Colorado Californicated

Tuesday was a pretty good night for the nation, but a bad night for a blue Colorado still in love with Obama

I admit it, I'm heartbroken over Ken Buck's loss to hateful serial slanderer Michael Bennet.  Ken's mistake was to actually engage citizens in thoughtful conversation, leaving himself open to the inevitable gaffe, as well as soundbite snippets spun out of context by leftwing propagandists.


Democrat Michael Bennet ran a dirty campaign and won ugly, keeping us with two liberal senators.  His election was a victory for fear and smear.  Hiding out and using outside interests to broadcast lies about your opponent worked for him.  Politicians learn quickly, so we will sadly be seeing more of that in future Colorado campaigns.

It wasn't all bad though.  The GOP took back the State House and closed the gap to two in the Senate.  We also repudiated George Soros's effort to buy our Attorney General and Secretary of State for the Dems.  GOP candidates took both.   

Californication
Coloradans used to complain about the crazy Texas drivers, but for the past 15 years or so our complaints have been aimed at the Californication of our state.

Our new governor, John cHickenlooper, is an Obama fanboy.  He gushed all over enviro-socialist Van Jones, calling him a rock star, and the liberals fleeing the mess they made in California voted for him en mass.  We are slowly becoming California East.  How long before I need some special permit to buy shotgun shells?


A Colorado commenter at the site BigPeace.com summed it all up...

Prof_Turgeson
Colorado's drift from a society of relatively self-sufficient entrepreneurs, fiercely independent individualists, and productive citizens towards an increasingly liberal position began when its rugged beauty was opened up to all by those same original entrepreneurs.

The mountain resorts of Vail, Aspen, Beaver Creek, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Steamboat, Winter Park, Arapaho Basin, Keystone, Crested Butte, Telluride, Glenwood Springs, and so many others began with entrepreneurs. What followed were the pleasure-seekers, the rent-seekers, and eventually the looters.
[...]
The City and County of Boulder (rather the People's Republic of Boulder) slapped a building moratorium on new housing. The result was a massively distorted real estate market with housing prices skyrocketing, long-time, middle class residents becoming increasingly unable to pay their property taxes, and the only people able to afford housing became the highly-paid professors at the University of Colorado, the trust-funders who wanted to live like Mork and Mindy, and the high tech execs whose companies in the area were booming. The vast majority of the rest were SOL.

The once-self-sufficient majority had been replaced by those who drift into such locales seeking to feel good about the political correctness of their surroundings, and they bred and multiplied to the point that much of the state is now under the control of sort of a junior varsity version of those who Californicated the Golden State.

You can read the original piece that spurred these excellent comments at BigPeace.com.

On a positive note, the GOP made historic gains in state houses all across the nation...

The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates that Democrats had the worst night in state legislative seats since 1928. With races outstanding in New York, Washington and Oregon, Republicans have flipped at least 14 chambers, and have unified control of 25 state legislatures. They have picked up over five hundred state legislative seats, including over 100 in New Hampshire alone.

This hurts Democrats in two ways. First, it wipes out the prospective farm team for future runs for Congress and statewide office.

But more importantly, it allows a party to control the decennial redistricting. 

 Not only have we kicked over the Democrat Old Guard, we have seized the future.  Want to see conservatism in action?  Look to the states.

Random Political Notes from Out West

Well, I bubbled in my ballot last night while chugging some red wine and listening to 70's music.  The Quiet Magpie's post on Suzi Quatro singing Stumblin' In got my nostalgia going.  Seems I wasn't the only one in love with her as a kid.  She's all mine, Magpie!  Back off!

I didn't vote straight Republican this time, thanks to GOP failure for Governor Dan Maes. The failed tea party candidate is sinking below 10% in the polls but refuses to get out, hurting Tom Tancredo's chances to beat Van Jones fanboy John Chickenlooper, who is mayor of the sanctuary city of Denver.

Got a Spanish language flyer in the mail today asking if we were voting and wanting us to fill the card out and send it back.  Another Hispanic family on the block was the only other house that got one, so the libs are targeting Latinos who have strayed from the liberal plantation...

The Department of Health and Human Services notified us someone will be coming around to question us about who-the-hell-knows-what.  They bribed us with $30 of taxpayer money for each person in the house who responds.  They'll be getting a big faceful of front door when they come knockin' at Casa de Silverfiddle.

We actually have a man named Doc Holiday running for county sheriff.  Some cat named Bob Bux is running for coroner unopposed.  He should be running for treasurer...

Tom Tancredo Can Win This Thing! 

Tancredo is now tied with Obama of the Rockes, John cHickenlooper in the race of Governor of Colorado!

Tom Tancredo, Great American and a Great Coloradan, is leading in polling among the state's Hispanics, who are tired of illegal immigrants who get drunk and kill people giving all Hispanics a bad name. Tom is a Facebook friend of mine.  Stop by and post some words of encouragement on his wall!

Teabagged: The Downside of Dark Horses

Dan Maes has Teabagged Colorado

Dan Maes has gone from tea party hero to Democrat-boosting zero.  He is damaged goods, but he refused to back out by last Friday's deadline, so Tom Tancredo stays in also, and Obama bootlicker John Hickenlooper will be the next Colorado Governor without ever having to answer a single question about his own Obamabot progressivism and contribution to anti-American causes. 


Dan Maes:  From Hero to Zero
Dan Maes was the tea party favorite.  But then came the record fine he paid for breaking campaign finance rules (This guy is supposed to be a successful businessman?)  Next came the messy income tax questions he "answered" by turning records over to a friendly local paper who read over them and told us what they wanted to tell us about them.  He billed himself as Meg Whitman without the skirt, but was revealed to be just another small (and not very successful) businessman and realtor.

The latest in his string of serial embellishments had him claiming he had done undercover work for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.  Actually, he was a policeman in Liberal, where he eventually got fired.  This on the heels of the Freda Poundstone check controversy.

If he were to handle himself this way as governor, our state would be in big trouble.

How Did This Happen?
The Colorado GOP millionaire machine gets the most blame.  They put their millions on shifty Scott McInnis, driving every experienced and credible candidate out of the race.  Give Maes credit for guts:  He fought the system and beat it, with the help of McInnis's plagiarism and subsequent weaseling when caught.

What Have We Learned?
First, big money thwarts the will of the people by narrowing our choices.  Dan Maes (and Ken Buck) showed that the will of the people can overcome the will of the Anschutz and the Coors.  We, and they, should keep this in mind in the future.

Due diligence and proper vetting must be done before investing time and money into a candidate.  Unless the person is a prominent businessperson or a former Army general with a known track record, this needs to be done.   

A championship title fight is no place for an inexperienced amateur.  Dan Maes has not even been a school board member, and he wants to run for governor?  Is he crazy?  Are we crazy?  This is what happens when people with no experience enter the system too high up and we the people fail to provide a sanity check.

Caught Between the Grass Roots and The Establishment

We're screwed. The Colorado GOP has managed to screw up the governor’s race again.

The Democrats are running John Hickenlooper (Colorado's own Barack Obama), an ultra-liberal flyweight who could have been beaten, according to polling. Not anymore. Republicans have shot themselves in both feet.

The Big Money Establishment people threw their cash behind Scott McInnis early, pretty much scaring off other well-known candidates who could have won.

Up from the grass roots grew unknowns Cleve Tidwell and Dan Maes fighting for the independent-minded tea party vote. Maes won it, and the Caucus process produced grassroots candidate Dan Maes vs. establishment man Scott McInnis.

A Colorado Catastrophe


Maes got fined for campaign finance violations, opening up a whole can of worms concerning his past, his business experience, and whether he accurately stated his qualifications to be governor. He is a real estate agent, but claims executive experience. He hoped releasing his tax records would clear everything up, but he only released them to one friendly newspaper, and only for their staff to look at them and write about them. No independent verification, which just makes it all look fishier.


Meanwhile, Scott McInnis is charged with plagiarism over a water rights article he wrote years ago for the Conservative Hasan Foundation.  McInnis perfidiously tried to blame his "research assistant," who was really Rolly Fisher, a well-respected engineer and Colorado Water conservation expert.

Turns out Fisher was not his research assistant, but probably just pushed some documents his way to him to help him out. The McInnis campaign drafted a letter of apology for Mr. Fisher to sign, and he rightly told them to stuff it, publicly, through the press. As if this is not unseemly enough, the press is also sniffing around the fact that the Hasan Foundation paid McInnis $300,000 as a research fellow... For what?

Result:  Another Liberal Governor
So here we are, caught between a grass roots cipher and a plagiarizing establishment schmuck, with Hickenlooper dodging the press (he has his own issues) while he skips gaily along to the Governor’s Mansion, unhindered by a liberal press.

Have We Learned Anything?
I’m done writing now, and I can’t find a moral to this story. I don’t know what they could have done to avoid this. How do you stop backdoor shenanigans by the establishment fat cats?

Anyway, McInnis was a viable candidate before this broke. He was well-known, warts and all, and probably would have beaten Howdy Doody Hickenlooper.

Grass Roots is not always Good
Dan Maes is not a bad guy, but he’s never been tested in political battle and he’s never had to defend his record. Unless we’re talking an Army general or a business-person of Carly Fiorina or Meg Whitman caliber, a party should not stake its gubernatorial fortunes to such an amateur grass-roots candidate.


Professional Politician is not always Bad
All politicians are not bums. Reagan was a two-term Governor of California, and Jim DeMint and Paul Ryan are two seasoned politicians who merit perpetual reelection. Even phenom Sara Palin worked her way up from school board to mayor to state energy board.


We would all do well to drop the hero worship and quick embrace of a candidate. Instead, we should heed the advice of John the Apostle and “Test the spirits.”

Mile High Miscarriage of Justice

If this don’t make your blood boil, I don’t know what will...

WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. - Admitted thieves are going free, while an elderly Wheat Ridge man is facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars, all, he says, for trying to defend his property and his life. (Fox 31 - Denver)

Two illegal immigrants (who had been arrested and released various times in Denver) tried to steal an 82 year-old man’s flatbed trailer and he shot one of the slimeballs as they were getting away. What did the Jefferson County DA do? He let the immigrants go and charged the armed citizen with four counts of attempted murder. 

This is no surprise to Coloradans. We are a fairly libertarian state suffering a liberal red rash running from Denver, through the People’s Republic of Boulder and up to Fort Collins.

** LATE BREAKING UPDATE! ** 
ICE agents arrested both illegal scumbags and are holding them on a $100,000 bond!  Kudos to local morning talk jock Peter Boyles.  Rumor has it Bill O'Reilly may pick up the story.  All that's left is for Jefferson County DA Scott Storey to climb down and admit what a gross injustice his office has inflicted on the 82 year old Robert Wallace.  

"Even if we want to, we can't just go shoot someone in our front yard"

That's what the nattering nanny says on the 9 News video.  I say Bull!  Notice the progressive use of "we can't just..."  Who says?  Defending one's property is a natural right of free people.  If more scumbag robbers were shot, there would be less robberies.     

Denver has been a de facto sanctuary city for years

When Governor Bill Ritter was DA, he routinely caught and released illegal immigrant criminals, freeing them up to drive drunk, rape and kill. When confronted with the death and destruction he had caused, he reached for the liberal playbook and blamed “the system.”

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, “The Looper,” denies the sanctuary city charge, but ask anyone who lives there, where East Colfax now looks like Little Jalisco. The Looper wants to be our next governor, but the little Howdy Doody got caught gushing over Van Jones like a lovesick teen...

Earth to Little Looper!  Colorado is an energy industry state!