CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
50%↑
15%
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
June 11, 2010 10:27 PM UTC
31 Comments
Amber as “a professional lobbyist and attorney whose connections at the capitol and legal world gave her an inroad to her fellow lobbyists’ pocketbooks” ?!?!?!!!
You’ve got to be kidding me! Amber is one of the hardest working and most dedicated individuals I’ve ever met in my life, who has spent her time advocating for the marginalized — the immigrants, the poor, the elderly, the sick. If you think there’s a whole pot of insider money amongst all of us who lobby Congress for immigration reform, it just shows how little you know about this woman and about this race.
Sure, I’ll admit it, I’m outside of her district by way of living on the other side of Fedz. But I fully support her because she understands that you have to build bridges to get things done, and that you can’t win a campaign by nasty attacks.
Your umbrage notwithstanding, Amber’s profession is a fact that has nothing to do with the clients she serves or how hard she works. In a Campaign 101 analysis, which is what this diary represents, being a capitol lobbyist is considered a plus if you want to run for office and raise money. Anyone who looked at her website or got her emails could see immediately that she had personal connections with and endorsements from a lot of capitol movers and shakers. Pat Steadman was also a lobbyist, who had a lot of good clients, and he used those connections and that experience to get elected to the State Senate. But in Amber’s case, those advantages didn’t materialize in a fundraising advantage or enough votes to make the ballot. In fact, her cash on hand is absolutely dwarfed by Pabon’s.
And why? Perhaps it’s because Amber was new to the neighborhood and a lot of that support came from people outside the district, as you yourself note. I think that’s the point.
Pat Steadman was not elected to the Senate, he was selected by the vacancy committee when Viega resigned. He will be running for election this fall.
He is my Senator and I will be supporting him.
Being a Pueblo girl from a union household, Amber’s values resonate with many of the longstanding residents of HD4. Her values connect with theirs, as do her progressive values connect with the newer arrivals to NW Denver. To start splitting hairs about who got to NW Denver when is a mistake, especially since Pabon is drawing his base from among the newest arrivals to the area.
Unless I’m mistaken, he’s the only one that hasn’t received any labor endorsements.
Aren’t labor endorsements what you would expect for candidates who lobby at the capitol or have been working in politics professionally? I expected Amber to get labor support. If she doesn’t get most of the major unions behind her, I would be surprised. Nothing against unions but on paper, Pabone seems to be a guy with no professional political experience on which to leverage a union endorsement. Coken and Tafoya do.
I feel like a diary that was supposed to be about campaign analysis has taken to personal offense about a simple fact: Tafoya is a lobbyist and Coken has a long political resume. That’s not a bad thing and usually is a good thing. That should lead to establishment support and money.
But the point of this diary (to me anyway) is that the evidence that Tafoya or Coken are “resonating with many residents of HD4” is sort of lacking. They were crushed at the caucus, don’t have many in district donors, one had to pay canvassers to get on the ballot and the other couldn’t even get enough signatures to get on the ballot, etc.
I’m involved in politics but do not reside in the district. My diary was anything but a hit piece on Tafoya — she is both a lawyer and a paid lobbyist. I saw from afar that she had natural alliances from both her lawyer and lobbyist connections that could carry her campaign far.
Being a lawyer-lobbyist may be a bad thing in a U.S. Senate race, but certainly not at the state level.
Maybe your perception of the lobbying corp is different than mine, but most tend to stick together…especially when writing checks.
Amber is all about working for the marginalized. She is a living embodiment of what Democratic values are all about. She has had to suffer while working hard to get ahead, with the deck stacked against her. She spent two years in a wheelchair with rheumatoid arthritis, working her way through law school, but not before organizing the school’s disability community to force CU to make public areas and restrooms handicap accessible.
Amber knows how to pull coalitions together to get legislation done, which is something neither of the two actually have any experience doing. She knows when to dig her heels in and when to compromise for a partial gain.
What’s more is that labor gets this too. She just received the endorsement of the DCTA (Denver teachers’ union), as well as the Colorado AFL-CIO.
By the way, let’s not forget that Pabon is an attorney too, most recently with Holland and Hart. Until recently he was on the Bennet finance team, so he certainly has had face time with some of the city’s most influential folks.
I respect Coken. Like Amber Tafoya, she’s also a good, strong Progressive. She would have been great in the legislature.
My post was not anti-Tafoya or pro-Pabon. It was about expectations. You stated that “Amber knows how to pull coalitions together…” which is what I would expect from a successful lawyer-lobbyist. Flowing from that expectation would be an influx of cash, or at a minimum, the ability to make it on the ballot through the caucus process.
It appears, from the outside, that Tafoya has been beaten at her own game by the only real measures we’ve been given so far: Tafoya was out-organized by being kept off the ballot via caucus; and has been beaten on fundraising, even though her campaign began earlier.
Your post just makes me more and more curious about the perceived strengths of candidates versus their actual strengths within the district. I’m unconvinced that Tafoya has any real shot at winning, but I remain open to persuasion based upon some real facts.
Tafoya’s “lobbying” experience comes from the nonprofit advocacy community. Her background is in advocating for the rights of migrant workers, women, senior citizens and students. She was formerly an immigration attorney for Catholic Charities.
You seem to want to suggest that there’s some sort of backroom dealing in her experience, but it doesn’t apply here.
I’ve re-read my post a couple of time and can find no such suggestion that there was backroom dealing. In fact, I intimated that being a lobbyist as a good thing, a-la fundraising and agreement with comments regarding Sen. Steadman.
Tafoya is a lawyer-lobbyist, it’s a label that is neither good nor bad. Your negative connotation of lobbyists is a measure of your own device. Tafoya’s failure to get more money from connections at the capitol or the community is notable. I expected more from her as did others looking in on this race from the outside.
You obviously live inside House Distrct 4 and have a personal bent toward Tafoya. That’s fine. While I respect your subjective opinion about Tafoya, I believe it’s blinded you to the facts showing that Tafoya’s campaign does not have what it takes to win. From the outside looking-in, this race is over.
He may not have been the favorite on paper against a big politico or a lobbyist but people are so mad at politicians and “insiders” these days that I’m not terribly surprised that he could leverage his local roots so well. People knew him from his organizing work there as well as growing up in the hood. Its easy to run an community insider vs. political insider campaign with that set up.
Still shocking that Coken didn’t get enough signatures.
Raising the most money.
Captain of HD4A.
No political experience? hardly–Aside from being Captain of HD4A, I remember Dan as deeply involved in the Obama campaign–that’s a plus in my book and he shouldn’t run away from that.
Amber the insider? please. Take a look at their donor names, you won’t find many big names on Amber’s list.
They are both smart attorneys, Dan works the corporate side and Amber works mostly on immigration issues, and because of their comparative practices Dan can raise more money because the circles he travels in are much more affluent than the Immigrant rights and military (Amber’s husband is a Marine Sergeant I believe) communities Amber runs in.
The biggest problem with Amber’s campaign is that there was always a perception that the money from the other two would swamp her. I am one of those people who believed it, because money matters.
I know Amber relatively well and she would laugh to hear herself described as an insider.
Not sure about the “always” the front runner thing. Being involved in the Obama campaign in nw denver and being the local district captain is more or less what the poster is talking about. Local roots and activism. Not sure that makes him the “front runner.” Honestly, I sort of consider myself one of “outsiders” that the poster is talking about. Last year when I looked at this race, I saw way more potential in a county party chair and a lobbyist (of any stripe) vs. being the captain of the district in terms of endorsements, money, connections, etc.
However, now that we are a year later and he’s knocked one opponent off, forced one to spend a bunch of money on paid canvassers to get on the ballot and is sitting on a big war chest, yes, I can understand calling him the frontrunner.
Danny it sounds like you know the candidates better than most. Which was the point of my diary. If you don’t know these folks well, your conclusions may be different than if one were to just look at the candidates on paper.
I agree that today, Pabon is far and away the front runner. This is not a criticism of Tafoya or Coken … it’s just a fact.
a year ago it was Coken v. Pabon. Nobody even gave Amber 2 thoughts.
Supposedly organization/endorsements v. Money. Anybody who was paying attention knew that Pabon was a better organizer than Coken, so that it was really endorsements v. money/organization. Not a real surprise Pabon wins that battle.
Amber was the candidate of my heart, I know where she stands when it come to people, she has always taken the side of weak, even when there are better ways to make a living as a lawyer. But I am a pragmatist and I thought, Pabon v. Coken would crowd her out, and Pabon would win that fight. I still think Pabon wins because he raised more money, not because of some kind of uprising against the establishment.
So, it’s hard to find significant shock, or significant lessons, in the present state of affairs.
According to her, the outcome shocked “Democrats.” Obviously she should have interviewed you 😉
I think she wrote that in as filler.
I agree.
Denver Pols first posted their line on HD4 with Jennifer in front, saying she got a boost from her chairmanship of the county party and Dan wasn’t well known. As it turns out, quite a few people knew him in HD4, and that counted more at caucus time than a former party chair with fewer ties to the district. Amber’s introduction to the scene came with the help of some prominent endorsers in the legislature and others who had worked with her at the capitol, which usually signals an ability to generate funds. But many–not all, but many– of her big names were from around the state and not necessarily in the neighborhood where she was a relative newcomer.
Which brings us back to square one: Dan had a base of support and a strong network in the neighborhood that wasn’t apparent to the casual observer outside of HD4. And that turns out to mean a lot when you count votes.
The forgotten issue is the petition strategies that Coken and Tafoya pursued. It seems that Tafoya’s diligence in collecting signatures and then submitting them early was key. Coken probably lost several hundred signatures from people who signed both. Was either campaign aware of the rule?
If there was an advantage to spending a thousands of dollars to pay “grassroots” canvassers to get signatures, its that she finished up quickly and got the signatures returned more quickly. smart on tafoya’s part.
Believe me, her canvassers were definitely grassroots veterans that needed a little extra cash. No harm, no foul.
I agree, it’s no big deal that canvassers were paid $3-$4,000. It’s just surprising that a candidate doesn’t have enough support to either: (a) get on the ballot through caucus; or (b) has to pay supporters to be a part of the campaign. Usually supporters are trying to raise money from a candidate, not take it.
Going back to expectations, where is the local support?
n/t
If you were more familiar with the district, you would understand that the larger voting bloc are all coming from elsewhere. There is no real local support anymore.
You mean many people voting for district rep. do not live in the district??
I mean the district has a lot of recent new transplants. It was once a traditional Latino stronghold, but those numbers have seriously dwindled, for example. The point is that Pabon can’t really draw on a base of support because the people he used to know no longer live there. It’s really anyone’s game at this point, as far as “base of support” is concerned.
If we take your assertion that neither candidate has a natural base of support, how does Tafoya win? Pabon proved he was a better organizer than Tafoya through his win at the caucus — others (Danny & nwgirl) assert that his organizing for HD4 Democrats and Obama are also noteworthy. Moreover, Pabon has money ($33,000) to spend to communicate with voters; Tafoya has none (next-to-none, $2,000).
In order to win a base of support, one candidate has a proven ability to get resources, the other does not. Is there a secret weapon we on the outside don’t know about?