U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Michael Bennet
(D) Phil Weiser
60%↑
50%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
60%↑
40%↑
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) J. Danielson
(R) Sheri Davis
50%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(D) Jeff Bridges
(R) Kevin Grantham
40%
40%
30%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
45%↓
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
December 16, 2009 10:15 PM UTC
36 Comments
Not your principles, maybe, but your man.
I don’t understand. The issue is the rules.
I’ve been around long enough to see machine politics work in this town.
This episode is a clear demonstration.
When she ran for HD 8, she ran as such a process progressive. This is a big disappointment.
Surprised, no. Sadly, Ms. Lowery can’t quite seem to grasp that there IS a larger milieu then just Denver.
was John a PCP? Did he hold a position with the county party? Not that it makes much of a difference, I suppose because the end result was the same.
Here’s a link to the Statesman article Ray mentions:
http://www.coloradostatesman.c…
I have to say that Lowery has a point here:
Hell, you wouldn’t have any PCP’s, Captains, Senate or House District Directors, either. The bottom line is trying to keep your volunteering for a particular candidate as seaparate as possible from your executive duties on your Democratic County Party board. This was the primary reason I resigned as Senate District Director from Larimer County Dems in 2006–I wanted the freedom to work on a campaign without the constraints that I felt obligated to abide by when I was on the executive committee.
District meeting turned into fundraiser for a specific candidate? What’s the point?
I know John Wren (I know- who doesn’t) and he’s not a fly off the handle irrational kind of guy. Cindy, otoh, has never seemed to grasp the boundaries of her leadership role.
I probably should have made two separate comments because I can’t find a reasonable excuse for why they would cancel a scheduled district meeting and hold a fundraiser for a candidate she openly supports, instead. Simply put, she’s spinning a lot of BS to cover her ass for doing something she damn well knew she shouldn’t.
However, I do believe she has a separate and legitimate point regarding the party faithful and their involvement. These are the people that do the heavy lifting in campaigns–without them, candidates have no base. So, my solution was to resign from my County Party. I’m not suggesting that should be anyone else’s but it was the solution that worked best for me and allowed me to stay true to my ethics.
Part of the challenge with D politics in Colorado as I see it is that if we insist on neutrality of leadership then when a county has 4 D’s they take the leadership positions and then are restricted from doing a lot of stuff.
Of course, in counties where there are plenty of D’s this shouldn’t be a problem
He resigned that post yesterday as well.
It’s the County’s loss, if you ask me.
the kind of which that hasn’t been seen since Mayor McNichols named the sports arena after himself when he was still in office.
It says something about ethics.
I’m sure that the Speaker was unaware that they did this, but his supporters have no right to complain about any corruption in DC, or anywhere else when they behave this way.
He named the sports arena after his brother, the former governor, don’t ya know.
that would be unusual
But the official name of the place was McNichols Sports Arena, it didn’t have a first name.
Governor from 1957 to 1963
I’m pretty sure that it was the William H. McNichols Jr. sports arena
because no one believed it was really named after Stephen, but the arena’s actual name was McNichols Sports Arena.
then the issue becomes who did he name it after?
Denver has a wonderful history of corruption, by the way.
In the early 1960’s something like half the police force were found to be particiating in running brothels, breaking and entering jobs, and a fencing operation.
there’s no denying that. Not too long ago, it was even a frontier town with real robber barons!
Bill McNichols didn’t “name it after” anybody, some machine commission did, but the tongue-in-cheek explanation was always that it was really named after his late brother. I’m not saying it wasn’t an example of public corruption, just that there was an amusing cover story.
So maybe I’m wrong, but I would think that if he wasn’t thinking of himself then he would have named it the Stepheh Mcnichols’s Sports center
Perhaps I just recall seeing plaques with Mayor William H. McNichols at the arena when I was there as a youth. It could be that it was a plaque naming who built it, I suppose.
I’ll just say with a wink and a smile that we know that the city has no problems with
corruption, or organized crime any longer.
I don’t think John Wren needed to resign, but I understand his reasons for doing so. It’s a huge loss for the Democratic Party. His concerns, IMO, were valid.
Part of it is the nature of party politics.
I need more information on the incident to pass judgment on it, but let me say if I had quit the party in 2003 just because Chris Gates pissed me off (personally, I’m not talking about the Senate race) that would have been pretty short sighted.
gross disregard for the rules or blatant manipulation of them is another.
There was no violation of the rules that I can see.
It is very common, infact the norm, in Denver for the House Disrticts to cancel their meetings in December, sometimes replacing the monthly business meeting with a holiday party.
My understanding is HD 5’s meeting was cancelled in lieu of Community Service project, also something that is not unheard of in Denver, especially now that so many of us are trying to collect food and clothing to help the increasing number of homeless.
HD5 meets in a restaurant. They have that space reserved well in advance. The fact that space/time now became available and was used for a Romanoff fundraiser is not so surprising. Restaurant space between Thanksgiving and Christmas can be a little hard to find.
Had I been asked in advance of this, I would have recommended someone other than the Captain announce the fundraiser, so that part could have been handled better.
As for Mr. Wren, if his committment to the party was so weak that this very minor issue causes him to resign, I would question his suitability to be a party leader to begin with.
then the Republicans will make sure that someone gets indicted.
Glossing over the fact this was most likely done intentionally should raise eyebrows, particularly in context that the county chair endorsed Romanoff with a letter stating her party position undernneath her name.It should have been signed without it to be seen as an iindividual endorsement.
A pattern of trying to get around the rules is developijng.
The personal attack on John Wren in the Statesman claiming that he is nothing but a troublemaker I find offensive. I’m sure that John found it offensive as well. It was undeserved. John is a gentleman. I won’t publish the communications that I was included on regarding the matter, and will let it drop.
Nevertheess, the Bennet Campaign is running a clean campaign. I find it disturbing that machine type politics are not criticized by current or former state party officals.
You can’t deny, at the very least, the appearance of favoritism of one candidate over another. Whether or not there was a direct violation of the party rules, this kind of thing doesn’t look good for the party.
As John Wren pointed out below, the rule bars the endorsement of one candidate over another. I would argue that holding a fundraising event falls under the definition of an endorsement. If there was another fundraiser for Senator Bennet, or there was a notice to donors that the funds would be divided equally between the two campaigns, then things might have the appearance of fairness.
Right now, to people who don’t work directly inside the Denver Dems, it appears that there is a very direct push by Cindy Lowery and others to do everything they can–including using their official capacities as party officials–to help Andrew Romanoff.
I agree that Mr. Wren shouldn’t have resigned over the Statesman article, but I think you have to look at how things are going in the county party as well.
…there is a forum to address that (and it is not an open email, or a newspaper article).
The Rules Committee of the party serves as a grievance board for the party. Mr. Wren was well aware of this as he (at least at one time) sat on that very committee.
I sit on the Denver Executive Committee, yet the first I heard of any of this was when I received the resignation email blast from Mr. Wren (that seems to have gone to “everyone”).
The appearance here, to me at least, is that one person was unhappy with a decision of a House District Captain and rather than address the issue for what it may or may not have been, he chose to to use the opportunity to slam the party.
I am not denying the appearance of favoritism by the Captain and maybe that should be explored further through the proper channels.
And, by the way, I would have argued the same point if the candidate who the fund-raiser was for was someone I don’t know or support.
But I’m not as involved with the party as you, so I don’t have to worry about pissing anyone off.
And I would say that had Cindy Lowery told the Statesman what you just said, it would have been a lot more professional. Instead, we got a bit of a tirade, and John Wren resigning.
but they chose not to publish that part
then the location, or the time wouldn’t have come into play.
Imagine that someone doesn’t get the e-mail and they show up. Or let’s say that they did. I get about 400 e-mails a day. Let’s imagine that it wasn’t read. People then show up, and guess what? We have party officials running a fundraiser for a primary candidate.
Considering the vast fundraising deficit that the Romanoff campaign suffers from (act blue as of yesterday had about a 4 to 1 differential in favor of Bennet), winning the caucus is the Speakers’ only hope.
It wouldn’t bother me if sonmeone wants to endorse the Speaker as an individual. I’m not opposed to fundraisers for him either by individuals.
I’m not in favor of the appearance of machine politics.
State party rules (posted on http://www.coloradodems.org/) state in Article I Section C:
The various statewide organizations using the party name (Wren’s note: This would include the county organizations) shall not make a public endorsement of a candidate or issue in any election giving the impression that the Democratic Party is the endorsing organization… including the endorsement of one Democratic candidate over another, except through the action of a Central Committee or in accordance with the official nomination and assembly procedures…
Any person responsible for violations under this Section of the Rules shall be barred from holding any party office for a period of two years from the date of the violation.
Dan is right, I have a higher purpose in mind, attracting and mobilizing newcomers to the Colorado Caucus. This is what I posted on Ray Springfield’s Facebook note this morning:
Because of the big turnout at the caucuses across the state in 2008, this is a critical year for our (potentially) wonderful neighborhood system for nominating to the primary ballot.
If the 2008 newcomers return and get involved in leadership roles, there will be a renewal of the system. If the newcomers return and get turned off by just being herded like cattle through a meaningless papershuffling expercise, at a minimum it will mean the loss of that opportunity for renewal, and it might even ignite a renewed effort to get rid of our (potentially) wonderful neighborhood system. … See More
Instead of working within the party, I’m going to focus now on what I can do to be of greatest service: Increasing the informed participation of newcomers in both major political parties.
Although I recommend that everyone affiliate as a Republican or Democrat by the deadline of January 19 and attend their neighborhood caucus March 16, since my work will now focus on education, to be fair I’ve changed my own party status to unaffiliated.
I’m going to look for opportunities to share my 35 years of experience.
One way I do that now is thru a couple of weekly meetings I facilitate, where I’ll be speaking this week more directly to the concerns that have been raised here in this Note, Ray.
If anyone is interested in possibly attending, contact me at John@JohnWren.com or (303)861-1447, or just attend the Denver IDEA CafГ©, which is sort of a beginners meeting for the other groups. http://meetup.com/Denver-IDEA-…
I’m sorry that you’re leaving, but I appreciate the fact that you’re going to try to do something higher than party politics. Good luck in your future endeavors.
If the 2008 newcomers return and get involved in leadership roles, there will be a renewal of the system. If the newcomers return and get turned off by just being herded like cattle through a meaningless papershuffling expercise, at a minimum it will mean the loss of that opportunity for renewal, and it might even ignite a renewed effort to get rid of our (potentially) wonderful neighborhood system.
08 was a record year in my precinct as it was in many. Most will not return unless, until a candidate (s) draws the attention as happened in 08.
I’ve barely scratched the GOTC surface this cycle- but the PCP has been quietly contacting supporters of one candidate to encourage attendance and ensure registrations are current. A PCP who has been silent for 18+ months.
We’re not going to get the neighbors this time. We’re going to get insiders shuffling paper.