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April 24, 2007 11:08 PM UTC

Doug Bruce gets a challenger

  • 84 Comments
  • by: Haners

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Doug Bruce has at least one challenger for his El Paso county commissioner seat.  Amy Lathen, a long time conservative activist, has set up a campaign committee, website, etc. to challenge Bruce.

Here’s the site:

http://www.amylathen…

If you could, would you vote for Doug Bruce?

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84 thoughts on “Doug Bruce gets a challenger”

    1. Despite feeding my Pols addiction until 12:30 AM, this DB blog did not appear until this morning!  When I saw your commnent, I thought you made a monumental error.

      No, it was something in the cyberspace….

      I practically live on my computer, I earn what little living I have repairing and using computers, BUT I HATE THEM!  The Devil’s very spawn.

    1. This is off her website

      “Please consider a generous contribution to this campaign!  Your dollars will be spent very wisely in order to bring effective, intelligent leadership to the Board of County Commissioners .  There are no contribution limits so please be as generous as possible.  We cannot do this without your financial support and I am abundantly grateful for every dollar.  Together, we will give a voice to the people.  -Amy Lathen “

  5. …you would think that Doug Bruce himself would at least weigh in and cast a dissenting vote.  And what about his two sidekicks, Andrews and Caldara.  That should get him at least three votes.

            2. I voted against it because back then it was obvious to me that the crunch would hit (and things will get bad again, unless we do a permanent fix). But there were MAJOR aspects of it that I really liked. I liked that we had to vote to increase taxes. That was a BIGGY in my book. I also like that it removes the money from the gov. spendign when there is an excess. But it should have set aside the money for rainy days. In addition, that money should be HANDS-off save by a vote by citizens. That is we get to release it. The important issue is that the money could not be used at will by the groups, nor could it be moved around (i.e. all tax money put in a general pot).

              One of the issues that I had with Owens and his cronies is that they were totally untrustworthy.  No doubt if they got a hold of extra money, they would have funneled it into more roads, even where not needed. Even giving him water money would be a disaster where we allowed him to decide what to use it for, even though we need it desperately.

              1. ….doesn’t know squat about how our government works, how and why monies are spent, and generally, couln’t care less.  TABOR smacks close to the direct democracy of Athens, and we see how successful that was in the long haul.

                The average voter’s ignorance was shown by the Bush tax cuts.  Some few hyptothetical families were promised about $300 and they thought the tax cuts should be passed.  Wow!  $300.  I think I got about $100.  Wow! Ten pizzas or two tanks of the Bush era priced gasoline.

                Then the same folks bitch about the potholes, the school roof leaking, the DMV offices being cut back and three hours to get a driver’s license.  Well, yeah, Stupid Voter, you wanted this.

                TABOR is it’s own out of control monster.  Prop C was passed in a squeaker, but just enough of the anti-tax people shot down D, which was the plan on how to spend it.  Then they bitched about now the leg will spend the money like drunken sailors.

                Yuh can’t win. I trust the legislative process with Dems and ‘Pubs a lot more than I trust the average voter.

                1. D was NOT about how to spend, but about how to borrow and spend. Like the majority, I voted against it because it was borrowing.  Just like Owens did with T-REX even though we have voted against repeatedly against borrowing (again, Owens screwed over the state on that one).

                  TABOR, like 41 and other amendments, requires adjustment. The real problem with TABOR is that it did not create a back up fund for when the state gets into tight money (like we have had for 5 years). Once we are caught up, the state needs to push for a change that makes the tabor money go into a savings account. Personally, I think that the 30 or even 300 is nice, but the simple fact is that that money normally comes back when times are good. That is when I prefer the state to have a bit more. When times are rough, is when I do not wish to increase the taxes.

                  Now, as to trusting the politicians, all I have to say is look at how they have handled 41 vs. the marriage amendment, amendment 2, etc. While 41 is a constraint on THEM from doing bad, the have no issue with trying to constrain others from doing what they do not like. I have disliked the republicans intensily over how they have handled Churchill, Gays, Deficits, lies, and corruption. But the fact that they dems are the ones fighting 41, says a lot. It has been VERY educational to me.
                  Me, I trust the voter MUCH more than the politician.

                  1. Generally, however, I’m on board with you.  A rare exception.

                    PS, our infrastructure has historically been built on borrowed funds.  You know that. If Colorado saved its pennies to build T-Rex someday way out in the future, we’d never get there.  Far better to get the increased productivity of better transportation for 30 or 50 years than have some bonds – now there’s an irony – in the vault.

          1. I hope you aren’t feeling all alone. But then again I don’t think even a quarter of us posting live in EPC let alone whatever district Bruce represents.

    1. What do you know that we don’t?  Admittedly, I’ve not visited her site. 

      Maybe Slumlord Doug Bruce will finally become a footnote in Colorado history.  TABOR was as damaging to the stable functioning of Colorado as any hundred tornadoes.  A perfect example of what should be law, not amendment.  The fact that TABOR had significant flaws is shown by its proponent’s changes that have been made to pass a TABOR in other states. Even after tweaking to make it more palatable, I don’t think any other state has passed a TABOR.

      We stand alone, the poster child for overreactive “solutions” to “problems” that don’t exist.  State taxation is what the leg is for.  You don’t like what they do, change the make up of the leg.  Not as sure fire or dramatic, but a lot more flexible. 

      So much pain because one man doesn’t want to pay his share.

          1. Oh, Lord, what is it about CS and nut jobs?

            Her whole flippin’ site is about federal issues, nothing at all about what she would do as a county commish. 

            At least she isn’t doing the stealth thing…..

            1.   So why shouldn’t a county commissioner have foreign policy positions? 
                We have state legislators who spend most of their acting as school board members micromanaging class curricula both on the right (no teaching of evolution or flying any foreign flags) and on the left (teaching science-based sex education).

        2. Isn’t El Paso County already a theocracy?  After all, didn’t the mullahs all get together to run the hapless Rev. Ted Haggard out of town?

      2. Her “issues” page reads like she’s running to take out Doug Lamborn in CD-5 by being an even more obnoxious Bible-Thumper. Don’t know what half of that crap has to do with being a county commissioner. Plus, she approvingly links to anti-gay hocus pocus briefs from groups like the Family Research Council.

        Better the clown you know…?

        1. This page even starts with the sentence “As a County Commissioner, I will not have an active role in affecting some of the following issues…”

          1. “If there is an issue of importance to you which I have not covered here, I invite you to contact me and we will discuss it.”

            Do you support Harry Potter book burnings?

  7. Amy is a fiscal and social conservative.  El Paso County Commissioner District 2 is a conservative district.  Amy will represent us a whole lot better than Doug has (actually, we have no representation, just a person who wants to enact his own personal agenda).

    1. While not being atypical of many CD5 voters, Amy is extremely far to the right of the US generally.  I know she is not running for president, but she defintely earns the tags of “wingnut,” “bible thumper,” and I’ll add something on the order of dittohead or goosestepper.  Whatever my leaders tell me to believe, I believe. 

      I would also add that many of her statements are plainly wrong, and she indicates an unwillingness to listen to others, despite what she says at the top of her page. 

      She is dogmatic, not a politician in the best sense of the word, one who seeks solutions and compromises. “Compromise” is not in her vocabulary, I would wager.

      At least DB doesn’t mix up his religion and government, as far as I know.

      1. While professing to be a Christian, Doug has no “religion”.  In the many years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him in church.

        Amy practices her religion – she lives her faith – and she is very upfront on that.  If you want to classify that as “bible thumping”, I’d say we could use someone with principles in elected office.

        1. To presume that only people like Amy have principles.

          I, too, have principles.  So does Dianna DeGette, Senator Potted Plant, Governor Ritter, all of us.

          To say that your beliefs, or Amy’s, are the only principled beliefs is ludicrous. 

          Do not confuse closed mindedness and ignorance with principles, although they are often the substrate for them.

            2. than what I’ve come to expect from you. 

              Add Doug to my list.  He has his principles, too.

              I don’t know enough about either candidate to make a fully informed decision. 

              At least Doug is, AFAIK, a one trick pony.  Easy to keep track of and predict.

              1. which you can access from clicking on his name. He forgot to add the “http://“ to the beginning of the page so you have to copy and paste it into your address field, but it shows that he’s coming from the same place (if not even further out) as Lathen. Seems he ran for CS city council…

          3. “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

            George Washington

        4. are two distinctly different things. Rev. Haggard practiced religion; as we all now know, he didn’t have principles.

          That said, I have to wonder why she posts all that stuff about her beliefs without addressing EPC commission issues. Is she already looking beyond this office to something higher, like the state house? Does she feel that speaking to hot button but irrelevant topics is a better strategy than addressing issues she would face on the commission?

          1. This is for all of you who think this person whom you’ve never met is a “nutjob”.

            First, check out this article in the Gazette.  http://www.gazette.c…  In it you will see why she has discussed issues that “don’t have anything to do with the county”.  I’m not going to quote it, y’all should read it.

            Second, y’all clear don’t understand El Paso county.  Doug Bruce’s district is very conservative and likes conservative representation.  If someone were to try and come after Bruce from the middle, he would destroy them.  He’d pull the “I’m the only true Republican” line, and y’all would get to bash on him for four more years.  Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

            Also, people like to know what elected officials think about a lot of things that have nothing to do with their job.  Lathen talks about her political views, other candidates talk about whether they perfer “boxers” or “briefs”.  Sure, it may not be on their site, but people want to know.

            Thirdly; since we talked so much about “logical fallacies” the other day, explain this.  How do you equate that just because someone talks about their religion and their beliefs that they’re trying to set up a “theocracy”?  Or any of the other baseless accusations you lefties have made?  Or did I miss the page that said “long term goal; set up theocracy”?

            If you’re judging her because she’s a religous Republican and for no other reason, you’re wrong and hypocritical.  If that’s the case, please don’t lecture us righties about being judgemental again.

            1. ..religious folks understood the separation of church and state.  “No one” was trying to set up a theocracy.  One would have to be blind to what’s gone on with politicians, religious leaders, blogs, letters to the editor, to not see that there are many conservative Christians who would LOVE to see a theocracy.  THEIR sect, of course. 

              I do not worry about Mitt doing so any more than Kennedy.  Pat Robertson would have done his best if he had gotten elected.  So would this Amy.

              I understand what you say about the voters of her area and wanting to know more background info.  Yes, there will be those who read her page and get a big ole woody.

              My judgement of her is not the she is religious and Republican, but her strait jacketed dogma which has no place in a diverse (I hate that word, but true) society. I mean, really, she puts out a thousand words on her faith and inaccurate historical take on things on her home page and doesn’t even touch on what she would do as commissioner.  It should be on a sub-page for both web and election reasons. 

              She should run as Elder of her church……..oh yeah, she’s a woman, isn’t she?

            2. since I didn’t judge her for being a religious Republican, or accuse her of wanting to set up a theocracy (although a case can be made of the religious right as a whole wanting that – they don’t have to say it to have it be their goal).

              I understand EPC well enough. I know that it’s the epicenter of the hard right social conservative movement in America. I know that many of the voters there would get the warm fuzzies reading her page.

              I do think that it says a lot about Lathen’s regard for the voters that she chooses to discuss those sort of things rather than the substantive issues she’ll face if she unseats Bruce. Not that it’s bad strategy; I’d bet most voters in the USA are more up on these kinds of things than they are on their local issues, especially those addressed by bodies like the county commission. I’m sure that whoever represents Manitou Springs on the county commission scored points (or could have) by talking about the Iraq War. But couldn’t have Lathen addressed the issues a bit more? That’s all I’m getting at.

              In my first paragraph, I was pointing out that practicing religion isn’t a good gauge for measuring one’s principles.

              I’ll go read that article now.

              1. I found more substantive stuff here and here. So I’ll humbly take back what I said about Lathen not addressing issues. (It’s still pretty broad stuff, more philosophical and less focus on actual topics likely to be on the commission’s agenda, but it’s par for the course for any campaign website.)

              2. Gee, you must have missed the page on Amy’s website where she discusses water, taxes, immigration, and business climate – all issues that impact her constiuents in El Paso County.

                    1. That it is very early in the campaign.  Please keep in mind that it is pretty unrealistic to have in depth policy proposals at this point.  We are a long way out, and it’s not like she’s running for president. 

                      But if you really want to see a lack of substance, you could always take a look at DB’s site.

              3. I wasn’t directed at you personally.

                But I have to say that I was surprised by how quickly people freaked out over the fact that she’s a religous conservative….

                1. I, for one, and judging from the response here, a vast majority of opsters here would under no circumstances vote for anyone who has openly associated with James Dobson.

                  You know, Osama bin Laden is a religious conservative too….I wouldn’t vote for him either.

                  1. You have a deep intellect….comparing Dobson and Bin Laden because both are religous.

                    Since Stalin was non-religous, I’m betting you’d vote for him.

                    Pretty stupid assumption, right?

                    1. I’m a Christian and am deeply religious. Unlike Stalin, Dobson and bin Laden, I oppose persecuting people based upon their faith (or lack of faith). I am a liberal Christian, so I would be more in tune with the Rev. Martin Luther King than I would with either Dobson or bin Laden and the other conservative religious fanatics who are intent on forcing their religious beliefs on others.

                2. Well, Haners, looks like your blogger shot at Doug Bruce backfired! 🙂 Still, an interesting discussion and you are right: the Bible-thumping makes her a more viable candidate in that district.

                  1. How so?  I don’t follow you on that one.  Look at the poll, buddy.  How many said they would vote for him?  How many said they wouldn’t?  I don’t exactly see people praising him here, do you?

                    3. How about a poll with the two of them facing off and a third choice of “neither of these two nutballs”.

                      I’m betting that the third choice would win in a landslide…

                    4. Trust me, I’m not trying to be a prick here, but how would you work in a thrid choice to “If you could, would you vote for Doug Bruce?”  It’s a yes or no question. 

                    5. you just apparently cannot read, or are reading the post with a pre-disposed response (republicans tend to do that as evidenced by our current involvement in Iraq).

                      Allow me to re-post my comment:

                      “How about a poll with the two of them facing off and a third choice of ‘neither of these two nutballs’.”

                      As anyone can plainly see, I am proposing a completely different poll, not merely a modification to the existing poll with a third response choice.

        5. Look, you have pedophile catholic priest/bishops out there.  You have priests that get a GF pregnant and then help them to obtain an abortion. You have priests that speak out against gays and are busy doing guys when they get the chance. And yet, we consider priest religious and living the most religion.

          I have known numerous ppl who attend church religiously and do not have a lick of belief in God. Just because you obey what a man told you to do, is not the same thing as believing in God. Some of the most spiritual (as in believers in God/Christ and follow Christ’s path) ppl that I have known, are those that attend very little church . They have pointed out the hypocrisy of many of today’s churches.

          So saying that she attends church does not make me believe in her.

  8. I’ll take a known and consistent crazy any day over Amy Latham.  She managed Newsome’s campaign for DA and although he won, there were many dirty tactics against Dan May traced back to her hand.  She was also a paid staffer for Jeff Crank’s campaign for CD5.  I’ve attended club meetings where she has launched into rabid gossip without so much of a care of who she could be hurting.  Mostly, this was done to oust a precinct person in order to get her person in place. She feels she is “connected” to only those that matter in El Paso County. 

    Oh and hey Bernie, nice to see you posting since you lost your job on city council. 

  9. Wow! This has been fun to read and now the real bitterness comes out.  I can only imagine which one of the still bitter, living in dream land Dan May and Doug Lamborn supporters you must be, Brownstain. 

    First of all, try getting her name spelled correctly.  If you are so familiar with her so-called dirty tactics, then I would guess you would be able to put a couple of those brain cells of yours together to know her actual name. 

    Secondly, I’ve known Amy for years and all of you can theorize about her bible-thumping, theocratic, extreme views all you want, but I have never known a more honest, decent, intelligent person in politics – ever.  I have never known her to gossip or lie and although I don’t agree with on every issue, she is one of the most level-headed people I know and she has supporters on both sides of the isle.

    I’m glad some of you finally read a little further to realize that she absolutely discusses county issues on her website.  You should also keep in mind that if the people of her district are fortunate and smart enough to elect her, she won’t take office until the beginning of 2009.  Do you expect her to grab her crystal ball and tell you how she’ll vote on every land use issue that she predicts will arrive on her desk 20 months from now? 

    People, get over the fact that she may not agree with you on everything.  And then quit attacking her for her beliefs just because they are not yours.  This woman is unique and will bring better leadership to the commission board than has been there in years.

    1. Do you expect her to grab her crystal ball and tell you how she’ll vote on every land use issue that she predicts will arrive on her desk 20 months from now?

      No, but I expect to get a better idea of why she wants to be county commissioner than she’s giving. I suppose we’ll have to wait for the debates to get that.

      1. “No, but I expect to get a better idea of why she wants to be county commissioner than she’s giving. I suppose we’ll have to wait for the debates to get that. ”

        She just announced.  She’s talking about some issues (water, development), but you can’t expect someone who just announced to have every “t” crossed and “i” dotted when it comes to policy. 

    1. Except I wasn’t making claims about being a perfect speller as you were claiming to know so much about a candidate whose name you cannot spell.  Me thinks you are a liar and a bitter one at that.  Ask any one of the hundreds of volunteers that Amy has worked with over the years and they will tell you you’re a liar as well.

      Get ready for real leadership and representation for a change in El Paso County.

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