Colorado Senate Race 2008: Schaffer(R) vs Udall(D)

For the past few months I’ve been following the Colorado senate race between the Republican Bob Schaffer and the Democrat Mark Udall. Someone once told me that if I want to get into politics, I should seriously consider volunteering for a local race, like for senate. So, I’ve been reading up on Mr. Schaffer to see I can get excited about supporting his campaign. But everything I’ve read so far suggests that Mr. Schaffer is much more conservative than I am, so I am reduced to wrestling with the notion of supporting someone based solely on their party affiliation.

Regardless of how I feel about the candidates, I still think it’s fun to follow closely contested political races, even if only from a distance

Here is an interesting chart I found a few days ago from the Center for Reponsive Politics at OpenSecrets.org, comparing Mr. Schaeffer’s and Mr. Udall’s fund raising efforts.

Sources of Campaign Donations:

In-State vs. Out-of-State

A whopping 60% Mr. Udall’s money is coming from out of state, compared with only 30% for Mr. Schaffer!

I am not entirely sure what political implications this statistic has on Mr. Udall’s candidacy, or what percentage of funds should be amassed from within the state for the candidate to be able to claim true representation of his state; but I can’ imagine that this reflects well for Mr. Udall.