October 07, 2015 11:43 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Oct. 7)

• 7 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The Yankees…don’t win. It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example).

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► Democrat Morgan Carroll is shaking up the race for CD-6 in more ways than one. Carroll’s straight-talk style seems to be confusing for Republican trackers, and could be the key to defeating incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Coffman in 2016.

► Famous rich person Donald Trump remains atop the Republican field for President, and this one’s gotta sting the other candidates: He’s only spent $2 million on his campaign. In total. As the Washington Post reports, Trump appears to have realized that he might actually win this thing, so he’s moving toward creating a more traditional campaign structure. And a new poll from Quinnipiac University shows Trump crushing both Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in their home state of Florida.

►Using polling data to forecast election winners is getting more and more difficult as demographics change and more people drop landlines altogether. Gallup has decided not to track the general election for the first time since predicting Franklin Roosevelt’s re-election in 1936. Gallup’s poor showing in 2012 didn’t help matters, writes Politico:

Gallup’s final survey showed Romney leading Obama by 1 point — 4.9 points off from the final result, in which Obama prevailed by 3.9 points. It also misidentified the winner. That led to a lengthy and expensive effort by Gallup to retool its methodology, a process the pollster described back in 2013 as aimed at the next presidential election.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Governor John Hickenlooper on Tuesday created a task force to study the use of Native American mascots in schools. Hickenlooper created the task force by Executive Order, though its makeup is fairly similar to legislation that was killed in the Republican State Senate last spring.

► The editorial board of the Aurora Sentinel weighs in on upcoming ballot measures.

► The “Shirtless Sheriff” continues to haunt El Paso County. The County agreed to a $120,000 settlement for two employees who filed claims against Terry Maketa for a litany of offenses. Two other cases have already been settled, and more are on the way.

► Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers is campaigning for a tax increase to fix potholes in the city, but Americans for Prosperity, funded by the infamous Koch Brothers, are fighting back against the idea. From Corey Hutchins with the Washington Post:

This much everyone can agree on: The streets of this large city on the Rocky Mountain Front Range are a wreck. Sixty percent are in disrepair, cracked and rutted; driving on them is often a game of vehicular Minesweeper. One local TV news channel runs a segment called “Pothole Patrol.”

But when this city’s newly elected conservative mayor urged voters to approve an increase in the sales tax to pay to improve the roads, he drew fire from an un­expected source: a branch of Americans for Prosperity, a power­ful conservative advocacy group backed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

The group’s involvement in a municipal infrastructure issue spotlights how AFP is seizing on local issues across the country as it works to build a permanent grass-roots army.

The Koch Brothers have pledged to spend nearly $900 million leading up to the 2016 election, so forgive us if we roll our eyes at the “grassroots army” claim.

► The Denver Post doesn’t think that Congress should try to crack down on so-called “daily fantasy” sports betting websites such as FanDuel and DraftKings. Fine, but can’t somebody stop them from advertising everywhere?

► Governor John Hickenlooper appointed Dan Rubinstein to fill the remainder of Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger’s third and final term in office. Hickenlooper didn’t have to spend much time on this decision, since Rubinstein was the only applicant for the job. Rubinstein plans to run for a full term as DA in 2016; Hautzinger resigned from his post last month to take a position with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

► Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016, will hold a rally in Boulder after all. Sanders will be at Potts Field at the University of Colorado on Saturday afternoon. Earlier this week, the Boulder Daily Camera reported that Sanders’ campaign might not be able to make a Boulder visit this month.

► Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is seeking the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016, and he’s not doing much work at his actual job in the meantime. As “The Fix” explains, Rubio has missed 4 out of every 10 votes in 2015, the highest percentage of any Member of Congress seeking the Presidency, and he probably needs to work on his excuses:

On Tuesday, the Republican controlled Senate moved forward on legislation that would allocate more than $600 billion for defense spending. Seventy three senators voted for it. Twenty six voted against it. One didn’t show up to vote.

That one no-show was Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who has catapulted himself into the top tier in the 2016 Republican presidential race thanks to two very solid debate performances and a compelling personal story, well told.

Rubio’s explanation for why he missed the vote? “Guys, I’m running for president. When I miss votes it’s not because I’m on vacation.” [Pols emphasis]  Er, not the best. Especially when Rubio’s rise in polls has coincided with an increased focus on his voting record (or lack thereof) by his GOP opponents.

Go ahead and try that excuse with your boss sometime. Hey, sorry I haven’t been coming to work lately, but it’s only because I’ve been doing something else instead. 

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► The debate about the death penalty hasn’t made much headway in Texas. Yesterday, Texas executed its 11th inmate of 2015, which is a pretty mind-boggling number when you compare it to other states, as the Washington Post reports:

That means more executions have taken place in Texas so far this year than any other state has carried out during a single year over the past decade — other than Texas, which typically leads the country in executions each year. Texas also has three other executions scheduled over the rest of 2015…

…This execution was originally set to be the country’s sixth during the span of nine days, a compressed window of lethal activity occurring in five states across the country.

However, three of the other five executions were called off late in the process. Oklahoma halted two scheduled executions after officials there obtained the wrong drug for a lethal injection last week, while Missouri’s governor commuted the sentence of a death-row inmate. Two other executions — in Georgia and in Virginia — were carried out as scheduled.

Texas added a third execution to that total since last week. [Pols emphasis]

► Um, you should probably just stop talking now, Ben Carson. Mass shootings are not action movies, and you are not an action hero.

ICYMI

► Students at the University of Colorado are not pleased that they are being denied access to the Oct. 28 Republican Presidential debate in Boulder. Students are calling for the release of 1,000 tickets to the Coors Event Center.

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