Put away the pitchfork metaphors that are prevalent in this season of populist ferment: Colorado's Senate contest is a duel of distinguished diplomas. Tea Partyers toiled mightily to nominate Ken Buck as the Republican candidate to run against Sen. Michael Bennet, who is a direct descendant of a Mayflower passenger, grandson of an economic adviser to Franklin Roosevelt and son of an official in the Carter and Clinton administrations. He attended tony St. Alban's school in Washington and Yale Law School. Buck is a Princetonian. But to erase the stain of privilege, Buck stresses that his family, although hardly poor, was frugal -- "No, you won't get a Happy Meal, you'll get a burger." And he worked in a Princeton cafeteria and later as a truck driver, ranch hand and janitor, so there.
A large man with close-cropped gray hair, he was a college football player talented enough to get a tryout as a punter with the New York Giants. Having, perhaps, an unslaked appetite for blocking and tackling, he became, after years in business, a prosecutor in Weld County, north of Denver. Explaining his Senate candidacy, he says: "I was in law enforcement for a long time and had seen how politicians had screwed up, so I decided I couldn't do worse and might do better." - More -
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