Mount Virtus

One of our pastors shared this story from the pulpit yesterday morning about the late Medal of Honor winner Captain Ed Freeman, who put himself in harm’s way to rescue many young wounded American servicemen in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who gave their lives in the military service to help preserve our freedoms:

Spend a moment today to reflect on the true meaning of Memorial Day, and find a way to show your appreciation to a military member, veteran, spouse or family member. And God bless America!

A candidate who hasn’t voted in the last 10 years wants you to vote for him for Congress? Today’s Denver Post article by Lynn Bartels casts more light on Colorado Republican 7th CD candidate Lang Sias:

A former Democrat who lives in the 2nd Congressional District and hasn’t voted since 2000 is running for Congress in the nearby 7th District — as a Republican.

Supporters say Lang Sias’ unorthodox political resume, coupled with a stellar military record, makes him the perfect person to run in a season when voters are fed up with establishment insiders.

I guess if not participating in the democratic process to suddenly seeking higher office is seen as “unorthodox” — it’s hard to disagree. And the explanation from Sias’ campaign manager is hardly encouraging: (more…)

Lynn Bartels breathlessly reports that Boulder Democratic Attorney General candidate Stan Garnett has sworn off money from political action committees for his campaign. But a search through Garnett’s 2007 district attorney campaign finance reports finds a 2007 contribution from the United Food and Commercial Workers.

MSM reporters may want to probe a little deeper and ask some questions to discern whether the Democrats’ AG candidate has had a moment of conversion or enlightenment (and if so why), or whether he is just another politician putting cynical hypocrisy on display.

Can Garnett say with a straight face that labor union dollars don’t count as special interest union PAC money? Inquiring minds want to know. It’s not exactly a profile in courage for a Boulder Democrat to swear off the financial influence of corporate donors. It would be more impressive to refuse direct contributions from Big Labor in a statewide election.

Then again, given the current campaign finance environment, Garnett’s campaign like so many others will outsource the attack dog role to the 527s and other labor-backed players in the Democrats’ campaign machine. The Boulder DA already stepped into making the smears himself, and thus I expect he will be careful to avoid the faux pas again.

Let’s give Bartels and the Denver Post a chance on this one. After all, as Don Johnson ably points out, the editors of the Post have done “an outstanding job” of keeping the campaign honest and taking Stan Garnett to task for his “rookie mistake” of straining all credibility to hang a “Willie Horton” smear on sitting Attorney General John Suthers.

Can you smell the Democratic desperation?

Saturday at the Colorado Republican State Assembly I was privileged to conduct two dozen brief interviews of candidates, officials, dignitaries, advocacy groups and even a few activist delegates. Michael Sandoval filmed and edited the interviews, breaking them up into six chunks and posting them last night on the People’s Press Collective. Warning in advance: The sound issues were challenging with the loud background noise of the Assembly, so some interviews are easier to hear than others. But I invite you to check them out.

If you have limited time, likely the most interesting interview is with newcomer gubernatorial candidate Joe Gschwendtner in video number 5. Others interviewed include: (more…)

Coming off this weekend’s big Republican State Assembly, we have heard both leading Republican candidates for governor — Dan Maes and Scott McInnis — declare the repeal of Bill Ritter’s union executive order. I think we all get the point of how the policy is a raw deal for Colorado taxpayers. But what about state employees themselves?

Enter Dave Ohmart, with his latest report:

In a recent incident in Pueblo, Colorado WINS prevented Sgt. Jeff Hotchkiss, of the Department of Corrections, from participating in a vote that would have affected his work schedule. A few union members, very few, voted to make the correction officers’ work schedule 12 hours per day. The sergeant, and pretty much all other officers, were not allowed to participate in the vote. WINS told Jeff that if he wanted to vote, he had to join their organization and pay (now) 1.25% of his gross salary in dues.

Sgt. Hotchkiss filed a discrimination suit against the department. Tossed around by the bureaucracy, department heads were unsure how to proceed. They eventually held a tier II grievance, but the Sergeant never filed a grievance. He filed charges on discrimination, stating that he was a state employee discriminated against by the “partnership” in the vote.

ColoradoWINS refuses to answer questions about the event. They will not provide the names of WINS members or the number of members who participated in the vote. Even the Department of Corrections is restrictive when it comes to providing this information. Sgt. Hotchkiss is still waiting for a response…

Unintended consequences unleashed. And as Ohmart points out, Democrat gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper “has made no commitment” on the issue. We taxpayers have no reason to expect anything less. But what about state employees?

Today was the Colorado Republican State Assembly, and a lot of first-time delegates filled the floor and the seats. Energy and enthusiasm clearly were higher than I’ve seen in the past few election cycles. I spent much of my time today conducting more than two dozen videotaped interviews of officials, candidates and delegates for the People’s Press Collective (check back later for the video).

The balloting results already have been posted by El Presidente, Lynn Bartels and Don Johnson. So in the meantime, before the videos go up (as well as a few photos I snapped), I’ll share my list of winners and losers from this weekend’s festivities, based on my personal assessment: (more…)

This evening is Colorado’s 7th Congressional Republican Assembly, and conservatives’ best and strongest chance to unseat liberal Democrat Ed Perlmutter is Ryan Frazier. A great new video that makes the case in two minutes:

For those who are interested, the results of the May survey of Colorado’s political temperature are posted on Facebook. For a variety of reasons, including the transition to a new setting, participation in the survey is down significantly — leaving perhaps the most dedicated and passionate 117 conservative Colorado political Facebookers (half of whom say they plan to attend Saturday’s state GOP Assembly as either delegates or alternates) to chime in.

A few highlights for your consumption:

• Ken Buck is a runaway winner in the U.S. Senate primary
• Dan Maes pulls in 50 percent, Scott McInnis about 30 percent and newcomer Joe Gschwendtner picks up a few votes
• Ryan Frazier, Cory Gardner and Scott Tipton remain clear frontrunners in their respective Congressional primary contests
• J.J. Ament has sown up a lot of support among the political die-hards in his bid for state treasurer

For all who persevered through the transition and technical difficulties to complete the survey (no, you didn’t sacrifice any more privacy than you do by using Facebook generally), thanks for your participation. Your feedback is welcome to improve the next version.

On Thursday I updated the rankings of Colorado’s competitive state senate seats. After 15 weeks it’s also time to update the Colorado state house rankings.

A quick overview: There are 65 seats in the Colorado state house, and all of them are up for re-election every two years. State representatives are limited to four two-year terms of service. Currently, the Democratic majority holds 37 seats and Republicans 27, with one seat belonging to unaffiliated (and former Democrat) Kathleen Curry.

Fifty-two incumbents are running to retain their seats: 30 Democrats (including 2 vacancy appointments), 21 Republicans (including 2 vacancy appointments) and Curry. That leaves 7 open Democrat and 6 Republican seats.

Interestingly, Colorado Republicans are very close to running a 65-district strategy, as the GOP is fielding candidates everywhere except Boulder County’s House District 10. On the other hand, Democrats are competing in only 49 of 65 districts, conceding 16 races (including five with no incumbent) out of the gate by not fielding any candidates.

Given the dynamics shaping up through the end of April, I rate 30 of the 65 races as marginally competitive or better: 26 held by Democrats (21 incumbent, 5 open); 3 held by Republicans (2 incumbent, 1 open); and the unaffiliated seat. I have listed all 30 below in order that they are likely to switch party hands, but only include comment on the first 12.

As the spring finally dawns, it looks extremely narrowly like the GOP has just enough momentum to win a 33-31-1 majority heading into 2011. But plenty can happen between now and the time the final votes are cast in early November: (more…)

A lot of hullabaloo has been made of late about U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton’s D.C. fundraisers. Less well known are the plans of 7th Congressional candidate Lang Sias. Four days after the 7th CD Assembly — in which Sias will struggle against the strong grassroots base of support for conservative Ryan Frazier to secure 30 percent and get a place on the ballot — Sias is planning a D.C. fundraiser at the Capitol Hill Club with John McCain.

The following is the email from Lang Sias:

As many of you know, I’m running for Congress in Colorado’s 7th Congressional district. We’re making some very good progress on the ground; we picked up a bunch of endorsements over the last week, and are charging into the Congressional district convention next Thursday. I was honored to receive Senator McCain’s endorsement at the start of my campaign, and it has been great to have his support as well as the support and assistance of many of you over the last five months.

I wanted to give all of you a heads-up about an event we’ll be holding in DC on May 24. Senator McCain will be the special guest of the evening. I hope you can make it – it would be great to see you there!

Best,

Lang [link added]

If the fundraiser proves relevant after this coming Thursday’s assembly, one thing is for sure: it won’t help to change the fact that more of Sias’ campaign money has come from the Beltway than from Colorado.

It’s been a long time since I offered up rankings of the Colorado state senate races most likely to switch party hands this fall. Now that the latest voter registration numbers are available, campaign finance reports are in and the legislature is out of session, it’s time to take a fresh look.

Just for review, there are 35 seats in the Colorado state senate, and Democrats possess a decisive 21-14 advantage. State senators serve four-year terms and only come up for election every other cycle, unless there was a vacancy filled and a special election is needed. Nineteen of the 35 seats are up for grabs in 2010: 11 held by Democrats and 8 held by Republicans. Five of the Democrat-held seats and all but one of the Republican-held seats are not competitive, leaving four Democrat incumbents, two Democrat open seats and one Republican open seat in play.

In late January I forecast based on trends that Republicans would pick up 2 or 3 seats in the November election — putting them close to the majority, but just out of reach. This time trends look even more favorable for the GOP, putting as many as 4 seats (and the majority) in the balance. Races are rated in order of probability that the outside party will wrest control: (more…)

A quick video with an important message — one that’s hard-hitting for this father of young children — brought to you by the growing grassroots group Mothers Against Debt. Check it out:

In one of Colorado’s most head-scratching political moves of the year, former GOP Congressman and wildly unsuccessful 2006 gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez announced his endorsement of 7th Congressional candidate and Republican newcomer Lang Sias. The first reaction I and many of my politically aware friends had pretty much boiled down to: Huh???

When Tom Tancredo and Jimmy Lakey threw their support behind Sias, they carefully avoided trying to draw distinctions among the Republican field. Not so Beauprez: (more…)

Below is an actual letter sent out last week to the employees of a company doing business in Colorado. It is presented without comment. The names of the company and the individuals have been redacted.

Staff:

When people say elections don’t matter, that their vote doesn’t count, and that they cannot make a difference – they are wrong! (more…)

Update II, 1:50 PM: A technical error in survey production resulted in accidentally omitting new gubernatorial candidate Joe Gschwendtner’s name as a possible selection for Q13 & Q14. I am pleased to report the issue has been fixed. If you want to vote for this candidate, you can go back in and re-take the quiz if necessary. The survey will capture only your latest answers: you still get only one vote. Apologies for the screw-up. Everything is back on track. We are working to remedy the results display issue, but for now everything about the survey itself is in proper working order.

Update, High Noon: After a series of technical glitches this morning with the way the results were being displayed, the results page is down for the time being. Have no fear!

After a month off to accommodate the busy schedules of the survey operators and to allow for a format change and technical upgrade, the Survey of Colorado’s Political Temperature is back for May — a streamlined version of the familiar survey with a new platform and a new interface. Participating in the survey should take less time than ever.

We have moved the survey directly to Facebook, using some new application technology. Go here to take the survey.

And you can go here to check out the results.

Only one survey per Facebook user. The May survey will only be open through Saturday evening. It will be interesting to see before the upcoming Congressional and state assemblies what changes there are, if any, in the results from March right before caucus gatherings. Thanks for helping us test the new look of the survey and making your voice heard on important Colorado issues and candidates of the day.