June 24, 2010 08:01 PM UTC

Colorado Pols Mailbag #1

• 9 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Here it is — the first Colorado Pols mailbag! We’ve answered a handful of your questions after the jump; to submit your own question for a future mailbag, email askalva@coloradopols.com.

Is it still true that blondes have more fun?  Was it ever true? And if either answer is, “yes,” how does that apply to former blondes?

– Brian, Somalia Springs

Do blondes have more fun? We’d say yes, since things were certainly better for Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis back when he had a lighter shade of hair (McInnis dyed his hair blond in 1995). Since he went to the dark brown shade, McInnis has seen a new Democratic opponent arise in John Hickenlooper and has lost at the state GOP convention to someone named Dan Maes.

We’d say this answers both of your questions. Blondes have more fun, and so do former blondes.

Who’s going to win the Democratic primary for governor – in Hawaii?

– David Thielen

Somebody with a weird name, apparently.

According to a March Rasmussen poll, both Democrats in the race, Neil Abercrombie and Mufi Hannemann, would easily defeat Republican James “Duke” Aiona, the current Lt. Governor. Both Democrats have also raised more than twice the $627,710 that Aiona has managed to collect. Hannemann has raised about $300k more than Abercrombie. So…

We’re going to go with Mufi Hannemann, mostly because we like his name better. How can you not vote for someone named “Mufi”? All hail Governor Mufi!

1. Why does the Big Line exclude: CD-1, CD-5, CD-2 and CD-6 but not CD-3?

2. Why can’t you spell Piñon correctly?

3. Why is the Big Line an image instead of text that Google can index?

– Dave, Denver

1. The Big Line includes CD-2, CD-3 and CD-6, but not CD-1 or CD-5.

The reason we don’t bother with CD-1 (Democrat Diana DeGette) and CD-5 (Republican Doug Lamborn) is that neither race is winnable unless they have a strong primary opponent; we had CD-5 listed in 2008 because of the primary with Lamborn, Jeff Crank and that former General guy, whose name we already forgot.

But in a General Election, DeGette could get hit by a bus and be replaced on the ballot by her cat, and the cat would win going away as long as it was registered as a Democrat. Same thing in CD-5: You could run the spawn of John Elway and Ronald Reagan and Lamborn would still win as long as he was the only Republican on the ballot. There’s no point in putting up a Line where the other candidates aren’t running a serious campaign and have ZERO chance at winning even if they did.

Just because you figured out how to file paperwork to become a candidate doesn’t mean we have to pay attention to you. For example, the NBA Draft is tonight, and every year a couple of smart-ass college kids send in paperwork to the NBA announcing that they are making themselves “eligible” to be drafted. It’s a cute joke, since any college student who has been out of high school for at least a year can technically “enter” the NBA Draft. But just because these kids sent in a fax to the NBA office doesn’t mean that sports reporters should now be compelled to follow them along with the top prospects who will actually get drafted. We feel the same way about candidates who just file paperwork but don’t really make any effort to raise money or put together a serious campaign; there are plenty of other candidates who are spending 40 hours a week on the campaign trail, and we’ll pay attention to them instead.

We initially included CD-2 on the Line because it was the first re-election campaign for Rep. Jared Polis, but we really need to just take it off; Polis ain’t losing. Same thing for CD-6, where Rep. Mike Coffman will easily win re-election just because the voter registration numbers overwhelmingly favor the Republican.

2. There is an html code to create the tilde over the first “n” in Pinon, but we’re way too lazy to bother looking it up. Besides, it’s not like anyone is getting confused when we mention “Pinon Canyon” without the tilde. Is there another tilde-less “Pinon Canyon” that we should be aware of?

3. The Big Line has always been an image, and if we’ve learned anything from politics, it’s that you never change a tradition even if it makes sense to change. We don’t have a good reason. That’s just how we roll.

My understanding is that House Bill 1408(?) was to eliminate the reapportionment directives previously passed by republicans in 2003 or so.  Did the Governor sign or veto the bill?

– Jetblue

Um…yes? No?

You really expect us to look things up? (sigh) Alright, here goes…

House Bill 1408 was signed by Gov. Ritter on June 7.

O.K., what are the odds of some late term appointments from Governor Ritter.

Specfically—the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad Commission.

The two Colorado Commissioners are Republican appointees of Bill Owens, (who placed them AFTER the ’06 election).

– Bob, Denver

Ah, yes, the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad Commissions.

(crickets)

Sorry, Bob. We don’t have the slightest idea about this, other than to say we would assume Ritter would continue making appointments up until he’s cleaning out his desk.

How do you change your alias when your real name and info have been compromised?

– No name provided

Your real name has been “compromised?” What are you, a secret agent? You’ve been watching too much Mission Impossible.

But in all seriousness, the easiest thing to do is just create a new account and abandon your old one.

Would you be able to add the race between Mike Fallon, MD and Diana DeGette to “The Big Line?” The odds may be great, but perhaps not insurmountable.

– Remington

Sorry, Remington, but the odds are indeed insurmountable. Put it this way: There’s a better chance that Dave Schultheis will get caught in a torrid gay love affair with an illegal immigrant from Guatemala than Fallon has at beating DeGette.

As we said in an earlier answer above, just because you figured out how to file paperwork to become a candidate doesn’t mean that we have to pay any attention. Fallon hasn’t reported raising a single dollar for his campaign, so obviously he’s not even trying to win. There’s no point in listing him at 10,000-1 odds.

I’d like to sponsor a site saying “BP is a deadbeat dad.” Or, “BP cares about the small people.” Etc. And I don’t know where to start.

Does this count as a mailbag question?

I hope the mailbag is working out, and not every question is this silly.

– khmeck

There is no silly question for the mailbag – only silly answers.

Registering a domain name is easy – just go to someplace like GoDaddy or any number of companies that register domain names. You can build your own website after registering the domain; there’s too many options for that to really discuss here, but there are a lot of online services that let you create a pretty simple website at a limited cost.

Sir/Madam

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– MR. GIDEON DUPREE, Universal Funds Agency

We won! We won! Good thing we made sure to buy a ticket for the Ninety Million United States dollars international lottery.

We will file for our claim shortly, but we’ve got a few other things to do first. We just won the Canadian Lottery, and we’re using that money to bring a shitload of gold over from Nigeria. Once we’re done with that, we’ll give our fiducial agent a call.

Got a question for a future Colorado Pols mailbag? Email askalva@coloradopols.com.