May 20, 2011 08:47 PM UTC

Wrong "Nitpick," Scott Tipton

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• by: Colorado Pols

If freshman Rep. Scott Tipton thought he was doing himself any favors politically by refusing to support the Roaring Fork Transit Authority’s request for federal funding for upgrades, today’s retort from editorial pages in his district ought to convince him otherwise.

In the Aspen and Glenwood Springs Swift Communications papers today, editorial boards attack Tipton’s “shortsighted and misguided” “nitpicking and grandstanding” (respectively) over a tiny fraction of the total grant, some $9,000 in federal funds partially matched by local dollars to provide Wi-Fi service on the upgraded buses. Both editorial boards warn that this project has been negotiated in painstaking detail by the RFTA and the Federal Transit Administration. And as we did the day before yesterday, both papers argue strongly in favor the WiFi service as a revenue enhancing and important attraction for commuters.

Look, we understand what Rep. Tipton went into this situation hoping to achieve: to assert his authority, and make ‘an example’ of the RFTA’s grant as a place where some of his much-ballyhooed waste can be found and cut. After all, he ran for his office on a pledge to “cut the federal government in half,” so he’s got to start somewhere.

But Tipton picked the wrong project to concern troll–“shovel ready,” already negotiated and scrutinized by actual experts down to the last detail. We submit to you, summarizing the polite view of these editorial boards, that Cortez’s most successful pottery dealer has no useful role here whatsoever. And if Tipton was hoping to look like a leader, he’s failed dramatically.

Tipton is emerging as a problem for his constituents, not a leader. And politicians who become a problem for the people who vote them into office have short careers…