June 12, 2008 06:48 PM UTC

Jared Polis and the Art of Self-Flagellation

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: The audio of Polis’s appearance is up. Neither Polis nor talk show host Jay Marvin are likely to remember this as their finest hour, but only one of them is running for Congress.

Say this for Jared Polis – the man has an incredible talent for self-flagellation.

After reportedly confronting a producer of The Jay Marvin Show yesterday, which generated some unwanted press, Polis appeared on the radio show this morning and didn’t exactly distinguish himself. Marvin repeatedly asked Polis to apologize to his producer for yesterday’s confrontation, but Polis refused to do so and instead continually changed the topic.

Look, we don’t know if Marvin or Polis is in the right here, but it doesn’t really matter. As a candidate for political office, you don’t pick a fight with the media, and if you do, you apologize when given the opportunity. Voters are much more apt to forgive and forget if a politician apologizes sincerely, but instead of taking that route, Polis came off sounding like the bully he was portrayed to be.

It’s one thing to hold your ground and refuse to apologize for something that is truly important. But this was not a stand Polis needed to take. The smart play here was to apologize and move on – really, that choice was so obvious that it’s bizarre Polis chose any other route. But that’s what makes him the strange and confounding candidate that he is; in retrospect, perhaps this really was the only option that made sense for him.