U.S. senatorial candidate Jane Norton launched her four-day “Repeal Obamacare” tour on June 28 at the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce in Centennial.

Norton, a candidate in the state’s August Republican primary election, emphasized her position that the recent Democrat-led health care reform initiative should be repealed. She suggested that the legislation will cost too much and stifle progress.

“As you talk to friends in Canada and Britain, we’ve always been kind of the escape valve for the rest of the growth [in the health care industry]. We won’t have an America for people to get to,” Norton told an audience of about 35 Republican activists. “That gets to the lack of innovation, research, development in our pharmaceutical [industry]. It’s dire.”

The candidate and former lieutenant governor under Gov. Bill Owens was flanked by Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, a Republican who has joined a national lawsuit challenging the mandate for individual health-insurance coverage contained in the legislation.

Under Suthers’s leadership, Colorado is one of 20 states participating in the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the provision requiring every U.S. citizen to purchase health insurance.

Norton’s mini-campaign tour is largely focused on Republican dissatisfaction with the legislation signed by President Obama. It was also scheduled to make stops in Elizabeth, Colorado Springs, Canon City, Salida and Montrose, among other cities and towns across the state.

The Republican and onetime head of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said the recent Democratic-led legislation should be repealed and replaced with a new approach emphasizing tort reform, health care choice and competition.

“If you want to bring the cost of health care down, you have to look at what are the drivers right now driving the cost of health care up,” she said. “Tax equity would be another important thing. Portability — being able to take your health care when you leave your job. Purchasing across state lines, again, would drive the cost of healthcare down.”

According to Norton, such initiatives would lower costs and encourage citizen participation, thus rendering the mandated-coverage provision unnecessary. Democrats have largely disagreed with the Republican argument that tort reform is a significant driver of healthcare costs.

Although health care was a major emphasis of the one-hour campaign stop, Norton tied her conservative perspective on the issue to other large campaign themes.

“I am pro-business. Pro-entrepreneur. Pro-life. Pro-family. Pro-marriage,” she said. “Isn’t it good to talk pro sometimes when there’s so much to say we’re against?”

In the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidating a Chicago gun ban, Norton also emphasized her support for the Constitution’s Second Amendment, as well as the 10th Amendment, which enshrined the concept of federalism in the Constitution.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” the amendment reads.

Suthers has referenced the same provision in explaining his decision to join 19 other states in the lawsuit challenging the federal government’s constitutional right to require citizens to engage in a financial transaction.

The attorney general said the same principle dictating the roles of the federal and state governments calls into question Arizona’s recent regulation of illegal immigration, an area the Constitution designates as a federal responsibility.

Norton, who is not an attorney, said she supports the controversial legislation passed this year by the Arizona State Legislature.

“The federal government has not exercised its No. 1 responsibility, and that’s to keep the people of this nation safe,” she said. “Arizona believes — and I do — that they are in a law enforcement crisis, and they are doing what the federal government should be doing. … Will it be considered constitutional or not? That’s for the courts to decide.”

The candidate said her other top priorities are saving jobs and economic recovery, controlling government spending, reducing the federal deficit, and keeping the United States “free and sovereign.” She supports an “all of the above” approach to energy policy, including oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Norton has had to varnish her conservative credentials in recent months. She is challenging Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck for the Republican nomination. While Norton is largely favored within the party establishment, Buck is popular among Tea Party activists.

The sometimes maverick prosecutor defeated Norton at the March 16 caucuses by six-tenths of one percent. Although Buck has emphasized the win as telling, especially given Norton’s larger campaign coffers, the caucuses attract party activists, who often support more populist candidates.

To contrast herself with Buck, Norton emphasized her business, health care and education background and discussed her foreign-policy differences with the northern Colorado attorney.

“I don’t believe in Afghanistan we should be pulling our troops out — and that’s a big difference between me and my primary opponent,” she said. “I think we need to double down.”

In November, Norton or Buck will face the victor in the contentious Democratic primary — either incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet or former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who was recently endorsed by former President Clinton.

Gov. Bill Ritter appointed Bennet last year after Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar was appointed by President Obama to become U.S. secretary of the interior. Obama has endorsed Bennet.