Ken Buck’s politically incorrect complaint about a few birthers who gave him hard times at Tea Party events and his allegedly sexist quip about Jane Norton’s high heels may cost him the GOP’s Aug. 10 Senate primary, according to an unnamed pollster cited by a Washington Post political blogger.

Birthers say President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. and isn’t legally qualified to serve as president, but most Americans discount their claim and, like Buck, don’t want to hear anymore about it.

Of course, I’ve been predicting that Buck’s high heels quip could cost him, especially because Norton came up with a great ad that implies that Buck is sexist because he made the dumb joke. That Norton has joked about her gender in the campaign apparently hasn’t softened the negative impact of his comment or of the ad. And that the Norton campaign made the ad using an unattributed film clip without the permission of its owner, http://www.peoplespresscollective.com, probably isn’t on voters’ radar screens. The Buck campaign is making a big issue of the web site’s complaints about how Norton improperly used its clip, but so far, it’s an insiders’ debate.

How Buck’s complaint that a few people who attended Tea Party events were disruptive could hurt him is a bit hard to understand. The complaint may be a problem for Buck because it initially looked like he was calling everyone involved with Tea Parties dumbaxx “birthers.” 

Most curious is that WaPo’s The Fix would report the results of a poll conducted by an unnamed pollster. That pollster is saying that Norton leads Buck by five percentage points. Who the pollster is and works for and how and when the poll was conducted are not reported by Chris Cillizza who writes The Fix.

However, the poll results have some credibility in light of the latest Rasmussen Reports’ poll. It shows Norton with a nine point lead over appointed Obama Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet, compared with Buck’s six-point lead. But Buck has a six-point lead over Bennet’s primary challenger, Andrew Romanoff. Norton leads Romanoff by four percentage points. Both primaries look like toss-ups.

So while I’ve been saying that it appears that Norton has the momentum and that Buck is on defense, I’m not ready to declare Norton the winner of the primary. This mildly negative personality contest is still a toss-up until we get better information or until the primary is held.

LINKs:

Colorado primary provides fireworks a-plenty. By Chris Cillizza.

Norton attack ad [film clip] improperly taken from Peoples Press Collective video. 

Election 2010: Colorado Senate. By Rasmussen Reports.