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Although I live 150 miles away from the action, the only sensible topic today is the Denver airport election. But I'm writing this on Monday with no idea how the election will turn out, and you're reading this on Wednesday with the full knowledge of the election returns.
Columnists use several ways to get around this temporal quandary.
One is to focus on a related issue:
Whatever else the airport vote proved, it has conclusively demonstrated that Colorado voters demand to make the major decisions.
They may trust their elected leaders for day-to-day administration, but when something big comes up, the voters want to be heard. If the state's establishment won't take the issue to the people, the people will put it on the ballot themselves -- and sometimes vote it down, as with the 1972 referendum on the 1976 Winter Games.
Some have called this process paralysis by
plebescite,
but in actuality, it is a benefit. Having
an election means that most questions get answered because
both sides must make their case in a clear and convincing
way.
Another common columnist trick is to examine the campaign:
If Denver wants to take its place among the leading
cities of the nation, let alone the world, then it must
quit whining about outsiders.
Most recently, airport opponents hired the notorious advertising firm of Roger Ailes to prepare misleading propaganda. Did Denver complain because the ads were, in general, about as accurate as a presidential spokesman?
Not really. Most of the response sounded like the
ballyhoo during the special congressional election in
Wyoming -- Us good old local boys don't need any of them
fast-talking New York outsiders coming in here and trying
to tell us how run things.
Wyoming has a right to feel that way, since it isn't trying to become a world-class anything. But if Denver wants to be a real city, rather than some parochial backwater, it must start judging by content, rather than by origin.
The daring columnist ploy is to assume that the polls are correct, and write accordingly. The polls said Denver voters favored a new airport by a 2-1 margin, and so I could confect some profound-sounding analysis:
The overwhelming approval of a new airport by Denver voters yesterday indicates that the Queen City of the Plains is taking dynamic steps to shake off its economic doldrums and stride boldly into the 21st century. Even in out-state Colorado, the decision was hailed because rural enterprises are quite dependent on overnight air express shipments in order to keep their computers running. The better the air service in Denver, the less down-time they must endure.
However, rural spokesmen cautioned that the new airport is only the first step of in rebuilding Colorado's transportation system and the state's economy. The distant new airport will force Denver to build an efficient high-speed mass-transit system, probably with light rail. Once one is running from the city center to the airport, it can be expanded to the entire metropolitan area, thus eliminating much of the automobile traffic that is choking at least a million Coloradans.
And if that works, then Colorado can break its expensive and lethal highway habit in favor of passenger trains for intra-state transportation. By the turn of the century, it should be possible to visit the mountains by serenely sipping in the club car as the scenery drifts by, rather than the old horrors that involved gripping a steering wheel in white-knuckled terror.
But these days, you seldom see anyone trusting the polls
to that extent. Everyone remembers that picture of Harry
Truman, exuberantly waving the bulldog edition of the Nov.
3, 1948, Chicago Tribune, with its banner headline:
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.
I hope the airport passed. But if it didn't, I want to
see a picture of Bill Chenoweth with a broad grin while he
waves an Airport favored 2-1
headline.
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