September 07, 2014 05:55 PM UTC

UN Liberals, Unicorn Bans, and Better Broadband—The Battle for Senate District 5

• 8 Comments
• by: ClubTwitty

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Senator Gail Schwartz, who has rather tirelessly worked on behalf of Senate District 5 is term-limited, and the battle to replace her is considered one of the top races this cycle for control of the Colorado Senate.  The contest is between Kerry Donavan, town councilor for Vail, and member of a long time Eagle County business and ranching family; and, Don Suppes the self-proclaimed “most conservative mayor” from Orchard City, an incorporated water district on the southern flanks of Grand Mesa, somewhere roughly between Delta and Cedaredge. 

The Club 20 debates yesterday not only included the marque races for Governor and U.S. Senator, and the second string races for CD 3 (Tipton, R-Worthless and Tapia, D-Pueblo, again) and CD 2 (featuring George Leing talking to himself), but a number of down ticket races as well including one shaping up to be a major battle in the fight to keep or take control of the state senate. 

Senate District 5–which includes Eagle, Lake, Gunnison, Chafee, Pitkin, and Delta counties–bridges the Divide: at the spine of the continent, as well as in the politics in western Colorado. 

Far from the ‘Republican stronghold’ some imagine it to be—western Colorado actually has classically divided politics: a number of areas are blue and trending bluer, even as the Republican strangleholds on places like Mesa and Moffat County increase.

And there is a strong sentiment toward being non-affiliated: which spans the range from conservative to liberal, and not always in familiar pairings.  A lot of folks like guns, and pot.  Your neighbors might be a changing band of hippies or survivalists bunkering down for the post-apocalypse.  Sometimes its the same group of people.  Its not a new thing and we like it that way.  We can be a little crusty, but most of us are friendly, and we help each other out.  

Both parties, and their allies, have identified this race as key to their state senate strategies.  The now defunct right-wing partisan blog ‘The Colorado Observer’ flagged it as one of seven senate races to watch, describing it in a rare moment of accuracy as:

[A] diverse district that also includes [in addition to Delta] voters in Chaffee, Eagle, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Lake and Pitkin counties. The district is comprised of 26,327 unaffiliated voters, 24,879 Republicans and 21,458 Democrats.

Don Suppes, SD5: Stumping on Agenda 21 

The ‘unaffiliated’ voters on Senate District 5—which includes Club Twitty—outnumber voters affiliated with either party.  They represent not only fringe righties or lefties or the muddled middle; they are—in many cases—either truly non-partisan (their ideas mix liberal and conservative thought), libertarian (both left and right versions), opposed on principal to affiliation, and/or genuinely unrepresented by either (or any) party.  Suppes seems to be going after at least one block of the unaffiliated voters, the wackadoo caucus.  Charles Ashby of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel covers the action from the debate (article behind paywall, briefly excerpted below):  

Amendment 21 is a non-binding agreement about sustainable development and the environment that was the result of a United Nations conference in in 1992 in Brazil.

“You read Agenda 21, it reads the standard liberal playbook,” Suppes said. “Agenda 21 is just liberalism. If that makes me a conspiracy theorist then … I’m preaching that it’s liberalism.”

The Standard Liberal Playbook–can someone send me this?  I just made it through Rule for Radicals, again, and I’m thinking the two together could really give me some direction.  But I digress…

I'd ask for the link, but broadband in Delta County sucks.  Not that Suppes cares, he's busy fighting a mythical 'fracking ban’ as his solution to economic development, as Ashby reports:

“If I was looking to cripple the economy in western Colorado, I would do two things,” Suppes said. “I would shut down the coal industry and I would ban fracking. That’s what the Democrats are doing.”

Donovan said there are parts of the district, which stretches from Eagle to Hinsdale and Delta to Chaffee counties, that don’t have any broadband service.

Businesses, she said, would move there and create jobs if broadband existed.

Robocalls and Push Polls

Suppes has a robocall in the field right now that uses an elementary school teacher (sounding like one might imagine an elementary school teacher from the 1980s might sound—30 years later) praising Don’s character.  “He was a good boy.”

Now I want to pause here to acknowledge the importance of education, and give a shout out to good students that make a teacher’s job easier and help foster a productive learning environment.  But I am not looking for a polite classmate myself or an obedient student.  So I am not sure of the value of this particular pitch. 

I'm also not falling for the ‘War on Coal’ and ‘Ski Country elitist’ meme that Donavan’s opponents are spewing as Suppes basic angle of attack.  This has been backed up with at least one mailing in the district and a push poll from Magellan Strategies pollster’s Elkhurst Communications firm,routinely pilloried for its bad practices of intentionally phone-spamming voters.  

“I can be that voice. I wear ski boots and I wear cowboy boots” 

Kerry Donavan got off one of the better lines at the Club 20 debates—certainly in the down ballot races.  Challenged on her ability to represent the district she noted her backgrounds—ranching family, skier: “I wear ski boots and I wear cowboy boots,” she quipped.  It sums up the reality of this district and this race, and points to why Suppes is—hopefully—setting himself up for a fail.  

Donavan also talked about the importance of renewable energy to SD5.   This reflects a much deeper appreciation than the myopic view presented by Suppes—of coal mines and gas fields.  Indeed Senate District 5 is already a leader in the state—Paonia is home to Solar Energy International, Amory Lovin’s the Rocky Mountain Institute is just or ‘over the hill’ from there.  

While not considered renewable, it is an innovative and beneficial project that has brought the unlikely pairing of Aspen Ski Company, Holy Cross Electric, and Bill Koch’s Oxbow Carbon together to generate electricity from vented coal mine methane (which continues to vent from closed and abandoned mines for decades). 

Many of the ditches and other irrigation facilities best suited to the type of micro hydro made easier by Congressman Tipton’s legislation are in the 5^th Senate District—which includes a run on the Arkansas, the headwaters of two forks of the Gunnison, the Roaring Fork, the Eagle and hundreds of tributaries—all of which feed thousands of irrigation facilities, ditches, pipes, and canals. 

Senate District 5 also includes several communities fighting to keep out incompatible industrial oil and gas development—like the Thompson Divide area and the agricultural heart of the North Fork—Colorado’s premier organic growing spot.

The balanced approach that Kerry Donavan brings suits SD 5 well —unlike the conspiratorial bantering of a ‘War on Coal’ and non-existent ‘fracking bans’ evoked by Don Suppes. 

Kerry recognizes that the path to economic prosperity in SD 5 is to diversify our economy and to provide the infrastructure we need to grow into the future.  Don Supples’ economic ‘strategy’ for is to double down on the kind of single-engine economy that put much of western Colorado in the doldrums to start, and to take inane pot-shots that border on crazy talk.