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January 21, 2010 03:29 AM UTC

Ignore The Treasurer's Race At Your Peril

  • 10 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

With GOP secretary of state candidate Scott Gessler rapidly dwindling as a serious threat to incumbent Bernie Buescher, and Democrats hoping at this point for whatever placeholder in the attorney general’s race manages to emerge, it’s looking increasingly like the biggest battle this year statewide (other than the marquee U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races, of course) could be fought over the state treasurer’s office.

On paper, this doesn’t look like a very hard call: incumbent Cary Kennedy has proven adept in her first term, with no major politically negative incidents–it usually takes something pretty big to oust someone from this office before term limits do. Kennedy has been doing pretty well with fundraising also, besting both Republican challengers who had filed before the end of last year.

Despite this we do see some potential trouble for Kennedy on the horizon, principally in the form of the better of the first two Republican candidates for her office, Walker Stapleton. Although Kennedy did raise more money than Stapleton in Q4, Stapleton demonstrated arguably the biggest fundraising network of any statewide candidate, raising donations from a total of 46 states–virtually unheard of in a race on this level, but reflective of Stapleton’s Bush family connections. The Denver Post briefly noted as much on Monday:

In the state treasurer’s race, incumbent Cary Kennedy raised $70,814 compared with Republican challenger Walker Stapleton’s $65,603, much of his contributions coming from out of state.

“I have established a national network of friends and business acquaintances who have contributed,” Stapleton said. “Business is not done regionally just in the state of Colorado.”

Kennedy’s campaign spokesman Tyler Chafee said her more local contributions show that “people are responding in her leadership and experience. . . . She is building a very broad grassroots donor base.”

While it’s true that raising the majority of one’s contributions out of state could work against a candidate, the other way of looking at this is he raised this money without maxing out local Republican donors–donors who will certainly pony up if he wins the GOP primary. That, combined with the connections to raise disproportionate amounts of money around the country for this state race, and we think Democratic strategists ought to be making doubly sure Kennedy is reinforced, both in donations and independent messaging–and that’s before we start talking about her newest GOP opponent, Vail playboy Ali Hasan, and his truly bottomless pockets.

Bottom line: as solid as Kennedy seems today, maybe the least controversial statewide officeholder seeking re-election and widely respected, the challenge she faces is not to be taken lightly.

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10 thoughts on “Ignore The Treasurer’s Race At Your Peril”

  1. In the wake of Ritter’s withdrawal Kennedy has received a lot of good press about her credentials and ability to win a statewide race. Still, she backed gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper and stuck to her re-election for State Treasurer. I think it’s about time people across the state recognize Kennedy’s importance/success to the state budget, her party and the state of Colorado. Additionally, I think it is very telling that her fundraising has come from in state supporters of her work rather then “national network of friends and business acquaintances.” Lets not put our state budget in the hands of out of state friends and acquaintances. Pay attention to this race and keep the right person in office!

    1. and if this is all you can say then hey, thats all you can say

      incumbent Cary Kennedy has proven adept in her first term, with no major politically negative incidents – Colorado Pols

      Frankly that screams worse leadership then the Governor executed.  Some will say that her management has let the Un-employment Insurance trust fund crater and she’s guided the Taxpayer to further PERA debts…that’s not that great.  It has and will cost people their jobs as you force employers into new fees and taxes to cover the out of control spending mandates.

      However, it is good to see she is adept at collecting corporate PAC checks, Denver law firm partner cash and max-out checks from Denver’s well heeled downtown civics club that parades around as business leaders.

      What you fail to mention is she is a nice lady.  If I was her I’d shove a boot up your ass for the weakly attempted spin you tried to cover her with.  Try a little harder next time.

      1. When most states have seen their investments crater, Cary has brought us through with no mistakes and a strong return. She’s done better than most of the major players on Wall St. If she was running a private firm she would be over-subscribed.

      2. If I was her I’d shove a boot up your ass for the weakly attempted spin you tried to cover her with.

        pretend gloss is so friggin’ obvious and everybody gets called out for it.  You’d think people would learn

  2. We simply cannot take any race for granted at this point. If there is one thing to take away from MA, it’s to take your race seriously and campaign like hell. I think Cary’s a very smart woman and I don’t see her doing that and hope the state party seriously reinforces her efforts.  

  3. Cary is the best treasurer we’ve had since at least Gail Schoettler and possibly since Palmer Burch.  We ignore this race at our peril.  The Rs will try to dent her to derail a future gubernatorial contender.  I’ve told her I will do what I can for her campaign and urge others to do likewise.

    1. The best State Treasurer we ever had is Mike Coffman – a man who wasn’t afraid to stand up to the school districts of Elizabeth and St Vrain, after their financial mismanagements

      Should I have the honor of serving as State Treasurer, I plan to use Mike Coffman as a compass for how a State Treasurer should manage the Treasury

      1. From the letters that will run in tomorrow’s Daily Sentinel:

        Candidates need more than a killer smile

        Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to a very bright young man named Ali Hasan. He is a Republican candidate running to become our next state treasurer.

        Mr. Hasan seemed to be a vibrant young man full of enthusiasm and a killer smile, dimples and all. However, there were a few things that stood out during his speech that made me wonder about exactly what his qualifications for this position were.

        I Googled his name and came up with quite a few Web sites and, in reviewing a lot of information about him, not one thing stood out to me that would qualify him to become state treasurer.

        He is young and claims he runs a filmmaking business, but I could only find two films that he has made, which are documentaries and not money-making ventures. One movie has won a lot of awards, but again that does not mean he knows anything about running a company’s finances, payroll, etc.

        I also could not find anything telling me where his money comes from, as nothing in his past suggests to me that he has a “real” job of any kind that would finance his film making business. However, his parents are quite wealthy and I wonder if he still lives at home?

        He is a new college graduate, but he does not have any degrees in business, finances or any kind of money management whatsoever.

        Mr. Hasan is going to have to show me a lot more of himself and tell me more about his qualifications before I would even consider voting for him. This country was bamboozled once by a flamboyant person with no qualifications to run our country. I was negligent a year ago by being complacent about what was going on in this country, but I will not be so again. We all need to do our research when voting for anyone.

        SANDY GAGNE

        Grand Junction

        http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/c…

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