August 19, 2016 12:03 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (August 19)

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Rio Olympics come to a close this weekend. It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of a visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show.

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► The Get More Smarter Show is back today, featuring an extended interview with Congressman Ed Perlmutter (D-Jefferson County). Watch the interview and find out if Rep. Perlmutter will be going to Mars (no, really).

► Paul Manafort has resigned as campaign chairman for Donald Trump’s Presidential bid, just two days after Trump made significant leadership changes at the top of his organization that appeared to leave Manafort on the bench. As Chris Cillizza writes for “The Fix,” Manafort’s departure confirms the obvious:

Campaigns never, ever like to admit they are making a change as a result of problems within their operation. It shows weakness, they theorize, and weakness is bad when you are trying to get someone elected president of the United States.

Which brings me to this week and the insistence by everyone affiliated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign that the addition of Breitbart News boss Stephen Bannon and the elevation of pollster KellyAnne Conway to the two top jobs within the organization was DEFINITELY not a shake-up.

Conway said Wednesday that calling it a shake-up was a misnomer. Rather, she said, this was an effort to “expand the senior team that allows us to meet the needs,” adding: “I think Paul Manafort as chairman and Rick Gates as deputy have done a phenomenal job building our campaign over last five or six months to put it in a competitive place going into the fall. So I look forward to continuing to work with both of them.”

Or not.

On the plus side, perhaps we have seen the last of Trump legal counsel Michael Cohen making a fool of himself answering questions on TV.

► Meanwhile, Trump expressed something similar to actual remorse in comments Thursday in Charlotte. Politico ponders the question of whether or not this signals an actual shift for Trump, or just an out-of-character blip on the radar:

The Republican nominee on Thursday night delivered one of his most surprising speeches yet, expressing “regret” if his past inflammatory rhetoric had caused personal pain. It was a stunning statement coming from a candidate who has said “to apologize for me is very difficult” and that his last sorry was “too many years ago to remember.”…

…But this isn’t the first time Trump has been reeled in only to return to his explosive ways. Following the firing of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and the elevation of Manafort in June, Trump delivered a scripted and targeted speech on the stakes of the election and the importance of defeating Clinton…

…The pivot didn’t stick, however, as Trump made a series of inflammatory statements after the convention that sent his poll numbers into free fall.

If you’re holding your breath…you should probably stop.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Recent polling numbers in Colorado show Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson crushing Republican Donald Trump among voters in the 18-34 age group. Johnson has no chance of actually winning in Colorado, but the numbers are another interesting look at the troubles facing Trump and Republicans.

► The November election is just 80 days away, and Trump’s campaign is finally getting around to running television ads in key states. Colorado is not on the list for the initial ad buys, however.

► Colorado Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) is hosting a fundraiser for fellow Republican Darryl Glenn, the El Paso County Commissioner seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet this fall. As John Frank writes for the Denver Post:

The Republican lawmaker’s leadership PAC will host a fundraiser Wednesday for Glenn’s U.S. Senate campaign at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver. Gardner is the event’s “special guest.”

The top donors are expected to donate $2,700 and the minimum contribution to attend is $250, according to an invite.

Gardner endorsed Glenn soon after the El Paso County commissioner won the party’s five-way primary and promised to support his bid. He is a notable supporter given Glenn’s trouble drawing huge support from the party establishment.

We’ll be interested to see what kind of support Gardner is able to attract for Glenn next week. Writing a check to Glenn’s campaign is the political equivalent of burning your money. Polls continue to show Bennet leading Glenn by at least 15 points.

► If you aren’t interested in donating to Darryl Glenn’s dumpster fire of a campaign, you can always save your dough for a chance to meet a horse. 

► Air quality in Colorado is absolutely being harmed by oil and gas production. The oil and gas industry, meanwhile, continues to insist that any harmful gases are just being expelled by the earth naturally.

► Colorado Springs was apparently briefly home to a Libertarian Presidential candidate. As the Denver Post reports, the former candidate has some other problems to deal with right now:

Colorado Springs businessman Steven E. Kerbel mounted a short-lived campaign for president last year under the Libertarian banner after being found in violation of state securities regulations.

“Most people would go in the corner and die. I ran for president. I am a fighter,” said Kerbel, who dropped his presidential bid in March to endorse Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who is polling surprisingly strong numbers in Colorado against Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

A Denver district court on Aug. 11 ordered Kerbel and his business, Rio National Insurance Services, to repay investors $790,719.45 still due them after Kerbel failed to comply with an agreement he signed with the Colorado Division of Securities in November 2014…

…Kerbel, 54, has kept his campaign website up, hoping he can resolve his legal troubles and stage a run for a lower national or state office with the party. He has moved to Denver and is looking to restart his life.

Yeah, good luck with that.

► At Least a Trump Surrogate Didn’t Threaten to Shoot You in the Head.

► An anti-fracking group is filing a complaint with the State of Colorado.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Ken Starr, the attorney who gained infamy for his relentless — and fruitless — pursuit of charges against then-President Bill Clinton, is officially unemployed. Starr is resigning his post as a law school professor at Baylor University just a few months after being removed as President and Chancellor at Baylor; Starr lost his position at the top of the school’s food chain in the wake of scandals regarding the cover up of sexual assault charges related to the Baylor football program.

► A new solar farm near Colorado Springs will provide electricity to some 3,000 homes in the area. 

ICYMI

► The Denver Broncos host their first home game of the 2016 season on Saturday. The Broncos face off against the San Francisco 49ers in Preseason game #2.

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