Lawsuits and investigations have been in process since before the 2012 election. On December 14, a local attorney delivered to the local AG, a complaint alleging that Mesa County’s Clerk and Recorder should be investigated for criminal activity. What follows after the break is the letter that was hand delivered to the AG, and forwarded to me by the attorney. I removed the letter writer’s address and phone number, but his E-mail contact information is included. There is a citizen’s group mentioned in the complaint–I was present at that meeting.
HD-9 Republican Celeste Gamache has always been a bit of a novel candidate. A former JAG officer and veteran of two tours in Afghanistan, Gamache is generally regarded as a smart, articulate, and up-and-coming community leader. In any other district, her resume combined with a smart campaign would make her a serious contender for the State House. Denver’s HD-9, however, leans so far to the left ideologically and in terms of registration that Gamache hasn’t been the beneficiary of Republican efforts to keep the speaker’s gavel — her defeat at the hands of Democrat Paul Rosenthal is a foregone conclusion.
Just because Gamache has the potential to be a great candidate, however, doesn’t mean that she knows what she’s doing. Take, for example, the campaign commercial she released on the web a few months ago. That is to say we think it’s a campaign commercial and not Gamache’s entry to an 80’s video dating service.
Seriously, was this thing filmed and edited in 1987? That tacky synth music at the beginning is a nice touch, as are the words that soar across the screen. Jobs, taxes, seniors: If this is a dating video, we’re not sure those interests would earn Gamache much attention. And is that the Papyrus font? Woah, dude, sleek.
Then, for whatever reason, Gamache appears in a little box surrounded by a neon green background. Here’s a piece of advice for anybody ever making a commercial, political or otherwise: Do not use neon colors. In hindsight, they were barely cool in the 80s and they’re certainly not cool now.
Surrounded by her campaign logo, her website url, and a cell phone number, it’s almost impossible not to mistake Gamache’s spiel for a dating video. She introduces herself as “running for state representative in House District 9,” but it’s just as easy to imagine Gamache saying that she’s “looking for a life partner who she can talk to deep into the night and have fun with.”
We’re not sure why, exactly, Gamache decided to produce this video. Maybe she has a nephew, or more likely, a “tech-savvy uncle” with an old camcorder, who offered to make her a really slick campaign advertisement. Voters aren’t going to see it, which in this case is probably a good thing, but maybe Gamache thought that using innovative new technologies like the YouTubes would get the youth on her side.
In her defense, Gamache’s 84 year old campaign manager probably thought this was a really groundbreaking use of cutting-edge technology. It certainly was when she was in her fifties!
Danny Stroud, former Chairman of the Republican Party of Denver who in 2010 gave State Representative Jeanne Labuda a run for her money, has a little bit of unexpected company in his bid to take on Congresswoman Diana DeGette.
Former Denver Republican Party Chairman Danny Stroud is a well-known personality in the 1st Congressional District who is clamoring for a chance to take on incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, but a truck driving political neophyte may deny him the opportunity.
Stroud’s primary opponent, 61 year-old Denver resident Richard Murphy, is virtually unknown in Colorado politics, so much so that Colorado Republican Party Chairman Ryan Call had to call Stroud looking for the trucker’s phone number.
Although Stroud – a Denver businessman who just turned 59 – still won the top line at the CD 1 nominating assembly on April 13 with 81 votes, or 56 percent, Murphy’s candidacy was buoyed by a surprise showing of Ron Paul supporters who secured his place on the ballot with 46 votes, amounting to 44 percent.
It’s as surprising to Stroud as it is to many observers, of course, that there’s a Republican primary in CD-1 at all. Winning the Republican nomination to challenge DeGette essentially wins you the opportunity to become another electoral loser whose name is tossed into the dustbin of history. As Conarck points out, DeGette’s district overwhelmingly favors the incumbent: there are two registered Democrats for every Republican. In fact, the only way a Republican could win the Denver seat is if he or she turned out every Republican voter and won the vote of every single unaffiliated voter.
The inevitability of defeat, then, is what makes Stroud’s take on Murphy’s candidacy so confusing:
Referring to the fact that Murphy is often trucking back and forth across the country, Stroud dismissed the possibility that he could potentially beat DeGette, saying that running for Congress wasn’t a “part time job.”
“Here’s the deal. If somebody’s going to beat DeGette, they have to be motivated to beat DeGette. They can’t just be motivated to beat me,” Stroud said. “The way things are going in politics, it’s conceivable he could win the primary, but he can’t beat DeGette. I’m the only one that can beat DeGette.”
It’s easy to understand why Stroud would object to and question the candidacy of the interloper Murphy. But by framing his primary opponent’s campaign as leading to certain defeat at the hands of DeGette makes Stroud look delusional. Stroud, of course, should never openly admit that he can’t win, but by criticizing Murphy’s poor odds against the incumbent, Stroud turns the camera back on his own chance at winning the seat. He may think that he’s “the only one that can beat DeGette,” but he can’t, and by parroting his electability to win the Republican primary, Stroud makes his eventual loss in the general election that much more excruciating.
We’ve always enjoyed reading former City Councilman Doug Linkhart‘s e-mail newsletters if for no other reason than they’re such an embodiment of Doug Linkhart himself. They’ve always been goofy, easy reads that try to take the dullness out of some aspects of city government. Rife with exclamation marks and saturated with with the e-mail writing style of a technologically overzealous grandparent, Linkhart’s e-mails always did a moderately entertaining job of explaining, say, how to deal with graffiti in your neighborhood and what upcoming community invents the Councilman would like you to attend.
Of course, because they were such friendly, good-natured updates on what Doug was doing on City Council, we never read them as comprehensively as the former Councilman would’ve liked us to. That said, in announcing his transition out of office in a newsletter dated July 13, one particular passage caught our eye:
It’s been great to be of service to you for the past eight years. As of press-time I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing next. I am confident that my email address, Doug.Linkhart@Denvergov.org, will stay the same, though my title and phone number will change. Please stay in touch!
Folks, this classic off-the-cuff comment from Linkhart was a not-so-subtle revelation that Doug expected to find a job in the Hancock administration after he left Council. After all, why shouldn’t he? Linkhart’s early endorsement of now-Mayor Hancock was important in getting Michael elected. Could Hancock have won it without Linkhart’s help? More than likely. But Linkhart endorsed Hancock and lent him a not inconsiderable number of supporters, and that never hurts in an election as contested as this year’s was.
So it’s not too strange that Linkhart pretty much admitted that he’d be sticking around in City Government. What is odd, however, is that no public announcement has been made of Linkhart joining the Hancock team. It’s been more than two weeks since Doug ever-so-coyly told his subscribers that he’d still be involved with the city. Two weeks on, and for all we know, Linkhart is still out in the cold (or the heat, as it may be).
We’ve heard from a few sources that there’s a seat for Linkhart at Hancock’s table. The real question, then, is what’s the hold-up?
Of course, this isn’t the first time the Hancock administration has been rather dawdling in its announcements of staff and cabinet appointments. We’re sure it won’t be the last, either. But that’s not abnormal for a transition period between one administration and another.
Former Denver Post political reporter Justin Wingerter, now writing for BusinessDen, brings us up to speed on a lawsuit pending against talk show host, Republican National Committee member, and attorney for the Colorado Republican Party Randy Corporon. Corporon, as our readers know, is one of the state’s most strident election conspiracy theorists, and the defendant […]
The 118th Congress seems destined to go down in history as one of the least productive two-year periods in decades…which leads to the obvious question of what this will mean in the 2024 election cycle. Much of this dysfunction has to do with the ridiculous antics in the House of Representatives, which Republicans have turned […]
(She don’t need you anymore — Promoted by Colorado Pols) Karin Zeitvogel is a co-author of this article — In late November, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) called Social Security Administration (SSA) staff the equivalent of ne’er-do-well couch-potatoes as she raked a senior Social Security Administration official across the coals during a House Oversight Committee hearing. […]
Quickly emerging as the go-to freshman Republican state lawmaker for self-immolating culture war legislation that Republicans would steer clear of had they any sense, Rep. Scott “There Is No” Bottoms, the prime sponsor of a “Personhood”-style abortion ban headed for the circular file in our Democratic-controlled Colorado General Assembly, has introduced another anti-abortion bill the […]
denverpost · Listen: Lauren Boebert’s neighbors’ 911 calls describe threats, husband running over mailbox [mantra-pullquote align=”right” textalign=”left” width=”50%”]“There’s about to be some s— going down here,” the second neighbor told dispatchers. “It’s Lauren Boebert’s jackass husband, Jayson Boebert.”[/mantra-pullquote] As the Denver Post’s Conrad Swanson reports–have you ever had the pleasure of neighbors on your block […]
(Promoted by Colorado Pols) Front Range developer Tim Walsh, who is running for state senate in Jefferson County, promises to “keep politics out of the classroom,” but he’s also funding a right-wing group with the opposite goal: teaching a conservative Christian version of American history to young people. In December 2020, Walsh and his wife […]
