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Although I am a business owner and a landlord, as well as a registered Republican and a hater of oppressive government regulations and certain trial lawyers (basically, those bottom-feeding scum who represent plaintiffs in libel litigation), for some reason I never feel comfortable in Republican gatherings. So on Tuesday night we went to the county Democrats' party, where they were celebrating the local races and mourning the state and national outcomes.
Locally, the Democrats won every county office except coroner (only one candidate, and he was unaffiliated) and sheriff. For the first time since 1978, there's a Democratic majority on our county commission.
Little news from the rest of America inspired much cheer. Our former state representative, Democrat Carl Miller of Leadville, got re-elected, though by only 300 votes.
And even if my friend and neighbor Curtis Imrie lost handsomely as the Democratic candidate for Congress in the Fifth District, he accomplished something that, as best I know, no Democrat in the Fifth has ever done before. He carried a county. It was Lake County, not even his home county.
En route to Leadville to conduct some business Wednesday morning, I saw Curtis next to the highway, removing one of his campaign signs from a roadside pasture, so I pulled over and we chatted for a while.
The Lake County outcome was news to him. In the
Fifth,
he observed, there's not much point in a
Democrat staying up late to watch the returns.
But we found a bright spot. Colorado's new Seventh District is competitive, to say the least -- the outcome was still in doubt at my deadline time.
Also, Colorado will export one public nuisance, Marilyn Musgrave, to Washington, thanks to the wise voters of the Fourth District. Given the choice between having her around, and sending her to an office 2,000 miles away -- well, who can blame them? After all, I heard on the ads that her Democratic opponent, Stan Matsunaka, actually supported Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Who could ever have imagined that a Democrat would support Democrats?
That gem didn't win the Recently Invented Quillen Award for the Most Moronic Political Ad, though. Many advertisements were offensive, misleading or obnoxious. But only one was just plain dumb, and it came from supporters of Amendment 28, which would have implemented voting by mail in almost all elections.
As you may recall, it showed a woman in her kitchen, saying she liked being able to vote there, since the evil special interests could be kept away.
Colorado law prohibits electioneering within 100 feet of polling places, and in the 13 years that I've lived across the street from a polling place, I've never seen this law violated. So for the last leg of the trip to the traditional voting booth, you're protected from the blandishments of those vile special interests.
But at home, in the supposed privacy of your kitchen? If
the TV is on, you're getting bombarded with meaningless
messages about Keeping Colorado water in Colorado
and taking Colorado values to Washington.
The announcements on the local radio station are even more grating. Your mailbox is crammed with bulk-rate messages from special interests and their lackeys, the local newspaper reports their statements and carries their advertisements, and sometimes candidates even come to the door to tell you which special interests they favor.
Plus, there's the telephone to complete the invasion. Every Coloradan had to know that this Amendment 28 ad had no connection with our own kitchens, and the only wonder is that it got any votes at all after that silly ad ran.
We got half a dozen mechanical calls on Election Day,
and even here in the boondocks, the technology is rather
sophisticated, along the lines of You did not vote
early, and you have not yet gone to the polls, and it is
important that all Republicans get out and vote
today.
Apparently they did, all over Colorado and the rest of our country. This should solve one of the major problems in Colorado: growth and sprawl. The national economy has been tanking for the past two years, and with Republicans in total control, this should mean a great reduction in the number of out-of-state we-always-wanted-to-live-in-the-mountains buyers for 35-acre ranchettes.
On the state level, Gov. Bill Owens did his best to keep tourists away last summer, and hardly anybody can use the fiber-optic network that the state paid Qwest millions for. We could soon have Colorado to ourselves again, and let's hope that the triumphant Republicans take credit for that.
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