< PREVIOUS ] [ 1994 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
Phil Klingsmith of Gunnison officially announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor on Wednesday at the Gunnison County fairgrounds.
This may be the only place you'll learn about it, since he didn't follow the drill -- a choreographed whirlwind day of flying to every courthouse in the state where there might be a TV crew.
If you want coverage these days, you can't expect reporters to go find news, all on their own. Instead, you stage events which, if properly lit and choreographed, appear on TV and are then reviewed in the newspapers. This system has some drawbacks, but everyone involved agrees that it's a lot snappier and simpler than engaging in real discussions of public policy.
Phil's lack of modern media savvy isn't the only problem he has as a candidate.
For a Republican, he's not nearly enough of a snob. He actually talks to college students, community activists and similar rabble who can't afford campaign contributions. That will never do in a party where the 1994 nomination will go to the candidate who can raise the most money -- that is, the highest bidder.
But his real problem as a Republican is that he apparently believes in the party's oft-stated principles of minimal government and individual freedoms. It follows that he's pro-choice and opposed to subsidies for private enterprises.
Philosophic consistency may be a virtue in the abstract, but it's a hard sell at Lincoln Day dinners, which attract the party zealots -- the sort of folks who want to charge women with murder if they miscarry after a horseback ride, or who believe that assisting subdivision development is the primary role of local government.
On the other hand, he couldn't have prayed for better opposition for the nomination.
Dick Sargent always seemed like a decent fellow until he
made his official announcement. Then he sounded like Bob
Dole on methedrine, snarling away at Roy Romer. Granted,
the governor of Denver deserves some growling, but Sargent
doesn't seem to realize that attack bites aren't enough.
The idea is to run for governor,
rather than
against Romer.
Just ask one George Bush, a currently
unemployed resident of Houston, about how much it helped
him to denounce Bozo and Ozone
in 1992.
State Sen. Mike Bird, the other announced candidate, is from Colorado Springs. Anyone who can get elected in El Paso County has to run to the right of Ivan the Terrible. It's the base of Californians for Phantom Values and dozens of other tax-exempt charitable enterprises which want to seize control of the government and dictate every aspect of our lives.
Political gossipmongers say Romer wants Bird to get the GOP nomination, because mere geography offers the easiest re-election campaign. All he has to do is repeat that Bird is from Colorado Springs, and tax money will be saved because we will be spared the expense of redecorating the mansion for a new occupant.
But there's another curiosity of geography. Gunnison County may spread across 3,239 square miles, but it has only 10,273 people.
Yet it generates politics far out of proportion to its population. Phil Klingsmith, as noted, is from Gunnison. Mike Callahan started his career -- from county assessor to state senator to lieutenant governor to defeated House candidate to a Colorado version of Col. Sanders -- in Gunnison County.
The county's state senate district comprises areas far more populous or influential, such as Aspen and Cañon City. Yet the state senator, Linda Powers, is from Gunnison County.
I asked her about that once. Was there something in the water, perhaps, which produced political ambitions?
She didn't think so. If the legislature met in the
summer, there probably wouldn't be any candidates from
Gunnison County,
she explained.
But it meets in the winter, and you know what winters
are like in the Gunnison Country. It means we'd do
anything, even run for office, to escape for a
while.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1994 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >