Colorado Politics, News and Inside Information

2008: Game On!

While we urge everyone to check out this weekend's Governor Line update, along with the stories behind the numbers below, Colorado Pols does want to take a break from all things Colorado for some very exciting news. 

We are pleased to announce that the 2008 Presidential race has officially begun!

We're not talking about Tom Tom Tancredo's trip to New Hampshire this week. Fringe candidates looking to promote a single issue don't count.  Tom Tom will make things fun (he always does), but he's not going to be a serious contender.

We are talking about the first appearance - that we know of - of  C-SPAN's Road To The White House 2008.  Tonight, C-SPAN went live with John Edwards' speech before the Annual 100 Club Dinner of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.  After watching the speech, there's no doubt Edwards is off and running.  Honestly, did he ever stop?  And, with C-SPAN cameras back focused on the early primary states, the race has officially been christened.  Less than three years to Iowa caucuses!

And, we're prepared to take your abuse since it's fairly clear to everyone now that the Colorado Pols have no life.  We've just admitted to watching C-SPAN on a Saturday night - does it get any lower?

Governor Line & Democratic Slumber

The Governor Line has been updated, and there's more movement than we've had in weeks.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is saying that he'll wait to make a decision on running for governor until after the May vote for a new jail in Denver. The important thing in that message, and in how the Dems responded to it, is this: as we've been reporting for months, everyone is so scared of running against Hickenlooper that they'll wait for him to decide before they do. The problem with this, from the Dems perspective, is that cowtowing to Hick makes everyone else the Dems second choice in the eyes of the public. If Hick doesn't run, the press will bill whoever does run as the Democratic Party's "second choice," which is unfair but perhaps unavoidable.

Congressman Mark Udall has now missed two deadlines to announce his intentions - one private, one public - and now says that he will wait until the state budget problems are fixed. That's code for: I really don't feel strongly about running for governor, and I'm waiting for someone else to make the decision for me. It's also a nod to Hickenlooper, because the legislative session will end about the same time as the jail vote, and if Hick decides to run for governor, Udall will not. Udall drops from #2 to #5 in the Governor Line, because every day that passes from here on out moves Udall further away from getting in the race. If he really felt strongly about running for governor, he'd already be running.

Marc Holtzman and Mike Coffman are now going full speed ahead on the Republican side - both have filed to establish committees with the Sec. of State - and the ripple effect moves most Republicans down and nearly out of the picture altogether (see: Beauprez, Allard, Liniger, Coors, and Shaffer). Beauprez and Allard don't need to run now that other GOP candidates are running strong, and Liniger, Coors, and Shaffer won't run in the face of strong opposition.

For more on Marc Holtzman, see our Q&A with the candidate from last week.

Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton is, in our eyes, the only serious GOP candidate left on the board, and if she doesn't get active soon (she's saying she'll also wait until after the budget problems are addressed) she's going to be so far behind M&M that the decision will be made for her.

Millionaire Rutt Bridges holds steady because he is staying visible and hanging around, but he apparently is still waiting on Udall and Hickenlooper before he makes his decision. Part of the reason he's waiting is because he has advisors who are trying to hedge their bets so that they can still jump onboard with the candidate who later looks strongest to them. If Rutt would just get in the race now, there's a very real chance he would clear the field with the right moves. But he won't, because he has advisors who don't have his best interests in mind.

Former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter plummets in the Governor Line for a couple of reasons. It sounds as though Ritter is finally going to get his job with Hogan & Hartson, the same firm that employs Tom Strickland and Scott McInnis, but for a salary considerably less than the $250k he had been yapping about (as an aside, Ritter asked the firm to keep his lower salary quiet, which obviously didn't work out so well).

We're dropping Ritter because he continues to do absolutely nothing - no fundraising, no phone calls to supporters, nothing - to advance his gubernatorial run. This is mindboggling to us, because Ritter is NOT at the top of the list among Democrats internally. Ritter was on a straw poll ballot for Fremont County Democrats (Canon City area) in a question about who they would support for governor, and he received zero - 0 - votes. People don't know Ritter statewide, and if he waits to get active until after other Dem candidates start moving, he'll never be able to catch up. Ritter's only hope is to get moving now, and open up as big a lead as possible on a Democratic challenger, but he's doing nothing, and as a result is going to end up nowhere.

As for the rest of the notable movers, Joan Fitz-Gerald drops even further because the Fremont County Dems gave her zero votes in their straw poll. Straw polls don't mean much normally, but when the President of the Senate has no supporters whatsoever, then that's a pretty telling statement. Congressman Tom Tancredo drops because it looks like he's going to make a serious run at President in 2008, which means he'll just sit on his congressional seat in 2006 while he runs around the country. Gail Schoettler moves up a little because she benefits from the rest of the Democratic field hemming and hawing; still, it would take a lot for her to get anywhere near contention, so don't read too much into that change.

So there you have it. We'll get back into detail on some of the governor candidates this week.

Suthers Confirmed

The State Senate today confirmed John Suthers to be the next Colorado Attorney General.  The vote was near unanimous, as Peter Groff was the only Senator to vote against Suthers.  Groff cited Suthers' lack of an investigation when he was U.S. Attorney into the shooting death of developmentally disabled teen in 2003 as reason for not supporting the nomination.

We noticed that Groff also voted against obligatory resolution (and easy political hit) condemning Ward Churchill.  Political courage?  Or a good way to get your name in the paper twice this week?  You make the call!

And, we're certain this will be corrected shortly, but the link to the AP story above, as posted by the Rocky, calls Suthers "former U.S. Attorney General."  Maybe we missed it, but was he serving in this capacity in between Ashcroft and Gonzales?

Tom Tom Hits NH!

Tom Tom Tancredo burst onto the Presidential primary scene yesterday with a visit to New Hampshire.  According to an interview with The Union Leader, Tancredo again emphasized that his trip was designed to place immigration on the agenda for the 2008 Republican primary:

"This is an issue I want all the Presidential candidates to debate. I want the candidates when they come here to answer the questions, 'What are you going to do about the borders? Will you commit troops to the border?' "

Nice spin Tancredo is selling, but the Colorado Pols are not buying. If you're a single issue politician, no one is going to make your issue part of the debate in Iowa, New Hampshire or wherever unless you are running.  They'll host you three years out and be polite.  But unless you get in the race, when push comes to shove, they frankly don't care. 

Tom Tom know this.  While it remains a crazy idea to many (including the few Democrats left in the 6th), keep an eye on the former teacher.  He's definitely up to something bigger than he lets on.

Bacon Cooking up a Musgrave Challenge?

Is State Senator Bob Bacon thinking about making a run for Marilyn Musgrave's congressional seat in 2006? Rumors are sizzling that Bacon (sorry, but we can't resist the puns), who ousted a popular former Fort Collins mayor in his victory in 2004, will challenge Musgrave in 2006, a good time for Bacon because he won't have to give up his current seat while he tries (State Senate is a four-year term).

Bacon could be a tough opponent for Musgrave, but only under one scenario: that the gay rights lobby spends the same hundreds of thousands of dollars in the race as they did in 2004 to offset the fact that the district is highly Republican. There are two schools of thought on this possibility, and a third scenario that could make the discussion moot:

1. Buoyed by nearly knocking off Musgrave in 2004 with Stan Matsunaka as the Democratic candidate, the gay rights lobby could decide that they were close enough to try again. Remember, they would love to knock off Musgrave, the House champion of the Gay Marriage Ban Amendment.

2. Seeing that Musgrave has backed off a little on her once-fervent support of the Gay Marriage Ban, the lobby might feel as though it has made its point and wait to fight another day.

3. There are rumors that gay rights activists in Colorado are planning an anti-anti-gay marriage initiative in 2006 to prevent a Gay Marriage Ban from taking effect in Colorado. If this happens, most of the money that might have went to Bacon's campaign will go towards this initiative; they aren't likely to split the money down the middle and hope they win both efforts - they'll undoubtedly choose one or the other, and our guess is that they won't choose Bacon.

It would behoove Bacon, if he is indeed serious about a challenge, to make sure he knows the answer on the possible initiative in 2006 before he makes any decisions on his own.

Ward of the State

Except for an item on the less-than-stellar academic reputation of Ward Churchill's classes in Boulder, Colorado Pols has stayed out of the growing obsession with his comments in the essay "Some People Push Back" On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.  We figured the the story was getting a lot of coverage (and we do mean a lot) in other places. 

And, honestly, we've been more concerned this week with things like trying to figure out if large enough amounts of late money will be going the Pats way to move the line to the point where a bet on the Eagles seems worthwhile.  Important stuff.

But watching local news last night and seeing the images of protesters scuffling with police and SWAT team deploying into the building where the CU regents were meeting made us realize this whole affair has gotten completely out of hand. 

So, before going further, we decided that we actually needed to read Ward Churchill's essay.  All we can say is "wow."

And, "what a bozo."

After reading the admitted stream of conscious essay, we don't think Ward Churchill should worried about being fired for his political thought.  He needs to be a lot more worried that someone at CU will realize he seems to be a bit below the "professor" title granted him.  If his classes or work as a University professor is anything like this essay, he should be fired under the "we don't hire morons to be university professors" common sense provision.

We don't come to this conclusion based on the point of his essay (whatever that may be), but on the fact that the essay comes across as written by a 15-year-old who has been spending a bit too much time reading Dad's copy of The Nation.  At least in The Nation, controversial topics such as America's role in the world are handled by lefties with intelligence and an ability to argue their case in an effective manner.  We're not seeing that in Ward Churchill's essay. 

Yet, that is beyond the central point of this on-going firestorm, which has to do with the right for Ward Churchill to express beliefs that are repugnant to a large sector of the country.  Of course he has that right.   We all have the right to say and do things that make others say "what an asshole."   Colorado Pols expresses that right everyday of our existence. 

In these sorts of cases, we agree with Jim Spencer that the best way to deal with people like Ward Churchill is to let them continue to talk themselves into irrelevance.  Any parent knows that sometimes the best way to deal with a misbehaving child is to simply ignore the bad behavior.  If it's clear a child is doing something that screams "look at me!", the proper response is don't look.  But the outrage and ratcheting up of rhetoric by people opposing Churchill has only made everyone look more closely at the screaming child.  He's become a hero to the trust fund hippies in Boulder and this whole case has exploded into a national debate.

We're sure once he is fired by CU (and once they get through with their review, he will probably be canned) Churchill will gain great accolades as a free-speech rock star.  It's too bad that the new poster boy for people protecting this vital right presents himself as such an idiot.

And it's also too bad that everyone who has been whipped into a frenzy by Churchill's words, from the CU Regents to the Governor to the Legislature to those supporting the non-stop media coverage and talk radio frenzy, don't get this wound up over the state of funding for higher education in Colorado.  Or the state of creating opportunities for more young people to receive a higher education  in Colorado.  Now, a firestorm over that would be productive.

By the way, take the Patriots and give the points.  Final score:  Patriots 27 - Eagles 16.

Our Next President, Tom Tom Tancredo

Do we even need to say anything? 

Dean Wormer

We're sad to say that the man who made "double-secret probation" a part of our national lexicon, John Vernon, has passed away.   While an accomplished stage actor, Vernon was best known as Dean Wormer, head of Faber College ("Knowledge Is Good") in Animal House.

Given Colorado's current obsession with happenings in Boulder, we wonder how Dean Wormer would have dealt with Ward Churchill.  And, since Marc Holtzman is off and running for Governor, perhaps we should have asked him earlier this week if Dean Wormer had any influence on his management style at DU. 

Then again, we just can't see Marc Holztman saying:  "The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me."

Summer Scrooge in Durango

This has nothing to do with politics, but since it's Friday and we were so taken aback by it, we thought we'd pass the story along.

The Denver Post reports that a woman in Durango successfully sued two teenage girls for giving her cookies. Go ahead and read that sentence again - we did - but it's true. Wanita Renea Young was at her home in Durango last summer when two teenage girls knocked on her door at 10:30 p.m. to alert her to the cookies they had left for her, their neighbor, on the porch. It seems that Taylor Ostergaard, then 17, and Lindsey Jo Zellitti, 18, had decided to bake cookies for their neighbors as nothing more than a friendly gesture.

Young, however, says that she was so terrified by the knocks that she had to go to the hospital with an anxiety attack, and she sued the girls to recoup the $900 medical bills. "I just hope the girls learned a lesson," said Young.

Right. The lesson is: your neighbor sucks.

We'll leave this one for you: is Young a registered Democrat or Republican?

State of the Union Shout Out

Wayne Allard's proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage got a Presidential shout out last night.  During the annual State of the Union address,  President Bush devoted two sentences to his support for the Constitutional Amendment.  The Presidential support seemed to buoy supporters of the Allard amendment.  It even got the normally calm, collected and composed Senate Veterinarian to gush to the Denver Post:

“His supporters, I think, were happy to hear he hasn’t changed his position...’’

Now, that's a quite a display of confidence.

We can understand why supporters of the amendment are a bit less than confident after last night. Bush did devote two sentences in the State of the Union, but he did that for a lot of issues.  Bottom-line is the proposed Constitutional amendment got the laundry list treatment last night.  The laundry list treatment is reserved for the issues that get a few sentences in the State of the Union to appease Cabinet Members or certain segments of the base.  It makes the supporters of an issue feel they have the President's attention without really committing the President to anything. 

Obviously, the Allard Amendment is something we're keeping a close eye on as it could impact the Senator in 2008.  But another reason to follow this debate is that both sides of the issue are gearing up to put it on the statewide ballot in 2006.  Gay rights groups are organizing a proposal to allow gay marriage (or, at least, not allow same sex unions to be banned) and their opposition is putting together a proposal to outlaw same-sex unions. 

We won't profess to be smart enough to figure out what happens if voters approve both measures. Yet, the ultimate fate of Allard's proposal in the Senate will set the stage for this statewide battle in 2006.