The good news: Colorado’s is not among the 10 states hit hardest by the recession.

The bad news: It did make the Dirty Dozen.

A study released today by the Pew Center on the States, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that according to the relative size of their state governments’ revenue losses, jobless rates and mortgage foreclosures, as well as indirect factors like legal obstacles to budget-balancing and a measure of fiscal management practices, the worst-off states are California, Arizona, Rhode Island, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois and Wisconsin.

“Together, the 10 states account for more than one-third of America’s population and economic output,” the study noted.

Colorado, Georgia and Kentucky are tied for 11th.

State budget troubles “can have significant repercussions for their residents,” the study noted, listing “higher taxes or fees; layoffs or furloughs of state workers; longer waits for public services; more crowded classrooms; higher college tuition and less support for the poor or unemployed.”

So far Colorado has managed to avoid higher taxes, and unemployment benefits have not been cut. But the other consequences listed by the Pew report have come home to roost in Colorado.

“States’ fiscal situations are widely expected to get worse even if the national economy starts to recover,” the study warned.

A day after being scooped on his own announcement, state Sen. Josh Penry officially confirmed this afternoon that he was dropping out of the Colorado governor’s race.

In a message to supporters, Penry did not engage in the kowtowing defeated candidates usually perform for the victor — in this case not the Democratic incumbent, Gov. Bill Ritter, but former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, Penry’s rival for the Republican nomination.

“We don’t agree on everything, but he’s ready for the job,” Penry said of McInnis. ”But before I make any decision to endorse, I want to know more about the agenda that he’s going to bring to the office.”

Trailing McInnis in name recognition and campaign contributions, Penry said his decision to withdraw boiled down to this question:

“Do I spend the next nine months engaging in a $5 million battle of attrition against Scott McInnis — believing that I’d be a better governor than Scott, but knowing just as surely that Scott would be far superior to four more years of Bill Ritter?”

“Scott McInnis’ tenure in Congress gave him a built-in advantage coming into this race,” Penry wrote. “And rather than spending the next several months and millions fighting to close that gap, we decided to step back and live to fight another day.”

The Washington Post is reporting that state Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, is quitting the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Gov. Bill Ritter. Penry’s withdrawal would all but hand the nomination to former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, who’s also from Grand Junction. There is a third candidate, Dan Maes of Evergreen.

Check gazette.com for more details as they become available.

No site has been selected, and the money hasn’t been appropriated, but efforts to create a veterans cemetery in the Pikes Peak region cleared one hurdle Monday when the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill directing the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a national cemetery in El Paso County.

The measure was cosponsored by U.S. Reps. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, and John Salazar, D-Manassa.

Companion legislation is pending in the Senate.

Josh Penry, the minority leader in the state Senate, is running hard for the Republican nomination to challenge Gov. Bill Ritter in 2010. So you might expect him to criticize Ritter every chance he gets.

But it takes guts to go after Ritter when the state unemployment rate goes down.

The state Department of Labor reported today that the number of employed Coloradans went down by 2,300 in September. But because the jobless rate is adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, Colorado’s official unemployment rate actually declined in September to 7.0 percent, from an adjusted 7.3 percent the month before. The state’s jobless rate is nearly 3 percentage points lower than the national rate.

In an emailed statement responding to the jobs update, Penry ignored the good-news part.

“This governor’s policies have made a bad economic situation worse,” he said. “Raising taxes and fees by hundreds of millions of dollars, expanding the power of public sector unions, and issuing stifling oil and gas regulations have done nothing to help get our economy turned around.”

Jane Norton, a former lieutenant governor running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Michael Bennet, raised $510,000 in the quarter ending Sept. 30, according to filings with the Federal Elections Commission.

The total was evidence of Norton’s ability to make money materialize quickly. She didn’t announce her candidacy till Sept. 15. 

Ken Buck, the Weld County DA and Norton’s main declared rival for the Republicans’ Senate nomination, reported a Q3 take of $159,000.

One rival unlikely to be fazed by Norton’s campaign finance report is former state Sen. Tom Wiens of Sedalia, who is still talking about making a formal announcement in November. Wiens, a wealthy rancher, has money of his own and is prepared to spend it, and he told the Colorado Statesman last week that he was planning to raise up to $8 million.

This just in: U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn is a fiscal conservative.

Citizens Against Government Waste, a D.C-based taxpayer watchdog group, named the Colorado Springs Republican a “Taxpayer Hero” today, saying he had scored 98 percent on its 2008 congressional ratings.

Rep. Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican, was the sole “Taxpayer Super Hero” with a grade of 100 percent.

Citizens Against Government Waste said it based its ratings on voting records on 48 issues in the House and 42 in the Senate. But it may be worth noting that Colorado Springs City Councilman Sean Paige is a former spokesman for the group, and that post is now filled by Sean’s sister, Leslie.

Full details are online at http://www.cagw.org/.

Technically there are still six candidates for the Republican nomination for Michael Bennet’s seat in the U.S. Senate. But as a practical matter the race narrowed today to two: former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton and the Weld County DA, Ken Buck.
Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier dropped out the race today, instead setting his sights on the U.S. House of Representatives seat safely held by Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat.
The question is whether Norton or Buck will be the bigger beneficiary of Frazier’s withdrawal.
Norton won 35 percent of the votes in a straw poll conducted at a state GOP banquet in Keystone last month, but it was hardly a ringing endorsement. Tied at 27 percent of the straw-poll voters, Buck and Frazier together outpolled Norton.
Despite speculation to the contrary, Buck has given no sign of following Frazier out the door. He released a campaign finance statement today showing he raised $159,000 in the quarter that ended Sept. 30.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet raised a million dollars for his election campaign in the three months ending Sept. 30, his campaign announced today.
Bennet has been raising money almost since the day he was appointed in January to fill the final two years of the Senate term Ken Salazar vacated when he took an Obama cabinet post. The $1,004,000 raised in the third quarter brought his eight-month total to an imposing $3,620,000.

Republican candidates for governor are raking in the bucks.

Accompanying former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis at a campaign event tonight in the Springs, Sean Duffy, a spokesman for the campaign, said it collected $549,000 in the quarter ending Sept. 30. State Sen. Josh Penry’s haul was $412,000, his campaign said Wednesday.

Their combined total was more than double the amount collected by Bill Ritter, the incumbent Democrat, who reported a quarterly take of $453,000.

The money tally may bode well for the Republicans in November 2010. Their problem, however, is this: most of the money raised by McInnis and Penry will probably go toward beating each other, not Ritter.

At this stage of the campaign, both candidates are keeping their focus on Ritter. About 100 supporters braved the snow and came to the Stargazer Theater on East Pikes Peak Avenue tonight to hear McInnis rip the governor over fee increases, oil-and-gas rules and the end of the senior property tax exemption.

But McInnis couldn’t resist a dig at Penry for voting for a bill to impede the expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, a Fort Carson training ground south of La Junta. Many in Colorado Springs fear the new law sends the wrong signal to the Pentagon about Colorado’s support of its military bases. 

Pinon Canyon is about the only issue separating McInnis and Penry, but it could be crucial in the Pikes Peak region, a rich trove of Republican primary votes.

McInnis already has a large coterie of prominent local GOP supporters. Introductory speakers at tonight’s event included County Commissioners Sallie Clark, Jim Bensberg and Darryl Williams; state Reps. Mark Waller, Larry Liston and Bob Gardner; former state legislators Bill Sinclair and Ed Jones; District Attorney Dan May; Sheriff Terry Maketa; and former congressional candidate Bentley Rayburn. Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera was in the audience, but didn’t speak.