U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
December 05, 2013 08:11 AM UTC
79 Comments
Heroic. Thank you Congressman.
Yowzaa! Go get 'em Congressman Polis. We need a bunch more Dems who need to get their backs up and lay it out like that. What a guy.
If only we could get Congressman Gardner to be 1/10th this compassionate on issues that would improve the lives of most challenged in CD4…
Goddamn! Thank you Jared. We need more of this in Congress, and right now.
+100
Jared Polis and his staff are quite simply awesome on immigration. Not only am I of very few complaints about their handling of the issue, I am frequently amazed and surprised by their leadership on the issue. This is one of the reasons that Jared Polis is one of the few dems that I root for.
OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's how you hit these people. Tell them who they are, what they're about. Representative Polis was that perfect mix of control and lecture!
Thanks for posting this, Pols.
Thanks Elliot. This is something we can agree on. Non-extremist Republicans would benefit from helping pass meaningful immigration reform. All Americans would benefit from this split culture and festering unresolved problem.
Polis is my Congressman and I really believe he is sincere in helping these people who live in the shadows of our society. Walorski not so much.
garbled sentence. Since we have no edit functions on this site
s/b . . . would benefit from dealing with this split culture.
agreed. All the highly paid Democratic Insiders that run CPols can surely afford an edit function on comments.
There's always Squarestate if you don't like it.
Oh, wait.
Be stillmy heart! Elliot praising a Boulder Liberal?There may be hope yet for Grumpy Old Poops.
What liberal are you referring to? Jared Polis is certainly no liberal or progressive. He's a dyed-in-the-wool bankster who is actively striving to gut what's left of America's social safety net, exacerbate the nation's already horrendous wealth gap, rape and pillage our public education system in order to further fatten his corporatist cronies' offshore bank accounts, etc., etc.
Elliot's "complaints" as hilarious as a gnat's ass. Well of course EF would has complaints and rest assured they are about as insignificant & tiny as a gnat's ass.
Will madam speaker understand that the Dreamers in the gallery, their deported parents and, indeed, the wettest of wetbacks are already better Americans than madam speaker's privileged white ass?
Yeah, that'll engender some civil discourse, all rightee, Madco.
I wonder where our "compassionate conservative" Tipton was when this came to the floor. Here's a NY Times article on the same Pueblo Town hall in which all Tipton would do was yammer on about a "step by step, thoughtful approach" to immigration reform. This means jack, unless a path to citizenship is included.
He is on the record for:
Well, now Rep Polis is never going to win the Republican nomination. Ever.
This exchange highlights the essential difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans are focused exclusively on procedure and protocol while Democrats are focused on the substance of the issue and actually solving the problems that our society faces.
For ever good thing one of Colorado's Corporate Dems like Polis does they do something worse that negates it:
Our own Mark Udall is also on the masthead at The Third Way, a little fact Colorado Pols has never seemed to notice.
Nice try at trying to divert the discussion Zitface. How about commenting the actual article. Do you think Polis is right to feel frustrated by the intransigence of Republicans regarding meaningful immigration reform or are you just another stupid bullshitter who doesn't want to talk about the essence of the issue?
umm… unfortunately Zappatero is accurate on this one. Please click on the link he offers. I got a couple of e-mail requests to sign this petition today from solid progressive org., What's more, there is nothing surprising about it since Polis has always been a very Wall Street friendly DLC kind of guy. I admire his stand on some things, including immigration. On other things he really is much more like the Republican-lite Dems that dominated the 90s, most notably president Bill Clinton.
I don't see being a good progressive Dem as supporting every aspect of every Dem Pol's policy positions. I also don't see it as rejecting Dems who aren't pure enough for my progressive tastes. I accept that while it's better to elect any Dem than any R, every Dem isn't going to be 100% my knight in shining armor. Right, left or wherever, I never forget that these people are all politicians, not Albert Schweitzers.
Have him post a diary about it then. It isn't the topic of this one.
I wanted him to answer what he thought of Polis in this specific situation.
While I bit on the misdirect, I agree with Gilpin Guy that I would like to hear what Zappatero has to say about this issue.
First sentence: "For every good thing one of Colorado's Corporate Dems like Polis does they do something worse that negates it."
Pols reports the "good thing" Polis did that I'll agree with. Huzzah!
The bad thing is Polis, even as a member of the CPC (the P stands for Progresssive), still allows his name to be used by the corporate shill organization for Billionaires known as Third Way.
Does one negate the other? I say yes.
Sorry for not staying completely on topic…..
Self defeating self marginalizing bullshit. Have a great purity party!
JeffcoBlue, it's you blind-partisan loyaltists who are full of bullshit. If you won't hold Polis and his ilk accountable for their corporatist agenda, you may as well be a Limbaugh dittohead.
FYI: I wish Warren would run for President in 2016. Hilary seems like she is past her use by date. Warren is as close to Howard Dean as we have right now.
Got to back Z on this. When do we ever stick so closely to the focus of a diary on any thread? One subject often brings to mind a related one and this is related to a discussion about Polis. Perfectly legit to point out that while this is a great thing let's not carried away about conferring sainthood. If you scroll down, you'll see that I did the very same thing, used this as a pivot to the very same issue, and nobody has jumped all over me yet. Granted, I'm probably cuter but you guys don't know that.
Polis is attacking Warren? Even more reason to root for him!
Let's give him a chance to explain himself before we convict him personally of attacking …OK?
I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Warren (and I'm delighted she has decided to stay in the senate). They are free to disagree with one another, but the "disasterous for Democrats" remark was unwarranted. The economy of this nation needs "economic populism" in a bad way…now. We have had thirty straight years of "economic elitism". It is time to raise Social Security benefits, increase the minimum wage, actually regulate wall street…not just pretend. ..and make corporations and the uber-rich pay their taxes.
Elizabeth Warren is on the right track. Progressives need to support her fully in the work she is trying to do.
This is beginning to remind me of the whole Romanoff primary thing all over again. Romanoff was a DLC centrist. Polis is a centrist and at least as Wall Street friendly as Bennet, for instance. I don't find the idea of Polis being more on the same page with Third Way on financial sector issues than he is with Warren surprising in the least. It would certainly be consistent with his record.
It's OK to support Polis and appreciate his stand on immigration reform without making him over into a progressive champion on every issue. He's a social issues progressive. And I love social issue progressives. For the rest, very centrist. Just as Romanoff was when his supporters were playing him up, pretty laughably, as a much more liberal option than Bennet.
This is a purple state. Outside of the safest blue zones the very liberal Dem candidates many of us would love don't fly. They don't fly statewide. A lot of our Dems here in Colorad, even in blue leaning districts, are pretty moderate. We don't have to make excuses for supporting or for liking less than lefty Dems here and we don't have to pretend they're more lefty than they are to justify supporting them. They're better than the alternative.
When we hold majorities those majorities include centrists. Those less than pure progressive majorities save us from GOTP majorities that are much worse. See the post 2010 House. It's called political reality. And the reality is Polis is not all that liberal/ progressive.
No. Third Way apparently gets politicians to be "honorary co-chairs", but the board acts without consulting those honorary officeholders.
From a progressive POV, it's time to start dismantling Third Way's cover; let them stand on their own – a group of Wall Street investors and legal defenders with a real (not inflated with honoraria) elected power base the same size as the almost-defunct DLC.
Congressman Polis follows this blog, I believe. We can just tell him right here.
Congressman,
If what Zappatero says is correct here, then by all means, you need to condemn these attacks on Sen. Warren and her "economic populism". It will be economic populism that will set this country right, or it will decend into a permanent state of neo-feudalism. Please let us know, in writing, that you do not agree with these comments.
That goes for you, too, Senator Udall.
A reporter asked me the same thing a few hours I ago. I said something along the lines of I admire and like Elizabeth Warren and I admire and like Third Way and I wish that they could learn to get along together better. There isn't much more to say, I don't speak for either party in this fight and hope they make up soon and become friends.
Thanks for your prompt reply, Congressman.
Let me please first say that your comments to the speaker in the video above almost brought me to tears…thank you. Well done, sir.
and please continue to support Senator Warren and never forget "the least of us." My mother, who worked as a waitress and restaurant manager her entire life, raising four children in the process, now has a monthly SS check of $500. She is lucky, she has a large, loving family that will see to it her needs are met. There are so many who do not. They are what "economic populism" is all about.
Thanks for your response. I am in the Elizabeth Warren camp. But I really appreciate that you would come and post here, and thank you for your letter to COGA.
Do you agree with Third Way's insistence (shown in an apparently co-ordinated series of editorials and statements over the past few days) that we need to cut Social Security and Medicare?
This is an issue that really means something to Democrats. Social Security is barely enough for people who rely on it already; cutting it, or Medicare, in the name of budget balancing isn't a solution – it's a guaranteed problem waiting to happen.
I would love to see House (and Senate) Democratic leadership take up the battle for a real living minimum wage. No-one in this country who gives a full day of work 5 days a week should be left in a position where they depend on Medicaid, SNAP, and other government benefits to survive. If you want to fight to cut government social support spending, do so by increasing the minimum wage. Even some conservatives are on the boat for this…
Honestly, do you think that the Third Party/DLC has been destroying the true platform of the Democratic Party? Have you really looked through what Third Way does? Basically they are corporate shills that has no business in politics. You need to look at your fellow Democrat, Alan Grayson for the true progressive. Yes, I'm talking about the Congressman with Guts, and from what I understand, has worked across the aisle to fix issues and get them passed since he rejoined in '12.
You need to sit down and have a long talk with Grayson and rethink your strategy – attacking Senator Warren for her beliefs is the incorrect approach, and all true blue Democrats should be backing her 100%. Apparently you are not one of the real Democrats – and that's because you have the money to buy a seat.
That's about as wishy washy as it gets. Warren and Third Way aren't going to "get along" because they support very different visions, constituencies and policy. Saying you admire them both is saying pretty much nothing. You really have no opinion on their 180 takes on who this economy is supposed to be working for and how to help make that happen? If you say so, Mr. Polis.
Rep. Polis:
First, I admire your stand on immigration. Thanks for your work.
However, you have it totally wrong on The Third Way. I understand one can "admire and like" two things that are quite different, but what matters here is what positions you support. Sen.Warren and Third Way could become "friends," as you suggest, but their positions are still polar opposites! You say you don't speak for either, but you lend your name to one–Third Way.
You imply that lending your name to an organization means nothing to you! Is that true? Until I see you take action differently, I assume you, like Third Way, think cutting Social Security and Medicare is a solution to our problems. You are wrong.
Representative Polis,
I am inclined to agree with gaf and the others. You cannot straddle this fence. You are as wrong about this as Gov. Hickenlooper is about fracking and you should let us all know which side you come down on here. Which position do you support?
Senator Warren or the Third Way?
Sorry, that should have been, "Congressman Polis.", not representative.
"I admire and like Third Way."
Yes, Congressman. That pretty much sums up where your loyalties lie, and it's certainly not with the best interests of the American people. Shame on you for pushing the bankster agenda.
Now if he would just show that much passion for ordinary Americans v the Wall Street Let Them Eat Trickle Down and Hardly Any Will Robber Barons and join the Elizabeth Warren wing of the party….
Exactly!
Elizabeth Warren responds to Third Way on Social Security: 'Oh please.'
If the only way to get an increase to 50 people who really need it is to give one "Jamie Dimon" an increase as well – then I say, "game on." This may be the only time the 1%-ers meaning practically nothing in the overall scheme of things.
I had never heard of Third Way until today, so I checked it out. I don't really see them attacking Warren, as much as criticizing economic populism, for which she is the current standard bearer.
I don't agree with their position, but this seems like "pole-vaulting over mouse turds", to cast it as a grand drama between Polis and Warren.
They went after Warren by name, and said of "[s]uch economic populism" that "[n]othing would be more disastrous for Democrats…" Polis is lending his name to Third Way. That's plenty for me to call Polis on the carpet.
Whether or not Polis is attacking Warren, I'm still having trouble figuring out why anybody is surprised by Polis being more of a Third Way kind of guy. He's never said, done or voted in a way that would make this surprising. He's not liberal. He's not populist. He's a very Wall Street friendly centrist with liberal views on social issues.
Anybody who is particularly surprised by this hasn't been paying much attention. He's always seemed pretty devoted to the idea that we ought to be "compromising" more with the conservative economic policies that have been completely discredited by taking our economy down the drain (except for the very rich) for decades. I've never heard him rejecting them for the utter trash they are.
The reason the Warren wing of the party doesn't want more compromise with conservative policy is because conservative policy is demonstrably such a complete failure for the overwhelming majority. The austerity, the cuts to the public workforce and services to support the struggling, the privatization, the deregulation with no consequences for any crazy scheme that blows up in the financial sector except to the tax payer, the race to the bottom for the middle class insisting that there's no solution to low wage, no benefit part time jobs…. yeah that's what these folks want to see more compromise with as if we haven''t compromised the prosperity of working Americans enough already.
If putting the the interests of the masses of ordinary workers ahead of the interests of the trickle down crowd, with trickle down pretty much meaning peeing on our legs and telling us it's raining, is populism, than populism shouldn't be a dirty word to any Democrat. It should be our battle cry.
You know those fast food workers who are striking and asking for $15 bucks an hour? The corporations say they couldn't possibly pay that without raising prices. Guess how much they would have to raise prices. They themselves say a $3 burger would go up to $3.50. Horrors. People who earn decent pay aren't going to stop buying a burger once in a while over 50 cents and think of all the people who would be earning $15 an hour instead of $7 or $8. A $3.50 burger would actually become way more affordable to them on their much better incomes than a $3 burger is for them now.
So if it isn't even rational concern over profit what is it really? A conviction that average people just don't deserve a decent wage? And if you don't go along with their discredited 'logic" you're a populist and that's a bad thing? This is what we're supposed to compromise more with? For more of that kind of policy?
No you can't be a Third Way supporter and a Warren supporter at the same time. You actually do have to choose a side.
Warren!
@Bluecat – Very well stated and correct.
Thanks. Sorry for the typos, though.
Looks like Pols tried to throw a party for Polis and a bunch of us pooped in the punch bowl. Sorry about that, Pols.
Well, Colorado Pols is a de facto subsidiary of the dark-money false-flag-liberal corporate front group "Progress Now," and although they won't reveal where their funding comes from of course, it wouldn't be at all surprising if Jared is a major contributor. Which would account for Colorado Pols' dependably hagiographic portrayals of Jared.
It's pleasantly surpising to see a few commenters here dissenting from the party line, though it's likely there will be a crackdown on that.
What? Progress Now's Alan Franklin posts on here occasionally, but Pols isn't a "de facto subsidiary".
As far as Jared Polis goes:
He was and is correct on immigration.
He was and is correct on curtailing fracking.
He was and is correct on encouraging hemp production (I'll bill ya, MB).
And he is wrong to lend his name to Third Way. Third Way is wrong on criticizing Warren's economic populism.
It's only hard to understand if your brain is so congealed that you can't deal with complexities and contradictions -within people, parties, politicians. (See BC, I can alliterate, too. "pooping in the Polis Punch bowl, Pols", indeed.)
"Alan Franklin posts on here occasionally."
=lolz
Not so "occasionally" as you seem to assume.
Richard Nixon created the EPA and opened diplomacy with China; therefore, anyone who thinks Nixon was overall a bad president must have a brain that is so congealed that they can't deal with complexities and contradictions.
Just so, mama.
I believe Congressman Polis is an honest man. As I said above, his comments about the people in the gallery were riveting because of the sincerity of the Congressmans' words and the passion with which he said them. I could not support him more on this issue. And many others…
The people of his district are indeed lucky to have an articulate, honest, and compassionate person to represent them in Congress.
I disagree strongly with anyone who doesn't see the need to advance an agenda of economic populism and I wonder why Congressman Polis appears to be shy about making a comment on the question before him. Economic parity is rapidly becoming a big issue.
President Obama has made it clear that addressing income inequity and re-establishing the vigor of the middle class is a priority for the remainder of his term. Elizabeth Warren is one of his warriors.
Congressman Polis owes his constituents a clear position statement about the comment, and a comprehensive explanation of his understanding of such an important issue.
In reality, belying his recent lip service to the issue, Obama's policies have only widened the wealth gap. Warren is certainly not one of Obama's "warriors." She is actually one of the tragically few members of Congress who are fighting against the Obama/Bush/Bennet/Polis/Ayn Rand sceme of screwing the poor and middle class via austerity and ratcheting up the tranfer of wealth to the tiny ruling class that already holds most of the wealth in this country. You can parrot OFA's bullshit propaganda, or you can admit reality. But you can't do both.
Polis is shy because he knows most of us wouldn't like his honest answer. He shares Third Way's disdain for what he and they see as distasteful populism. There is nothing remotely progressive about his views on the financial sector. Look at his record. He's only progressive on social issues. It's better than what you get with an R but it is what it is.
Exactly. Polis is a right-wing libertarian puppet of Wall Street, which is why Elliot Fladen loves the guy. So why do Democrats trumpet Polis as a "Boulder liberal"? If Rand Paul moved to Boulder and switched his party affiliation to Democrat, I guess he would be a Boulder liberal, too.
Jared Polis is among the foremost supporters of the Catfood Commission's recommendations, claiming that he actually believes the scheme would help the poor and middle class. That means there are two possibilities: Either he knows that's not true and he is a pathological liar, or he actually believes it and thus proves himself grossly incompetent to serve the people of his district and the country.
Bi-Rep, there is no reply option on your next post, so I will put it here: It is Republicans, not Democrats, who trumpet Polis as a "Boulder liberal." Liberals know his good side (immigration, fracking, etc.) and his bad (ecomonics, wishy-washy on limits on campaign contributions, etc.).
I said in the Pol's, not Polis, punch bowl and it derives froma common old saying. Just FYI
I was just joshing. I like alliteration. And it certainly is a vivid image…
Me too.
He isn't my Congressman but I've had the opportunity to work extensively with his office on federal issues related to industrial hemp. There is no finer staff on Capitol Hill and unlike many-a-Congressmen, Jared is wicked smart and engaged.
MJ is spot on – he is right on a lot of things. And if I was a betting man, I'd wager he'd cast a "yea" vote in favor of single payer and a living wage if there was ever a chance the legislation would reach the floor of the House. That's never going to happen as long as we're the minority party in the lower chamber.
Unlike my Congressman, who opts to waste his time on issues that he knows are going nowhere – pure red meat for the base – Jared seems to expend his energy on forming coalitions that actually get something done. I appreciate that in a Congressman.
I'm not a fan of the phrase, "Well, you remember who the alternative was….?". Frankly, we're all tired of the "less bad choice", but in the Congressman's case – the alternative was Kevin Lundberg….
I've not had the pleasure of meeting the congressman, but everything I have seen and heard of him, up until now, has been positive regarding his positions on most things. He is in a bit of the same place as Hick just now…his base loves him for many reasons, but he supports a POV that is just too important to ignore. Even in the red states, the working poor has had enough. They are ready to turn on the Republican party.
I have been anticipating the ascension of this issue for a long time. Many of you will remember the scorn heaped upon those of us who believed (and still do) in Andrew Romanoffs' decision to shy away from PAC money. That was and is a decidedly populist stance.
The ascendency of the Plutocrats is being challenged….Huzzah.
I agree, Duke, on all you've said. I've never paid any attention to Third Way before this thread – but to the Congressman's credit, he didn't ditch either Senator Warren or Third Way in his comments. And for the record, I'm solidly behind Elizabeth Warren's position on SSI.
My first reaction to how Third Way names Honorary Co-Chairs made me think of honorary pall bearers at a funeral. Perhaps that's an apt analogy for the situation: simply more people that want to put their hands on the 'economic casket' than there are handles to accommodate them.
I'm not attempting to defend nor attack him on this issue just yet – but he's very good at "math", a tactic I had to employ on family members during Thanksgiving regarding the living wage debate. Even my Fox News-watching family [which is all of them] have to concede that a living wage isn't a bad idea once you get past blind ideology – and Kudlow playing in the background.
Not so sure about living wage or single payer. But, hey, my Congressman is Coffman and if Polis were running here in CD6 I'd vote for him as early and often as possible (you know how we Dems can't resist voting fraudulently) over Coffman. I'm just surprised at the shock some seem to be experiencing over the fact that Polis is a very Wall Street friendly centrist. As far as I can tell, he never even pretended to be anything else. Unlike centrist Romanoff, he didn't have to try to primary anyone to their left so there really wasn't much need to bother remaking himself into a progressive champion. I don't recall he ever tried.
He is what he is. And, by the way, I'm not so sure he'd care that much about fracking if it didn't affect him personally. Just sayin'.
Hagiographic portrayals? You clearly weren't around for the health care debate were you troll?
http://coloradopols.com/diary/10676/happy-now-jared-polis
I've been reading this blog since 2007. And you just proved you're full of shit.
Oh, you must have special super-human insights because you've been wallowing in this stagnant cesspool for six years.
Whatever. You're still full of shit, troll.
. . . and, here all this time most of us were thinking we're dupes of Soros??!!??
Thanks for setting us straight Repairer!
OK Repairman. For a minute or two there you were making sense. Clearly, that moment is over.
Well, I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, BC. 😉
You mean was it good for me, too?
Here's a little more background on the reality of Jared Polis's screw-everyone-but-us-rich-guys fiscal agenda. The so-called "Boulder liberal" is clearly to the corporate right of Ronald Reagan.