Conservatives still win in Colorado

A Democrat won the Colorado governor's seat, but the Republican congressman from Colorado Springs survived, and only one congressional seat (in the 7th district in Denver suburbs) changed to the Democrats. Worse, voters approved a ban on gay marriage and defeated a more moderate domestic partership bill. So it doesn't look like the Ted Haggard implosion affected the vote at all -- or at least not enough to matter.

Gay marriage bans won in six other states, but in a significant note, failed in Arizona 51-49.

In news of Ted Haggard's attempted rehabilitation, right-wing demagogue James Dobson quit Haggard's rehabilitation team, saying he didn't have enough time to devote to the effort to turn the meth-snorting, cocksucking hypocrite into a fine upstanding right-wing Christian again. Okay, he didn't quite put it that way. Update no 1: The Colo. Springs Gazette has a letter sent on Monday to Haggard's former church by Ross Parsley, the assistant who took over the church. Update no. 2, courtesy Christianity Today: The Nat'l Assoc. of Evangelicals, the 45,000 church-strong organization that Haggard had headed, is distancing itself from the disgraced preacher: "Most people -- I'm not sure everyone -- separate this tragedy from NAE; they consider it a tragedy of a man, a pastor and not an NAE scandal."

Update no. 3: Salon's Lauren Sandler continues to cover the Colorado Springs story on the ground, filing a report from the Republican election-night party there. Sandler strongly suggests the local Republican House candidate, Doug Lamborn, was due to be upset, but results this morning showed he won by plenty. Still, nice color:

As the band wound up its final set, he talked to reporters about setting his sights on the House Armed Services Committee and made snarky comments about Nancy Pelosi. He commented that the evangelical vote refused to be "sidelined." And then, as Mr. Biggs' cleanup staff circulated with garbage bags, asking the last straggling volunteers to gather up their campaign signs, Lamborn took the stage to summon local candidates, winners all. They were given just a moment for lightning-fast speeches -- a chance to parade the wives, thank the volunteers, and remind the tiny remaining crowd about "Republican principles" and "Republican revival," all standard Christian political rhetoric. That rhetoric tonight would be the language of defeat in Missouri Sen. Jim Talent's campaign: His concession speech opened by giving long-winded thanks to God, but no one here even bothered to do that in their victory speeches. These local wins meant little when the Senate was still hanging in the balance.

Lamborn himself didn't bother to invoke his faith as he wrapped up what could hardly be called a party. Blinded by the success of the "enemy," he couldn't even talk about winning his seat; in fact his quick speech sounded more like an angry concession. "We'll be able to harness a backlash," he said.

Update no. 4: Haggard accuser Mike Jones "got an earful" when he appeared on a Colorado Springs call-in radio show Wednesday morning.

Ted Haggard, James Dobson, gay marriage, domestic partners, colorado