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If the 50 states competed in a category called
scheduling politics for the maximum amount of public
inattention,
Colorado would probably win hands
down.
Summers are busy in the Centennial State. Farmers have crops and cattle to tend -- make hay while the sun shines, that sort of thing. In the mountains, the tourist flow is at its peak, and every weekend there's a festival somewhere nearby.
So Colorado holds its state political conventions in June, and its primaries in August. This insures that normal people, who have livelihoods and visiting relatives to consider, will not disturb the professionals as they plot our future.
During the 80s, this area was part of the 5th Congressional District, which is Colorado Springs plus whatever it takes to get enough population for a congressional district.
Consequently, the Fifth is more Republican than most country clubs, and its representative had no reason to consider the rural portions of his constituency, unless he wanted to go fishing.
I kept wondering what crime I had committed to be put in Colorado's rotten borough, a district that was fabricated by Bill Armstrong when he served in the state legislature to give him a secure base when he ran for the House and then the Senate.
Throughout the 80s, I kept hoping that the redistricting after the 1990 census would put us in the Third District, which is predominantly rural.
Further, the Third was competitive -- Republican Mike Strang followed by then-Democrat Ben Campbell, and the campaigns were good battles.
In the Fifth, the Democrats often didn't even bother to nominate a candidate, and when they did, the candidate couldn't do much more than just go through the motions.
I must not have let my wish become public, because the legislature actually put us in the Third after the 1990 census. Had they known that I wanted out of the Fifth, the Fifth's boundaries might have been gerrymandered to encompass the Quillen household.
As 1996 began, so did speculation about an opponent for Scott McInnis, the Republican who represents the Third.
Sometimes I read GOP propaganda to the effect of Does
your congressman talk like a virtuous conservative at home
and vote like an evil baby-killing crime-coddling
tax-raising money-wasting liberal in Washington?
A similar question here: Does your congressman talk
like an I'm-for-the-little-guy populist in his district,
and turn into a corporate shill after he crosses the 100th
meridian?
When McInnis voted for the Censorship Law (a/k/a the Communications Decency Act) early this year, I was so mad that I gave serious thought to running for Congress myself.
My advisers said I'd have to buy several suits after a trip to the barber. America has come a long way since Davy Crockett served in Congress, and try as I might, there's no way I could pass for an insurance adjuster or a congressman.
Some of us made discreet inquiries of Joe Sands, a two-term Summit County commissioner and often a thorn in the side of industrial tourism, global capitalism and other threats to the Third District.
Joe wasn't flattered. He asked Have I done something
to insult your mother or children?
He also noted that
he had switched from Democrat to unaffiliated in late
1995.
In March, one of my advisers
-- Curtis Imrie of
Granite -- announced for the seat. He held up a big cow
spine and said he was going to take a backbone to
Washington.
I suggested he offer it to Gov. Roy Romer, who desperately needs a backbone transplant, but Curtis has persisted. Candor compels me to admit that Curtis is a frequent drinking companion, and so I'm biased, but he does have some good ideas -- like requiring Congressmen to wear sponsorship patches, the way race-car drivers do, so that we know who owns them.
Opposing him is Al Gurule of Pueblo. Most of Gurule's stuff made sense, until I saw that he favors four-laning U.S. 50 from Kansas to Utah. While there are segments of 50 which deserve that fate -- Pueblo eastward, Montrose westward -- most of us are quite happy with a two-laner in the middle. I can't think of a faster way to trash this region than to run a bigger highway through it. What 137 years of mining failed to accomplish could be done in a year or two by a high-speed four-lane highway.
Fortunately, there is no state or federal money available for such devastation. And there should be a lively primary between Imrie and Gurule, followed, I hope, by an energetic campaign between both McInnis and his challenger.
Contrast that to the Fifth, where Joel Hefley will yawn his way to another term. The legislature actually did something nice, putting us in an interesting congressional district.
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