As Jody Strogoff of The Colorado Statesman reports, major Republican donors Larry Mizel, Greg Maffei and Fred Hamilton are co-sponsoring a big fundraising lunch on Sept. 22 for Democrat John Hickenlooper’s campaign for Governor:
With Mizel, Maffei and Hamilton out of the closet, so to speak, others will likely follow.
Mizel, chairman and chief executive officer of M.D.C. Holdings, Inc., is also one of Colorado’s major political players, although most of his activities are behind the scenes. Between 1989 and 2006, Mizel and his wife are reported to have contributed about one million dollars to federal candidates, PACs, and political parties; 94 percent went to Republican candidates and party committees. His large donations, which have continued over the last few years, have placed Mizel among the nation’s top 100 political contributors.
Mizel wasn’t supporting McInnis for governor, and clearly won’t be lending his name to Maes. But rather than having his endorsement of Hickenlooper construed as anti-Republican, Mizel views it simply as a smart business decision. He says Hickenlooper provides bipartisan leadership that is good for the city, good for the state, and good for business in general.
Hickenlooper, Mizel says, has shown his brilliance in terms of economic development leadership and will do well in reestablishing Colorado as a state that welcomes growth and development, business and a good quality of life…
…Greg Maffei also has a strong personal relationship with Hickenlooper. According to a profile in the Denver Post a few months ago, the Liberty Media Corp. chief executive was one of the first people Hickenlooper turned to when he was considering whether to run for governor. Maffei told Hickenlooper he thought the job was a good fit and urged him to run.
Maffei has strong Republican Party ties, here in Colorado as finance director for the state Republican Party, and as a major figure in Sen. John McCain’s political activities over the years.
As the Statesman story points out, expect to see more major Republican donors migrating to Hickenlooper. After all, these guys didn’t make their money by betting big on long shots.
Hick’s not progressive enough.
Scrolling through all those threads gave me tendonitis 🙂
Not all big money Republicans do.
But the message for Republicans is clear. Nominate credible candidates or else.
I doubt that big money will give much to Maes or Tancredo.
Will they contribute to Buck and other Republicans? They don’t seem to have given much to Buck so far, except through Americans for Job Security and other 527s.
“They don’t seem to have given much to Buck so far, except through American’s for Job Security”.
Clueless Don.
I want as much knowledge as Don has. How does he know who has given to Americans for Job Security? How’d he find that out?
That should have been: They don’t seem to have given much to Buck so far, except, possibly, through Americans for Job Security and other 527s.
Good catch.
The point is, while Republican has beens are endorsing Maes, where are the big contributors? Where are the 527s? So far, they’re not boarding Maes’ sinking ship.
He has a strong business background and compassionate social tendencies. Republicans on the other hand have abandoned pragmatic business practices in favor of extreme social engineering solutions.
Your evidence, other than your biased opinion?
Pseudo businessman living on his gas money and Ken Buck running to help rapists spawn new babies.
But it’s true.
..is Wade still in hiding?
He fought really really hard for his candidate and you have to respect him for his convictions.
His mistake was to think that he could persuade anyone at this site and subsequently he put a lot of effort trying to argue and convince instead of enjoy and entertain. Everyone who shows up here automatically knows that their position is righteous and they take a dim view of someone trying to alter their positions on anything.
It is like someone who stops going to church for a while because of a spat over the minister. If they come back then a true congregation will let bygones be bygones.
What next, a cardboard sign on Colfax “Why Lie? I need a beer.”
Is that good or bad?
One can only conclude that Mizel and Maffei think that Maes or Tanc would be a threat to their prosperity.
I would simply not take support from these people. They want something in return. And they usually get it. This is just sour grapes from the Republican establishment who thought they could control the devil all these years and have only recently found out that they can’t. They are responsible for the downfall of the Republican Party because the made a pact with the right wing . Well, they can’t control it anymore as many of us predicted. So, it’s time to shut these big “whigs”them out until they change their registration to unaffiliate or Democratic and start giving a fair share of their contributions to Democrats. Please Hick, don’t encourage these people. They caused the problem with our two party system to begin with and they should suffer. shouldn’t
The ideological purity argument.
So much better than consensus-building.
That’s what’s wrong with the purists in both parties.
Although I’d put “purists” in quotes . . .
Is it “consensus-building” to adopt the other party’s policies? There are differences between Democrats and Republicans, if not between candidates bearing one label or the other.
No one is talking about “purity” here in the least. We are talking about differences that once divided political parties along ideological lines, rather than personality contests in which a party designation is merely a formality in order to get onto ballots organized along party lines for some long-forgotten reason.
Put simply the difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is this: the former believes in exerting democratic control over the influence of wealth; the latter believes government’s role should be to protect wealth from popular control, including regulation.
That is why the description of LoopdeLoop as a “Rockefeller Republican” is exactly right; priority: protect business; concession: oh, all right, a little regulation to keep the hoi polloi quiet.
You are an ideologue. I am a pragmatist. Neither one of us would ever convince the other.
which does get out of hand but like the Gulf spill shows regulations are essential to protect the common good.
Where it gets weird is when regulations end up trying to cover every single contingency because there is always someone who can find a loophole to exploit. Never underestimate greed to find a workaround.
What we need to do occasionally is to step back and see what is working and what is interfering.
I have a friend who wanted to fix up his house but a housing permit was going to cost a thousand dollars and entail lots of paperwork. The goal of a safe house is in the public interest because you don’t want it to fall down in a wind storm but it added an additional expense that was the difference between hiring a contractor and putting it off.
ideological nudists.
It could be a ewwww moment.
Wow, who could have seen that coming?
We knew they were RINOs all along. It is now officially the people vs. the big money establishment (of both parties).
Mizel bankrolls conservatives, too. Even conservatives YOU KNOW and like. Just go ask your guy…
It’s our job to just believe him. Welcome to the World According to BJ.
and anti-capitalism.
They are for funny Paul Revere hats with dangly things and signs..lots and lots of signs..
Also they like following the Constitution.. except when they want to get rid of Amendments 14, 17, 6, and 13.. because that’s not what the Founders would want..
Also they love that Glenn Beck guy.. even though he fibs on T.V. and makes up stories that he sells as news… He’s just a peach.
But they don’t like brown people or “Moslems”
and France… definitely hate France..
and also hate “Mosks” and birth certificates from Hawaii..
As far as business goes.. “nuthin’ should be regulated, and no one should havta’ pay taxes an stuff”. I think that’s their platform.. Small government with no one keeping an eye on industry cuz’ we all know we can trust these major corporations to have our best interest at heart.. It’s the American Way!!
No wonder we’re in the predicament we’re in when people like this “useful” idiot blindly believe the left wing media caricatures. Lemmings.
however, only one of those two claimed “vessels” will ever be properly termed “useful.”
I would not be in the Tea Party otherwise.
Since it’s likely you don’t, I’ll fill you in. Your posts contain little more than rehashed caricatures of the right, left, and middle.
Of course, none of us are surprised since you come off as a caricature yourself.
That’s why there’s no point in trying to conduct a dialog with him.
it looks like it is going to be a long time before real Republicans hoodwink enough moderate independents to regain power and control over all aspects of our society. A long long time.
To paraphrase Harry Reid, “Why would anybody vote for a real Republican?”.
“Real” Republicans will start to take back the party and to put the extremists out to pasture from the leadership positions they seem to now have. The closest analog I can think of is when Clinton moved the Democratic party towards the center–something similar is likely to happen with the GOP as more and more GOP members get fed up with what is going on–sort of a Tea Party in reverse.
the working class “Christian Right”? It is a major part of the Tea Party movement, I think.
Reagan promised them the Republicans would be their homeboys. They are now discovering that corporatists have no honor and have betrayed their conservative fiscal priorities.
farther left Labor and “progressives” are in, relatively speaking, in the Democratic party.
It’s one of those “Where ELSE would they go?” questions–it’s not like labor, etc., could ever realistically go to the GOP, and the same holds true of the “Christian Right,”–they can’t very well vote Democratic.
One of the triumphs of President Obama was being able to mobilize the farther left groups even while hewing to a centrist platform.
Why no diaries on the really big news of this morning, that Dan Maes’ message has really started to click among both businessmen and labor?
At a joint press conference held this morning the AUMA* and the CRDU** both announced their strongest endorsements ever for any candidate for political office. The recipient? None other that GOP stalwart, and the next governor of Colorado — Dan Maes!
How ’bout them apples Hick?!!!!!
(* American Unicycle Manufacturers Association)
(** Colorado Rickshaw Driver’s Union — local 723)
I think Jon Caldara would be torn between his hatred for unions and his love for rickshaws/jitneys…
Fred Hamilton is the richest guy in town and very few people know his name. Fred can amass a huge number of donors if he decides to do so.
Brown and Allard just endorsed Maes. Yeah those big name Republicans are really jumping ship.
Larry, Greg and Fred have lots of money.
Hank and Wayne are nice guys.
Larry, Greg and Fred have lots of money.
McPlagiarist proved once again that money and advertising don’t save an unethical and incompetent candidate.
Norton proved that if you don’t raise as much money as the 527s put into ads that bash you unfairly and dishonestly, you can be beat.
On the other hand, Norton was bat shit crazy even by Republican standards. She was pretty awkward about it too.
and I’m far from sure Norton had the most money if you count the avalanche of 527 ads for Buck.
I am planning on voting for Hickenlooper, so this is no surprise. I don’t anything will change either by election time. I would never vote for Tancredo and Dan Maes is a snake oil salesman.
While I disagree with their politics, I deeply respect Larry Mizel and the Hasan family for staying true to their conservative Republican values at the same time that they are subjected to incredibly hateful, vicious, and bigoted attacks from the Tea Party wing of their own party.
The foul attacks on Mizel over the months on the discussion boards at Denver’s Newspaper of Record are hard to read, while the way the Republicans are handling the N.Y. mosque controversy makes lovers of the Constitution and limited government cringe.
those were kind words