormous factor in politics, and if Bennet can add in one day as much as Jane Norton (the GOP candidate leading in cash) has in her coffers, it’s a big plus for Bennet.  But Bennet is so unpopular that I think a Republican candidate can and will win spending less than half of what Bennet spends.  Indeed, if Bennet were a smart “team player", he’d save a bunch of cash and dole it out to the campaigns of other people he supports.  That might help him in the future, depending on what he wants to do when he leaves his Senate office in January, 2011.

On the other hand, showing himself to be so close to Obama, while probably helping Bennet win the primary race against former Speaker of the (State) House Andrew Romanoff, will be a big negative among the critical unaffiliated voters in November.  It’s as if he’s raising money that he’ll need to spend just to get back to his level of disapproval before he so obviously reminded the voters that he’s a blind, deaf, and dumb vote for a president whose job approval is among the lowest we’ve seen for a president at this time in his term in office.

As far as I’m concerned, the best thing that could happen for the Republican candidate for this seat is for Bennet to keep reminding people that he’s just Obama’s water boy.

One final thought: This money raise by Bennet is likely a modest positive for Jane Norton’s campaign to the extent that she is, at this point, the Republican candidate most able to raise the money which will be needed to compete.  Even though Bennet is unpopular, a candidate who is outspent 5-to-1 or 10-to-1 could have a hard time beating him.  For Ken Buck to give himself a good chance in the caucus and assembly process, he really needs to show some much bigger numbers…and soon.