But not Norton.
There is speculation that Norton may be pursuing the case so stubbornly because of bitterness over the dissolution of her first marriage to Harold Everett Reed. Reed and Norton met when she was attending the University of Denver. They married in 1975, the year she graduated. The union lasted the three years that Norton attended law school, then a divorce was granted. All the record says is that unhappy differences had arisen. But the local gay magazine Out Front "outed" Harold Reed in September 1993, describing him as "having been seen over the years in a variety of leather outfits."
Norton doesn't deny this, but she won't address it squarely. "I don't know what he calls himself now," she says. "We haven't talked for several years."
She pales at the question of Reed and her decision to pursue Amendment 2 to the Supreme Court, but her expression is blank.
"It's not an issue in the campaign or the case," she says. "I think it goes beyond what's appropriate in his life to drag him into it."
If Norton manages a victory in the Amendment 2 appeal, or at least spins the outcome somehow in her favor, the next subject of attack for any serious opponent will probably be her creation and sustenance of the Capital Crimes Unit in the AG's office. Norton created the unit in 1993, at a cost of about $300,000, supposedly to assist district attorneys in prosecuting death-penalty cases. After its first year of funding, the unit and its four full-time staff members have little to show for the investment. According to Assistant Attorney General Mary Malatesta, the unit's been involved in seven criminal prosecutions and is considering involvement in three more. But sources say that "involvement" in some of the cases was as little as "showing up for [jury selection] and going home after the judge decided the room was too crowded." And none of the cases has resulted in a death sentence--the purpose for which the unit was created. In fact, of the three cases that have been decided, two defendants pled to lesser charges and one case--that of Eugene Baylis--resulted in an embarrassing loss.
In the Baylis case, the defendant walked into a Colorado Springs bar and sprayed the crowd with an AK-47--and was acquitted on all eighteen charges. Even though head prosecutor Jeanne Smith says the attorney general's Capital Crimes Unit was not to blame for the defeat, the unit's involvement in such an incredible outcome can't fail to provide extraordinarily rich campaign fodder. To add insult to injury, last session the Joint Budget Committee's staff report recommended a cut in funding (from about $300,000 to $44,000), saying the unit was unnecessary except as an informational clearinghouse. The committee, however, did not take its staff's advice and granted full funding.
Norton has an uncanny talent for beating insurmountable odds--she came out of nowhere to beat Woodard. But her biggest obstacle, especially in this race, could be herself. Because everything that has allowed Norton to beat the odds this far--her coolness, her analytical style, her clear preference for the law-review article over the editorial--could well backfire.
Even those who value and respect her as an attorney general wonder whether the triumph of brains over compassion serve her better in her current office than in a new one.
"She has no passion," says one Norton supporter. "I've never heard her make a passionate speech. I've never heard her take a real firm stand on anything."
That may be great for an attorney general, some observers note, an office in which you want an objective, legal mind. But at least a modest display of compassion, warmth or caring is usually required in a Senate race.
Norton disagrees. "I question the idea that we ought to have leaders in Congress who would rather deal with fluff than substance...or with emotion rather than reason." In theory, that could be commendable, but in a race for one of the 100 most coveted seats in the country, it could be fatal.
"Scott McInnis makes it real," said one Republican campaign veteran. "He's been a cop, he's been there and he's mad. He riles you up."
But Gale Norton--who even when speaking of the childhood death of her baby sister can come up with nothing more moving than vague terms about the lessons of "opportunity"--doesn't.
