October 04, 2010 06:52 PM UTC

Tell Us How You Really Feel, "Dr. Evil"

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• by: Colorado Pols

When is candor not a good thing? When a leading proponent of Amendments 60, 61 and Proposition 101–collectively known as the “Dr. Evil initiatives” or the “Bad 3”–decides to tell the world what he really hopes will happen. The AP’s Steven Paulson reports:

Gregory Golyansky, vice president of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, told students and professors from the University of Colorado Denver on Friday that printed books are going away and light rail is 19th century technology.

“Do we really need to fill our prisons with nonviolent offenders, drug offenders, prostitutes and what not? We will have about two-thirds less people in our prisons. Government doesn’t need to be involved in building golf courses or exercise facilities or ice rinks. Libraries are going away. Paper books are the yesterday technology, being replaced by online information. Government should stop subsidizing things like light rail. It’s essentially a 19th century technology,” Golyansky said.

Natalie Menten said Friday she is the campaign spokeswoman and Golyansky doesn’t speak for the campaign, even though he has appeared on their behalf at a half dozen interviews and televised debates over the past few months. She did not return phone calls seeking further comment.

“His personal opinions are repugnant to our campaign. His political views are unrelated to the three ballot issues. He is anti-books, anti-transit, anti-prison; we disagree with him on all three,” she said…

Natalie Menten’s biggest problem here is not the uncomfortable frankness of Gregory Golyansky. She can bemoan how ‘repugnant’ Golyansky’s views are, but she has a much harder problem explaining how these initiatives do not directly service Golyansky’s nutty goals. Because, as virtually every elected official and government agency in the state is sounding the alarm about, what Golyansky wants is what these initiatives work towards.

All Golyansky did was spell it out–he’s done the people of Colorado a great service.

And we’re loath to mention it, but this wouldn’t be the same Greg Golyansky who Ken Buck risked his career to slip helpful information to as a federal prosecutor, when Golyansky was facing gun charges–would it? Say what you want about Golyansky, but he’s certainly more plugged in to conservative politics than Jane Norton let on this summer, while using Golyansky’s gun case against Buck, and representing Golyansky as a gun-peddling thug. And that explains a lot.

We suppose Buck doesn’t want the libraries to ‘go away’ either, but who knows? Perhaps somebody ought to ask, just to make sure–despite the fact that it’s virtually impossible to say what the answer would have been before the primary.