October 14, 2009 10:23 PM UTC

Boy Who Cried Wolf: Airplane Passenger Edition

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• by: Colorado Pols

By now the Republican “strategy” to return to power in Colorado has become pretty clear. They are going to complain, say ‘no’ to everything they can, and complain some more. But is this really the way back?

As The Denver Post reports:

As the economic downturn gripped Colorado, Gov. Bill Ritter has reduced his use of state planes, though one Republican critic questioned the passengers who joined him on two of the trips.

In the 2008-09 fiscal year, Ritter flew on state planes 23 times, costing $21,000, compared with 28 trips for $32,000 the previous fiscal year, travel records reviewed by The Denver Post show.

Ritter was joined on a January 2009 trip with stopovers in Hayden, Grand Junction, Pueblo and Alamosa by campaign adviser David Kenney and then newly appointed U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. In April, Kenney reimbursed the state for his $1,070 portion of the three-day trip.

On another flight, Ritter brought his wife, his daughter and his daughter’s high school friend along to the five-day Western Governors’ Association conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, said Ritter should pay closer attention to public perception in the middle of a recession.

“It couldn’t be that they were campaigning, could it?” May said. “It’s the public’s resources. There is a matter of appearances, especially now that many 14-year-old children can’t afford to go on vacation anywhere, let alone to Jackson Hole with her friend.”

Records show Ritter’s office spent $3,400 in state airfare to that conference, which also included travel for one other state official.

Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer pointed out that adding passengers doesn’t boost travel costs because the state charges an hourly, rather than per-passenger, rate for use of its planes.

“It’s not a space issue. It’s ‘Is the governor able to spend time with his daughter?’ ” Dreyer said. “If anyone wants to suggest it’s inappropriate for a father of four not to be accompanied by his children or wife, that’s a shame.”

Here’s the problem with Republicans continuing to complain about everything: It becomes like the old fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Every time you open up the paper you just read another story about a GOP elected official bitching about something, and when that complaint is generally pointless — as this complaint about the air travel certainly appears to be — then the public starts to tune out. You stop paying attention to what the Republicans are complaining about; the only thing you remember anymore is that the GOP is complaining about something.

This isn’t to say that the GOP shouldn’t be complaining about the Democrats. But they should definitely be picking their spots to throw punches, rather than just flailing away at anything and everything. Politicians are no different than anyone else in life: Nobody likes a complainer.

There’s a fine line between watchdog and little-yippy-barky-annoying-dog, but Colorado Republicans don’t seem to grasp that concept.