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Last summer I was afraid that Ross Perot would force me to vote for Mike Callihan for Congress, now that redistricting has us in the Third District, rather than the rotten-borough Fifth, a sinecure for rabid right-thinkers.
At the time, Perot threatened to get enough electoral votes to send the presidential election into the U.S. House of Representatives.
There, each state would get one vote. If the Colorado delegation held a majority of Republicans, that vote would understandably go to George Bush. The more Democrats in the Colorado delegation, the less chance of four more years of jackboot judges, hate-mongering, poll-driven wars, family-value hypocrisy and similar horrors.
Fortunately, Perot doesn't appear likely to carry any state, so there's little chance of the election going to the House. Thus there is no reason to vote for Callihan.
I've watched Callihan since about 1980, when he ran for state senate from these parts. He was from Gunnison then.
Rural areas need effective representation, people who can stay the course and build coalitions. But Callihan wasn't all that concerned with representing us, empowering us or making sure we got treated fairly.
He was just climbing the career ladder. As soon as there's an opening, he jumps -- lieutenant governor in 1986, and now Congress.
Callihan is the Colorado Democratic party's answer to
George Bush -- personable, but also a walking definition of
shallow
and opportunistic.
Further, the
Republicans have an energetic, capable candidate in Scott
McInnis.
The only complication of a McInnis landslide is that it will not terminate Callihan's political career. He'll be lieutenant governor for two more years, which gives him time and connections to try for something else. Callihan has been defeated before; like a bad penny, he returns. Again he's like George Bush, who lost senate races in 1964 and 1970, but still maintained a political career.
Our best hope is that Clinton wins, so that we have a president with jobs for defeated Democrats, no matter how undeserving. Callihan can get a patronage job in some federal agency. He will move to Washington, just as he moved to Denver from Gunnison. If we're lucky, he'll evolve into an alligator-shod lobbyist and we'll never hear of him again.
Then there's the U.S. Senate race. It shouldn't be hard for me to decide between Ben Campbell, whose views I generally support, and Terry Considine, whose views I generally oppose, but it is.
I should feel more enthusiastic about Campbell; for one thing, it's about time we had a senator with a pony tail so that our senate would look more like the America we live in and less like a country club.
But Considine is an outgoing fellow with a lot of interesting ideas, and he likes to argue those ideas. He's been effective in implementing some of them, like term limitation. Despite appearances, I don't think he's just a mouthpiece for big money or for the Republican right. I think he's someone we need in politics, even though I may not often agree with him.
If Campbell had run something other than a desultory, lackluster campaign, the decision would be easy. If Considine didn't come with all the Armstrong and real-estate and pro-life baggage, again the decision would be easy. And, damn it, there's no Libertarian running for senate.
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