Lucero campaign may set example

There was an important election in Colorado this week. It was only a primary election, pitting two relatively unknown Democrats - Josie Heath, a former Boulder County Commissioner, and Carlos Lucero, a prosecutor from rural western Colorado - in a scramble for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.

But the primary was important, first, because, once again, the candidate with the most money won.

The same result is likely in November when Heath, the winner, challenges Republican congressman Hank Brown for the Senate seat vacated by Republican Bill Armstrong. The well-financed Brown has a strong lead over his Democratic challenger.

We run the danger, as Will Rogers used to say, of having the Best Congress money can buy. There is a compelling need to change the way we finance politics, and especially to sharply curtail the influence of political action committees, known as PACs.

Business, specifically, should take the lead. The Watergate reforms should be applied to Congress. We must stop the deepening corruption of our political institutions, especially those at the national level, which are dominated by PAC money and the cancer of incumbency.

There is more turnover in the British House of Lords than there is in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Second, the Colorado Democratic primary was important because, with almost no money, Lucero, the loser, ran a respectable race, garnering more than 40% of the vote.

He caught the interest of the media and voters by effectively focusing public attention on the savings and loan scandal, emphasizing the failure of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan.

More specifically, Lucero emphasized the most sensitive and explosive dimension of the S&L mess: the personal greed of individual developers. The American public is in an ugly mood, and former prosecutor Lucero sensed it.

The public is angry that big-spending developers are living high on the hog - complete with Florida mansions in Tampa and Boca Raton, villas in Palm Springs, Calif., and beach houses in Newport Beach, Calif. - while taxpayers are left to form a bucket brigade to clean up and pay for the mess they left behind.

The public wants to respond to leaders who will relentlessly go after the S&L deadbeats. That's what Lucero offered - to root out the "rot at the top" - and that's what many Colorado voters responded to, even though the political pros had pronounced his candidacy dead on arrival.

Even in defeat, Lucero's strategy will not go unnoticed during the autumn campaign cycle. Its appeal is neither partisan nor ideological. It attracts both Republicans and Democrats. It finds sympathy among liberals and conservatives.

Lucero appealed to Americans' sense of fair play and the need for retribution. He also revealed the soft underbelly of incumbency and the rebellious mood of voters. November could be interesting.