Sen. Mark Udall laughs after hearing that you can eat the new compostable pizza boxes during a tour of a renewable-energy project Friday at Beau Jo's Pizza in Idaho Springs. General manager Steven Swartz looks on. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

WASHINGTON — In two quick months, Sen. Mark Udall has become a favorite Democrat among Republicans.

From being asked to co-sponsor legislation with conservative hawks such as Sen. Lindsey Graham to giving a case of Coors beer to one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, Udall has, all of a sudden, had to get used to chidings by well-worn liberals about everything from backing a constitutional balanced-budget amendment to being too obstinate with the White House.

"My (Democratic) colleagues have just let me know what they think, either by teasing me or by rolling their eyes," Udall said last week during a Senate recess.

Udall says he hopes to focus much of his work this spring on lowering the federal debt.

"We can't kick this can down the road anymore, and unless I show I'm serious about it, I don't know what more there is to do," he said.

Udall has made the White House nervous in recent weeks as he has vowed — in private discussions with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and in public speeches — that he will not vote to raise the debt ceiling without a commitment that the federal government will fundamentally change the way it spends money.

In 2009, he extracted a similar quid pro quo: agreeing to vote to raise the debt ceiling only if the president created the fiscal deficit reduction commission.

Read more: Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado soars into role as fiscal hawk - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_17498975#ixzz1FH0a5VsS