Man on a mission

National Review, Oct 5, 1992 by Dan Griswold

A YEAR AGO, Colorado conservative Terry Considine was not exactly riding high in the saddle. He was out for a Sunday horseback ride last September with his two young daughters when his Quarter Horse mare reared and fell over on top of him, crushing several vertebrae. But in January, leaning on a pair of crutches, the 45-year-old businessman and former state senator announced that he would be a Republican candidate to represent Colorado in the U.S. Senate.

Everyone expected the race would pit the conservative reformer Considine against first-term Senator Democrat Tim Wirth. But then Wirth--a global-warming crusader who was first elected to Congress in the wake of Watergate--stunned Colorado's political establishment by announcing he would retire after six terms in the House and one in the Senate. Congress just wasn't fun any more, Wirth said, citing gridlock and partisan rancor.

While Considine, well on the road to physical recovery, sailed through his party's nomination process, Colorado Democrats scrambled to find someone to defend Wirth's seat. Two of their heavy hitters, former Governor Richard Lamm and three-term Congressman Ben Nighthorse Campbell, went head-to-head in the August 11 primary, with Campbell winning decisively.

Colorado's political leanings are as varied as its terrain, with its dry eastern plains rising up to meet the Front Range wall of the Rocky Mountains. Colorado consistently votes Republican in presidential elections, but splits almost down the middle on congressional and state races. The state has been represented simultaneously by Gary Hart, man-about-town and McGovern campaign manager, and by William Armstrong, born-again Christian and rock-solid conservative. Both chambers of the state legislature are solidly Republican, but Democrats have won the last five elections for governor.

Like many Western states, Colorado is conservative on fiscal matters and on such issues as gun control and the death penalty. But on social issues it tends to be more liberal. It was one of the first states to liberalize its abortion law, and if Roe v. Wade ever fails, it will be one of the last to restrict abortion. This is, after all, the state that gave the nation Pat Schroeder, and that gave Jerry Brown a plurality in this year's presidential primary.

Colorado's Senate race could be one of most competitive and pivotal in the country. If Terry Considine wins, he will be far more than just another vote in the Republican caucus. He is a man on a mission: to reform the political process and to restore the incentives that drive our market economy.

Considine found personal success and wealth in the property-management business during the Seventies and Eighties. The son-in-law of Bo Callaway, a former chairman of the Colorado GOP, Considine moved to the state a decade ago and soon became a player in state politics. He managed Senator Armstrong's successful re-election bid in 1984 and himself ran (unsuccessfully) for the GOP Senate nomination in 1986.

In 1987, Considine was appointed to fill a vacancy in the State Senate, where he pushed for educational choice and the partial privatization of Denver's Rapid Transit District. He stepped down from his legislative post in January to focus full-time on the race for U.S. Senate.

Bill Armstrong, a national figure among conservatives, is serving as Considine's campaign chairman. Of his candidate, Armstrong says, "Terry has tremendous intellectual horse-power. He's got the kind of human qualities that are really rare, the ability to empathize with people and understand their problems. He has the kind of stamina and vitality it takes to be a good United States Senator. He'll be a real leader there."

It was Considine who organized the "Coloradans Back in Charge" petition drive two years ago that made Colorado the first state in the union to impose term limits (an effort that won him the enmity of political insiders in both parties). In that referendum, 71 per cent of state voters approved limits not only on Colorado's governor and legislators but also on its congressional delegation. Sparked by the brushfire Considine lit in Colorado, term-limit initiatives will be on the ballot this fall in as many as 15 states. One activist has called Considine "the father of term limits." Considine also wants a 50 per cent reduction in congressional staff and committees and no exemptions for Congress from any laws it passes.

Considine is an articulate, unabashed free-marketeer whose economic platform sounds much like Ronald Reagan's in 1980: deregulation, spending cuts, and lower taxes, including the indexation of capital gains and a higher personal exemption for families. The aim of his tax-reform proposals is "to unleash the profit motive and the human instinct for innovation to produce more jobs, greater savings and investment, and new technology."

Ben Nighthorse Campbell's No. 1 asset as a Senate candidate is his biography. Part North Cheyenne Indian, the 59-year-old Campbell is the only Native American in Congress (and only the eighth ever). He wears a ponytail and a bolo tie and has made his living as a jewelry maker and horse trainer. He spent part of his boyhood in an orphanage.and won a gold medal in judo at the 1964 Olympics. As a state legislator in 1986, he upset a Republican incumbent for Congress, and has won by huge margins ever since.