Funny how that happened, huh?

Colorado Republicans were stunned late Monday upon learning that the “neutral and objective panel” that cleared Sen. Mark Udall of bullying state insurance regulators in fact consisted of three Democrats in the Hickenlooper administration.

Barbara Kelley, executive director of the Department of Regulatory Affairs, released a statement to Fox31 saying that the three members of the panel were herself, her deputy Michelle Pederson, and legislative liaison John Cevette, former chief of staff to Democratic Senate President Brandon Shaffer.

Background here: the short version is, there’s a documented email chain where Senator Udall’s staffers attempted to intimidate state government workers into revising sharply downward Colorado’s horrible Obamacare cancellation numbers. The existence of said email chain is potentially embarrassing for both Udal and Governor John Hickenlooper, given that both are Democrats running for re-election in 2014 (and given that Obamacare is starting to look like an albatross). Ms. Kelley originally attempted to keep the names on that panel private; but she was… unsuccessful in doing so. In fact, Ms. Kelley managed to tick off the Denver Post by leaking the names on that panel to everybody else, apparently out of spite.

:pause:

And people wonder why the Colorado GOP has a certain amount of guarded optimism about this cycle’s races. The number of unforced errors merely continues to grow.

Moe Lane (crosspost)