by Michael Lund

When was the last time a sitting president greeted Denver on the airwaves of a Spanish language radio station?

This was the first question that popped into my head when I saw KBNO Fernando Sergio’s Facebook post that he’d be interviewing President Obama Tuesday morning at 10 am.

Obama spoke to Colorado Hispanics … in English. And what did he say?

Campaigns, political consultants, wonks and analysts use a single word for a community that factors heavily in determining their fates in this upcoming presidential election. Whether it’s “Hispanics”, or “Latinos”, one word is used to identify an extremely diverse community, represented by entire spectrums of social, geographical, professional, cultural, socioeconomic, and generational identities. Hispanics, contrary to what our oversimplified nomenclature might suggest, are not monolithic as a cultural group. So, as an interviewer, which questions do you ask? And as a candidate, how do you connect?

Obama chose the right venue – a locally respected and established radio station, chatting with a familiar and well-known host.

Fernando Sergio’s interview followed the expected talking points, and Barak Obama responded articulately and personably, off-script and on.

Here’s a quick summary of the highlights:

The Economy:

Conservatives will not be disappointed with President Obama starting his response by blaming the previous administration for the mess he inherited, with some prompting by Mr. Sergio. But Fernando pressed Obama for specific examples of policies which improved the economy in his first term. Obama cited saving the auto industry, “doubling down on clean energy”, and creating and saving American jobs by passing the Recovery Act. He gave statistics which demonstrated successes, while reminding the audience of the hard work remaining, and warning of the lingering effects of depressed housing markets, continuing foreclosures and the looming European economic crises.

Healthcare

The President boldly promoted the Affordable Healthcare Act as a needed relief to families, which often lack health insurance despite holding multiple jobs. He highlighted the extended coverage for children (extended to 4 million more immigrant minors, and coverage up to age 26 on parents’ plans). He also cited improvement for seniors, particularly in coverage for prescription medications, and prohibiting insurance companies from excluding coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Jobs, Education, and Wall Street reform

Obama warned against returning to policies in the financial industry “where Wall Street Banks get to do whatever they please”. On jobs, Obama noted the need to get construction jobs back on line, “rebuilding our homes, rebuilding our schools”. He noted that in Colorado, we have “some great schools” in substandard buildings, because the growth of the population hasn’t been matched with new school construction. He spoke about his goal for educational opportunity and affordable college for all children.

Immigration reform and drug trade

Fernando Sergio suggested that executive order by the President could resolve the current political stalemate on immigration policy. Obama pointed to his administration’s increasing success in securing the borders and directives to ICE in targeting criminals for arrest and deportation instead of students and hard working families. But he also pointed to the lack of cooperation from Republicans to formulate comprehensive, compassionate, and permanent solutions to U.S. immigration policy, and he criticized Mitt Romney for praising Arizona’s immigration laws as a model for the country. In a lighter moment of the interview, the President commiserated with Fernando Sergio about their personal liabilities should profiling become a keystone of federal immigration reform.

Obama also called for maintaining cooperative efforts with neighboring countries to curtail organized illegal drug trade and violence while respecting their sovereignty, and curtailing the demand for drugs in the U.S. and the transportation of arms over our border.

Support for Small Businesses

President Obama noted that small business growth among Hispanics is three times faster than in the general population, and he recognized the entrepreneurial spirit of the Hispanic community. His policies would bolster financing and training programs for small business owners, increase opportunities for small businesses to bid on government contracts and focusing on minority owned businesses. He said his tax policy has allowed for 17 tax cuts which were favorable to small businesses in his first term.

Connection with the Hispanic Community

Obama distinguished himself from Romney as a candidate who cares about and believes in Latinos. He cited his appointments of Hispanics to cabinet positions in the Labor and Interior Departments, as well has his appointment of a Latino women to the Supreme Court of the United States. He summarized his stances, while reiterating his awareness of the issues which affect Hispanics most.

And of course, to make the connection with Colorado Hispanics all the more personal and real, President Obama predicted that barring injury, Peyton Manning would complement the Broncos’ lineup and bode well for a winning season.

CBS4′s Shaun Boyd should let her viewers know that Mitt Romney is misrepresenting an interview Boyd had with Romney when he was in Denver May 10.

In an interview last week, a radio host asked Romney: “I saw that you got a little testy with one reporter who wanted to talk about marijuana and same-sex marriage yesterday. Has this been a real curve ball for ya?”

Romney replied: “She asked two or three questions about same-sex marriage and civil unions and then about medical marijuana, and I finally laughed and said, You know, there are some really big issues out there, like if Iran is going to get a nuclear weapon, how to change leadership in Syria, and what it’s going to take to get this economy moving again, one after another. Why don’t you ask about those? We finally got around to that.”

Two problems here, one is that Romney never mentioned Syria in his response to Boyd.

But more importantly, Boyd asked Romney about civil unions and marijuana, and she still had over half of the five-minute interview remaining.

Romney interjected after about two-and-a-half minutes and asked Boyd why she was asking him insignificant questions, which, as Boyd pointed out, aren’t insignificant in Colorado anyway.

Listening to Romney’s recounting of his interview with Boyd, when he says Boyd “finally” got around to economic issues, you’d think Boyd used most of her time on civil unions and marijuana, when in reality, there was plenty of time left for other important issues.

I can think of a couple reasons why Mitt Romney chose to take questions from local TV reporters and KOA radio hosts yesterday, while blowing off all those “print” journalists in Denver.

The most obvious reason is that Romney thinks local TV news is watched by the swing voters he needs to win. This approach would be in line with what he did when he came to Colorado the day before the GOP caucus. Then, his target was Republican caucus goers. So Romney blew off all real-life journalists, TV and print, and took loving questions only from friendly, conservative talk-radio hosts, whose listeners were likely to be heading out to caucuses. So Romney got to talk directly to his target audience.

An alternative explanation for Romney’s local TV tour yesterday is that he was scared pesky print reporters would ask him tough questions while mayhem-and-fluff loving local TV news journalists would have one eye on the incoming rainstorm and therefore be unable and/or uninterested in asking him substantive questions.

If this was Team Romney’s thinking, they got it wrong. Denver’s local TV news didn’t suck up and ask softballs. They asked real questions about real issues in Colorado, including the most obvious question, given the drama in the State Legislature, about his view on civil unions.

CBS4 reporter Shaun Boyd introduced her piece by saying, “As you can see, Romney seemed a bit flustered by the questions viewers posted on our Facebook page, trying to steer the conversation back to topics he was comfortable with.”

I would say Romney was less flustered and more irritated with Boyd’s news judgment after she posed questions about civil unions (answer: no), college-tuition reductions for undocumented high school graduates (no), and medical marijuana (no).

Sounding like Colorado GOP chair Ryan Call who recently said birth-control issues were “small issues,” Romney told Boyd:

Romney: “Aren’t there issues of significance that you’d like to talk about?

Boyd: This is a significant issue in Colorado.

Romney: The economy. The economy. The economy. Jobs. The need to put people back to work. The challenges of Iran. We have enormous issues that we face, but you want to talk about, go ahead.”

Boyd picked up where she had left off, telling Romney matter-of-factly, “Marijuana.”

And Romney said, “I oppose the legalization of marijuana….”

Boyd, along with her counterparts at Fox 31, 9News, and 7News, all asked Romney serious questions, perhaps the kind he wasn’t expecting from local TV reporters.

I’m hoping the tough questioning continues through the election season because it’s informative and it makes interesting television, as opposed to happy-talk questions like, “Hey, how’s your dog.”

But I guess in Romney’s case, that would be considered a hardball query as well.

Planned Parenthood activists shouldn’t have a problem with GOP donor Foster Friess’ joke about how the cost of birth control could be dramatically reduced if only women would put aspirin between their legs.

That’s what KFKA talk-show host Devon Lentz, who’s an executive board member of the Larimer County Republican Party, told listeners Monday.

Can you guess why?

Because putting aspirin between your legs, if you’re a woman, is a form of “abstinence, which is still a form of birth control,” Lentz told her Colorado AM listeners.

So why were the Planned Parenthood activists, protesting the appearance of Friess as the keynote speaker at a Larimer County Republican fundraiser Friday, so upset, Lentz wondered?

“Their shirts said something about how everybody should be allowed to have birth control, be allowed access to birth control,” Lentz said on the radio. “Foster’s joke about how in his time women held an aspirin between their knees I’m pretty sure still goes to abstinence, which is still a form of birth control. And he was being funny. It was funny. These guys can’t laugh. These women were outraged he could make such a statement. They didn’t even know what they were standing out there doing.”

Lentz told listeners she “sent somebody out there to go talk to [the protesters],” and they didn’t really know “what [Friess'] statement was, let alone what it meant.”

Given that the protesters had symbolic aspirin between their legs, you have to wonder what basis the undercover GOP scout had for thinking the protesters were clueless about their own protest.

Now I’m a man, but I have to think it’s really hard for an adult woman to be clutching fake aspirin between her legs and not understand the point.

Especially after Foster Friess got all that attention for saying contraception need not be so expensive because, in his day, “The gals put [Bayer Aspirin] between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” Friess, who’s now supporting Mitt Romney, later apologized.

So I called up Lentz, who organized the Friess event, and co-host Tom Lucero, who was the Master of Ceremonies, to find out why they didn’t dispense with the stealth reconnaissance of the Planned Parenthood folks, and simply have them on their show to find out what they know about birth control, and GOP proposals to ban some forms of it, and what they don’t.

Lucero, who’s a former chair of the Larimer Country GOP, told me he was “not the guy who went out and interview [the protesters].”

“I took Devon’s comments to mean they didn’t know who Foster Friess was,” Lucero told me. “We would probably need to get further clarification.”

Asked if he’d have the activists on his show to discuss the issue, Lucero said: “Absolutely, if they’re interested in coming on the show and talking about it, we’re willing to take anyone as guests.” He offered to schedule a specific time in advance.

I’d love to hear Lentz tell the women from Planned Parenthood to lighten up, because, as she said on the air, if the activists take Friess’ aspirin joke seriously, he’s just promoting abstinence as a “form birth control.”

Lentz is right, of course.

And in Freiss’ day, that’s all the “gals” had access to, a fact that would lead to a useful discussion on the radio about why the Planned Parenthood protest was important and why Lentz is the one who doesn’t get it, given that Republican leaders, like the one Friess gave big money to, would ban common forms of birth control, even if abstinence isn’t on the chopping block.

If you were in charge of a big political fundraiser in Colorado, where women voters are obviously a key voting bloc, and your keynote speaker was recently embroiled in a national controversy for his joke that contraception need not be so expensive because, back in the old days, “The gals put [Bayer Aspirin] between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly,” would you disinvite the guy and find another keynoter?

It’s a legitimate question.

Yet, as far as I know, no reporter has posed it to Larimer County GOP officials who’ve got Foster Friess listed as the keynote speaker for their April 6 Lincoln Day Dinner.

Friess, a wealthy Republican donor and backer of Rick Santorum, made the comments back in February to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who said his response took her breath away. Mitchell had asked Friess to comment on Rick Santorum’s statements about contraception, which include his opposition to some forms of it.

Friess later apologized, writing on his website that he was kidding, and his joke “bombed.”

“To all those who took my joke as modern day approach I deeply apologize and seek your forgiveness,” Friess wrote. “My wife constantly tells me I need new material—she understood the joke but didn’t like it anyway—so I will keep that old one in the past where it belongs.”

Still, the joke generated controversy, particularly on talk shows around the country.

Asked if the flap around Friess had given him second thoughts about inviting Friess to their fundraiser, Larimer County GOP  Chair Michael Fassi said,  “We’re going to move ahead with Foster Friess.”

Former CU Regent Tom Lucero, who’s the master of ceremonies for the event, told me that Friess’s joke didn’t give him second thoughts about his own involvement in the dinner.

“I think that Foster handled it appropriately,” said Lucero, who’s served as Chair of the Larimer County GOP. “He was  trying for a joke, and it fell flat. It wasn’t the appropriate forum for that particular joke, and we moved on.”

Asked if he’d disinvite a speaker who made a controversial comment that women could reduce the cost of birth control by placing pills between their legs, Colorado Democratic Chair Rick Palacio said, “In a word, yes.”

Friess has said he plans to back key Senate candidates across the country during the next election cycle, and his appearance in Colorado may signal a broader interest in getting involved in Presidential swing state or in backing social conservatives like Santorum (e.g., Mike Coffman, Joe Coors, Cory Gardner) running here in Colorado.

Pro-life Super Pac has released an ad, panned by Factcheck.org, claiming that Mitt Romney “enforced a law which required Catholic hospitals to provide abortions.”

Factcheck.org reported:

What Romney enforced — after first vetoing the legislation — was a requirement that hospitals provide rape victims with the morning-after pill, a drug that is designed to stop pregnancy from occurring if taken within a few days of unprotected intercourse. He didn’t tell Catholic hospitals that they had to perform abortions.

But respected Factcheck.org journalist Lori Robertson wasn’t fair to Pro-life Super Pac, because she did not state, as a matter of fact, that Mitt Romney himself would agree with Pro-life Super Pac that, as governor of Massachusetts, he was indeed telling Catholic hospitals to provide abortions.

I’ll explain why below. But first, check out the ad, which Pro-Life Super Pac spokesman Jason Jones tells me is running now in Michigan.

We know that Mitt Romney believes that life begins at conception. He said in October he “absolutely” would have supported an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution codifying that life begins at conception. A few weeks later, Romney confirmed that “life begins at conception.”

If you’re Romney, and you believe life begins at conception, then you have no choice but to acknowledge that birth control pills and the morning after pill are threats to life as you define it.

That’s because certain types of birth control pills as well as the morning-after pill, which is essentially high-dose birth control, have the potential to destroy fertilized eggs, or zygotes, by making it harder for them to implant in the uterus.

Manufacturers of birth control pills and the morning after pill (also called Plan B) state that their products alter the lining of the uterus “which may inhibit implantation.”

“You don’t know whether the action is birth control or contraception,” Pro-life Super Pac’s Jones told me. Politifact.org arrived at the same conclusion here. Personhood U.S.A. Legal Analyst Gualberto Garcia Jones emailed me, “At best, Romney forced Catholic hospitals to play Russian roulette with innocent human beings, at worst he forced Catholic hospitals to be an accessory to murder, so we have no qualms with the statement made by the Pro-life Super PAC.”

If he were consistent, Romney would say that hospitals offering birth control pills and Plan B are providing abortions. That’s what he’d say today. (That’s not what I’d say, because I don’t believe life begins at conception, but that’s what Romney would say.)

And though he’s flipped around on abortion during his political career, Romney had the same view in 2005, when he vetoed a bill requiring hospitals to provide Plan B, because, he wrote,

“The bill does not involve only the prevention of conception: The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception.”

Factcheck.org argues that this claim may not represent his true feelings about Plan B because:

But [Romney] later said, when deciding that Catholic hospitals wouldn’t be exempt from providing the pill to rape victims: “My personal view in my heart of hearts is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraceptives or emergency contraceptive information.”

But this says nothing about his view on whether he thinks Plan B can destroy zygotes. He’s just saying he’d allow access to rape victims, which is a position he has now abandoned in view of his support for state personhood amendments giving legal rights to all zygotes, even if conceived during rape.

Reporters at Factcheck.org need to be clear on Romney’s view on Plan B, because the ramifications go way beyond the Pro-Life Pac ad.

Today, as I wrote, Romney absolutely supports state personhood amendements, which means he wants state governments to define life his way, as beginning at conception.

This means that not only is Romney personally opposed to Plan B, certain birth control pills, and abortions, but he favors banning them, through state law.

That’s a big deal for women, and all of us, and reporters should be clear on where Romney stands.

From one side of The Denver Post yesterday, Political Editor Chuck Plunkett told me that The Post doesn’t like to “cry in public about having a rough time getting someone to talk to us.”

Then, from the darker side of The Post, Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard, wrote on The Post’s Spot blog, that he has a “hunch” that FOX 31′s Eli Stokols’ strategy of calling Mitt Romney out for avoiding the press in Colorado will pay off. Hubbard wrote:

Eli throws a bomb: I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a reporter publicly criticize a campaign for their media strategy/declining interview requests. Fox 31′s Eli Stokols didn’t hold back in his criticism of the Romney camp today. Just a hunch, but I bet his strategy pays off.

So I asked Hubbard, via email, why he didn’t use Stokols’ tactic, when he had Plunkett’s job.

I also asked whether Hubbard expected more journalists to be inspired by Stokols and call out hiding politicians more often, and whether he’d give it a try himself, on the commentary page. Hubbard replied:

It’s an interesting discussion, but my job (whether it was in the newsroom or in this position) is not to be a media critic. As the editorial page editor I certainly have more leeway to comment on media coverage, but I try to keep in mind that more of our readers care about news than how the sausage gets made.

I commented on Eli’s post yesterday because, in my nearly 20 years in the news biz, I couldn’t recall a reporter doing anything like it.  Eli has demonstrated through his strong work on the beat that he shouldn’t be ignored, so it’s probably a pretty safe bet on his part. Then again, a thin-skinned campaign or a cut-throat competitor, might very well use it against him.

The trouble is, the line between the news and how it’s made isn’t so clear. In the case of Romney ignoring Denver journalists, the two are one and the same. It’s a news story that Romney is ignoring the press in favor of conservative talk-radio hosts. (Or at least it deserves a mention in a news story.)

But my takeaway from Hubbard’s blog post is that he thinks the tactic could work. I’d love to see him try it. (And if it backfired, I’d love to see The Post blow up the retribution.)

Hubbard (or Plunkett) could create a little chart showing which candidates actually take questions from journalists when they pass through town.

It could be called the “Howard Beale Index.”

Each time the Howard Beale Index is updated, a short Eli-Stokols-type letter could be published.

If I’m a Post subscriber, and I am, I’d be proud of my newspaper for going after those candidates, and trying to hold them accountable publicly.

One of the many things professional journalism needs to do to survive is fight back.

For example, as I’ve discussed before, when politicians slam the “media” or “The Denver Post,” as having a liberal bias, reporters should ask them for the evidence, not act as if an insult has not been hurled at them.

And when political candidates like Mitt Romney slide into Colorado, take questions from friendly talk-show hosts, and slide away, journalists should call them out on it–so we are informed that a candidate is avoiding questions but also so we know that journalists are trying to do their jobs, to ask questions on our behalf.

You’d think most journalists would agree, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Otherwise you’d see more journalism, like the kind Fox 31′s Eli Stokols produced today, in the form of an “Open Letter to Team Romney.”

In the letter, Stokols wrote that Fox 31 had made numerous requests to interview Romney (Ding. Ding. A journalist doing his job.).

But, Stokols pointed out, Romney hadn’t held a “media availability since Florida,” giving Denver media the “silent treatment, “though Romney took “some questions from the media” in Colorado Springs.

You’d think someone campaigning to be leader of the free world could handle questions from local reporters, as, say, Rick Santorum did whenever we and our competitors approached him here over the past week.

Congratulations, though, on saving Gov. Romney the potential embarrassment that might have arisen from — gasp! — an unscripted moment.

That nightmarish scenario surely would have been worse than last night’s — going 0-for-3 because you couldn’t even salvage a win in a state you should have owned.

But, listen, if — if!!! — you make it back here this fall, we’ll still be here — and hoping to talk.

Asked via email if he’d ever called out another candidate who’s avoiding reporters, Stokols wrote:

No, I haven’t Not quite so directly anyway. We’re often pushing and prodding communications directors for sit-downs, for access, but I don’t normally try to call them out publicly — and, honestly, that’s not why I wrote this piece. I framed it as a letter to Romney, although I wrote it to simply make a point about his strategy, not to antagonize the campaign into agreeing to an interview down the road.

I was disappointed to read that Stokols wasn’t trying to “antagonize the campaign into agreeing to an interview,” because he had every right to do so, toward Romney or any other candidate who acts the same way.

In fact, I had already shot off an email to Denver Post Political Editor Chuck Plunkett, asking if The Post would join Stokols in calling on Romney to talk to reporters. I wrote Plunkett again, saying he could ignore my question because Stokols’ letter was meant as an analysis of Romney’s strategy.

Still, I asked for Plunkett’s thoughts on Stokols’ letter and for an explanation of why The Post hadn’t even reported that Romney wasn’t taking questions in Colorado. Plunkett wrote:

It is more often the case that politicians don’t make themselves available to the media when they swing through. Both sides of the divide love to ignore us, as they know risking a press avail risks having their answers made public, and most of them like to remain on script.

Here at The Post, we don’t like to complain to our readers — many of whom work demanding jobs — about difficulties we encounter in doing our jobs (though sometimes we do complain!). We’d rather not cry in public about having a rough time getting someone to talk to us.

We here at The Post routinely seek chances to do interviews with those we cover, including the president and presidential candidates when they are in Colorado. Sometimes we get to do the interview, other times we don’t.

It looks like Eli was being clever, and I enjoyed his post and its tongue-and-cheek approach to calling attention to the situation.

No one likes whiners, it’s true, but I think most Post readers buy the newspaper to be informed, and it’s pretty important to know when a political candidate isn’t taking questions from The Post, even if it’s routine for candidates to blow off journalists.

In any case, I was glad to read Plunkett’s assurance that The Post is fighting for access to candidates. You’d obviously expect this, but it’s good to read it anyway.

Unlike the Post, Stokols did report on the air, during Romney’s visit, that Romney was not answering questions from reporters in Denver.

Stokols added that Romney had just announced a press briefing for today, his first since Feb. 1, on the tarmac in Atlanta.

I asked Stokols if he planned to read his “Open Letter” on the air:

I doubt I go all Howard Beale and read this on the air, although I may tease it after my piece tonight and direct viewers to the website.

To which I say, dude, it’s time to go all Howard Beale. Do it for the sake of journalism and the electoral process. The stakes are high for both. And it’s a great letter.

Mitt Romney apparently isn’t making himself available to real journalists in Colorado, in advance of Tuesday’s GOP caucus, but he called into conservative talk-radio shows today, where, predictably, he found a copacetic environment, free of annoying follow-up questions.

That’s unfortunate, because Romney said a few things that deserve a closer look by reporters, if they ever get access to Romney.

On KOA’s Mike Rosen this morning, Romney suggested that he didn’t like the insurance mandate that was included in the Massachusetts health care bill, and he would have vetoed it in favor of offering tax breaks to people with insurance.

Romney told Rosen:

“In one important respect, the incentive to get people to have insurance in our state was associated with a penalty, which is if you don’t have insurance, you have to help pay the cost of your health care in our state. I would’ve rather given a, if you will, a benefit — a tax break — to people who had insurance. So you’d give people a, if you will, a positive, as opposed to a negative. When you do that you accomplish the same objective, which is to get people insured and have people take responsibility for their own health care.”

Romney said, “There were a number of features in the [MA] health care bill I vetoed, and those vetoes were all overridden by a legislature which is 85 percent Democrat.”

Romney has tried to separate himself from the mandate before, though you may not believe it given that it’s central to the Massachusetts policy.

But as this New Yorker article shows, and others have documented, Romney agreed with the policy and sold it.

Romney’s appearance on the Cari and Rob Show, with hosts Rob Douglas and Cari Hermacinski, was similarly pleasant for Romney, with a few questions that were leading toward difficult territory but went nowhere with no follow-up questions asked from two conservative hosts who’ve asked tough questions of Rep. Scott Tipton in the past.

Romney trashed Obama’s entire economic record, literally “everything” Obama has done for the economy, despite this morning’s news that unemployment is heading toward a three-year low.

“I’m delighted that we’re seeing some job growth finally,” Romney told Douglas and Hermacinski. “It’s taken a long, long time. This has been the slowest recovery since Hoover, and one of the reasons it’s been so slow is because this president has frankly done everything wrong when it relates to building an economy. [BigMedia emphasis].

Douglas and Hermacinski might have asked Romney if he supported extending unemployment insurance or cutting the payroll tax, or some itty bitty thing Obama did, but alas, nothing like this flowed from the two hosts.

I hoped Craig Silverman on KHOW would have the courage to ask uncomfortable questions of Romney, like he did of Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck in 2010. But his questions, like should Colorado host the Olympics and does the GOP want pro-choice voters, were easy for Romney. Dan Caplis, Silverman’s co-host, was his usual GOP-mouthpiece self.

So, Romney’s apparent plan of talking to friendly radio hosts in Colorado, and avoiding journalists, paid off this time, though I hold out hope for Silverman and Cari and Rob, if he tries it again.

Ironically enough, Scott Tipton is refusing invitations from Douglas to appear on his show, which is known for its Tea-Party bent, but that didn’t scare off Romney or Sal Pace or Rick Santorum, and others who’ve been on Cari and Rob Show recently.

You wonder where that puts Scott Tipton.

I asked Douglas if he’d tried to land Tipton lately.

We’re very pleased that Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Michael Reagan, Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, Doug Lamborn, Sal Pace and many others are coming on our program to speak to our audience about the current campaigns and issues that are important to our audience. From the start, our goal has been to provide a venue for Coloradoans and others to have their voices heard and to hear from elected representatives and others who impact public policy.

To that end, we always welcome elected representatives and legitimate candidates on our program.

While we have not extended an invitation to Congressman Tipton recently, he is always welcome on our program and we expect he’ll want to speak with our audience between now and the time when he must stand before the voters in his district. Given Congressman Tipton’s interaction with our audience as both a candidate and as a elected representative over the last several years, we assume he knows he has a standing invitation from our program.

Follow Jason Salzman on Twitter @bigmediablog

Reporters are having a real hard time sorting out Mitt Romney’s position on personhood. Here’s a quick and easy way for journos to think about the issue, and Romney’s evolving stance on it.

Personhood has two tracks: federal and state. At the federal level, proponents are trying to pass a law giving fertilized eggs (or zygotes) the legal rights of a “person,” under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. constitution. At the state level, the personhood campaign wants to pass amendments to state constitutions defining life as beginning at conception.

Romney on federal personhood. Romney has made it clear that he’s currently against federal personhood. This is a flip from his position in 2007, when he stated on national TV that he favored a GOP platform position supporting a “human life amendment” to the U.S. Constitution, which would ban abortion at the federal level. When Romney said this, he believed, like he does now, that life begins at conception, so Romney’s federal ban on abortion, based on his definition of “life,” would have met the requirements of Personhood USA for a national personhood law. But last year at a GOP prez forum, Romney abandoned this position because now thinks adding personhood to the U.S. Constitution could set up a “constituional crisis.”

Romney on state personhood. In October, Romney told Fox News’ Mike Huckabee that he “absolutely” would have signed an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution establishing that life begins a conception. Later, Romney’s spokespeople backed up this position by telling Politico’s Ben Smith and other reporters that Romney supports “efforts to ensure recognition that life begins at conception” and that “these matters should be left up to states to decide.”

Summary:  Romney isn’t completely clear on this issue (I’m rolling my eyes as I write that), but  it’s fair to say that Romney has flip flopped on personhood during his career. It’s also a fact that he’s currently against a federal personhood law but for state-based personhood amendments (consistent with his “life-begins-at-conception” belief and his statement to Huckabee).

One prominent journalist who’s clear on Romney’s personhood stance is Curtis Hubbard, editorial page editor of the centrist-right Denver Post. He qualifies as an expert on personhood, having directed news coverage of the personhood ballot initiative in Colorado in 2010. He recently stated on Colorado Public Television, KBDI, “Romney already came out for personhood at the state level.”

Reporters nationally will have a chance to clarify Romney’s views on personhood Saturday, as they report on Florida’s Personhood USA-sponsored presidential forum. Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum will attend.

Romney will not attend the event, replicating his pattern of skipping such forums in South Carolina and Iowa, but reporters can contrast his views with personhood promoters Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum.

Personhood USA may also hold a prez forum in Colorado, prior to its Feb. 7 caucus. Personhood USA legal analyst Gualberto Garcia Jones emailed me yesterday, in response to my query, that Colorado is a “definite candidate” for a personhood forum.