Colorado Pols Posts

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardner has his talking points on energy down pat. It’s total BS, of course, but he’s got great delivery. Who cares if his jobs statistic suggests that a ban on fracking — which isn't even on the ballot — would kill 120,000 jobs overnight? Especially if that number relies on the belief that a ban would result in the closing of every gas station in Colorado?

With so many states inexorably marching towards a wild west-style gun funland, it's nice to see some reasonable curbs on gun ownership upheld by the court. In a ruling Thursday, a Colorado judge said that both background checks and limits on bullets in magazines are not unreasonable burdens.

Cory Gardner, the Colorado Rep who has a history of promoting bad women's health policy, is trying to hide his position on a personhood bill basically banning abortion. Planned Parenthood, in a new ad, isn't having any of it.

It's no secret that State Rep. Cory Gardner has a problem with the personhood issue. His campaign for U.S. Senate recognized the trouble almost immediately — the issue has been repeatedly crushed at the polls in Colorado — and made a somewhat surprise move in March to announce that Gardner has flipped (sort of) on his support for of the notion that a U.S. citizen with full legal rights is created BEFORE conception. Because that will make abortion disappear forever. Unfortunately for Gardner, trying to remove the personhood label has proved much more difficult.

With same-sex marriage bans being ruled unconstitutional across the nation in rapid succession, Republican Colorado Attorney General John Suthers' stubborn insistence on defending Amendment 43, the same-sex marriage ban in the Colorado constitution, is becoming much harder to defend politically. Of course, that only means he's doubling down on those efforts.

The first of several voter fraud cases in Colorado has been dropped. The right wing's insistence that voter fraud is a problem keeps getting undermined by the facts, and Sec of State Scott Gessler's vendetta seems to be losing steam.

The Republican base (increasingly to scale).

A great analytical piece from Politico's Todd Purdum this weekend makes points that observers of Colorado politics should keep in mind, and have been borne out by Colorado's recent political history as we'll explain:

It’s the

The Log Cabin Republicans are attacking Colorado Democratic Representative Jared Polis ostensibly over energy policy. But look a little closer and the reason seems – weirdly – to be more about his orientation than any sort of legislation.

Just a short time after former presidential candidate Mitt Romney endorsed former congressman Bob Beauprez in the race for Colorado governor, another hot-shot GOP contender threw his considerable (primary) weight behind the man known as Both Ways Bob: Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Of course, when it comes to the general election, that might not actually be a good thing.

Colorado Govern John Hickenlooper is pushing back hard against grassroots efforts to curb the oil and gas industry's push to drill more all over the state. Local town and city governments are fighting to retain control over the industry's incursions onto their backyards, threatening their health and raising many other safety concerns.

Republicans are exploiting the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi for – you guessed it – campaign contributions. Seems the non-scandal is really useful at getting the frothed-up right wing base to open their checkbooks.

An anti-Obamacare hearing ended in disarray when Republicans didn't hear the answers they were fishing for. Right wing House members left the committee hearing early, leaving the floor open for Democrats to celebrate Obama's signature achievement without any Republican response.

Sitting Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper is breaking all sorts of fundraising records in his reelection efforts against Republican Bob Beauprez. "More than two-thirds of those who contributed were grassroots donors who gave less than $150," the Denver Post reports.

Quinnipiac University released another new batch of poll results from Colorado today, outlining how voters in the state feel about legalizing marijuana and same-sex marriage. According to the poll, voters strongly believe that legalizing marijuana has been good for Colorado (52-38 percent). Of particular note are the numbers from voters 18 to 29 years old, of whom a whopping 81 percent back same-sex marriage.

Both with efforts and money, Carol Perry has been a staunch ally in the conservative cause — everything from gun control to rallying like-minded voters. Now, she's being marched out by Americans for Prosperity as the poster of Obamacare victims. Considering the source (and the source of the source) can we really consider Perry's story to be reliable?

​Rep. Mike Coffman has spent a great deal of time in recent months "reaching out" to the many ethnic groups in the new Sixth Congressional District, working hard to burnish his credentials with Asian and African immigrants in addition to his now-famous reversals on immigration policy – all directly intended to appease the large percentage of immigrant and ethnic minority voters in his district. His tune was a little different just three years ago.

The old guard of the Colorado GOP has a problem – their track record. As the state becomes more moderate, and redistricting makes races more competitive, candidates have struggled to seem authentic when flip-flopping from extreme positions on abortion and other wedge issues.

Republicans have found a candidate to run for House District 35, an open seat being vacated by term-limited Democratic Rep. Cherylin Peniston. We don't know much about HD-35 candidate Maria Weese, but what we do know comes from her Facebook page: Racially charged and offensive comparative jokes about President Obama and South African President Nelson Mandela.

A fascinating week in Colorado politics has put the spotlight back on "personhood" — legal language used to ban abortion by declaring that human life begins with egg fertilization — and the implausibility for Republicans seeking election to stand on either side of the issue.

Tax revenue from Colorado's newly landscape of legalized marijuana is estimated to far surpass the original estimate of $67 million. With new estimates hovering around $107 million in the law's first year, state lawmakers are faced with difficult choices to dance around laws designed to protect tax payers.