CO-04 (Special Election) See Full Big Line

(R) Greg Lopez

(R) Trisha Calvarese

90%

10%

President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Biden*

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%↓

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

90%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

90%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

(R) Ron Hanks

40%

30%

20%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(R) Deborah Flora

(R) J. Sonnenberg

50%↑

15%

10%↓

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Dave Williams

(R) Jeff Crank

50%↓

50%↑

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

90%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) Brittany Pettersen

85%↑

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

(R) Janak Joshi

60%↑

35%↓

30%↑

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

April 15, 2013 01:50 PM UTC

Alva Asked: Colorado Pols Mailbag

1 Comments
by: Colorado Pols

Periodically we have run a "mailbag" at Colorado Pols, generally dubbed "Ask Alva." We put out the call for questions in late March, and now we give you the answers.

For our next "Ask Alva" feature, we expect you to do a lot better with the questions. We had a lot about technical problems (we're working on it, we swear), a few about politics, and a couple about nothing particular.

Got questions of your own? You can always email us at AskAlva@coloradopols.com.

Club Twitty:

Why, Alva? Why?

Dunno. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

—–

PERA Hopeful:

Following Twitty's theme, Why, Alva? Why you be hating so much on my man Don Quick?

Think of it as a combination of what we are hearing, along with our opinion, and some sauerkraut. Politics is as much about timing as anything else. Bill Ritter, John Hickenlooper, and Barack Obama took advantage of opportunities and pounced. On the other hand, you have "2006 Andrew Romanoff" (shoulda run for Governor when everyone was pushing him); "2010 Andrew Romanoff" (should have run for Senate in February, not in September); and the new model, "2014 Andrew Romanoff" (entered the CD-6 race against Rep. Mike Coffman early and consolidated Democratic support).

Don Quick was considered a rising star among Democrats when he was elected Adams County District Attorney in 2004, and even to a degree when he was re-elected in 2008. But in 2011, Adams County voters rejected Quick's ballot measure to allow him to run for a third term. Quick lost that ballot measure in part because he was stained (through "guilt by association") by a series of scandals in Adams County government, but it was also a telling referendum on Quick's popularity and political acumen. In 2009, Denver voters easily approved a third term chance for District Attorney Mitch Morrissey (who was re-elected in 2012), both because of Morrissey's popularity and because he had the political sense to mount a small campaign to raise the profile of the term limit ask.

The bottom line with Quick is this: He's running for Attorney General because he can't be District Attorney anymore, and it's more than obvious. Quick had been relatively absent from Democratic political circles after 2008, doing little to help out other Democratic candidates, and so Democrats just started to forget about him. Quick might be able to put up a strong General Election campaign, but there's little chance that he avoids a primary challenge from better-known and better-connected Democrats like Boulder DA Stan Garnett and Senate Majority Leader Morgan Carroll.

—–

David Thielen:

Could John Suthers beat Hick or Udall? (He’s basically all they’ve got.)

Before we get into the hypothetical question here, we should note that there is virtually no chance that Suthers will run for Governor or U.S. Senate in 2014. Suthers has twice tested the waters for a top ticket race, and he has twice found the temperature to be quite chilly.

For whatever reason, Attorney General is the ceiling for Suthers in Colorado. His name is in the history books as the second-longest serving AG in state history, but that certainly wasn't his goal. Suthers really wanted to jump in the 2008 U.S. Senate race before stepping aside for Bob Schaffer. He really, really wanted to enter the 2010 U.S. Senate race, and he was focused on that for about 6 weeks (going so far as to announce that he would not run for re-election as AG). But Suthers abruptly changed his mind and decided to run again for AG when he realized (or was made to realize) that Republicans were much more interested in the likes of Jane Norton and Ken Buck. Here's what Suthers said in a statement on Jan. 26, 2009, about why he wouldn't continue as a Senate candidate:

So we turn to the U.S. Senate seat that will be up for election in 2010. In many respects, it’s a marvelous opportunity to pursue one of the most coveted political positions in America. As I indicated, I’ve talked to hundreds of people during the last month and concluded I would have an excellent chance to win the Republican nomination and could wage a very viable general election campaign against U.S. Senator Michael Bennet.

“But I also think I have acquired an accurate picture of what would be involved. As a Republican challenger without the benefit of incumbency, or of an incumbent President to assist in fundraising, and facing the prospect of raising 8 to 10 million dollars to be a viable candidate, I believe I would essentially be Attorney General in name only for the next two years. It’s quite clear I would need to spend an average of 6 to 8 hours per day, 6 days per week, fundraising over the next 21 months. I would also need to engage in out-of-state travel on a constant basis as part of the fundraising process. Every knowledgeable advisor I consulted agreed that a U.S. Senate campaign would cause me to be absent from the AG’s office virtually full time. I realize that happens often when an officeholder seeks higher office and the public generally accepts that. But that fact has not proven comforting to me. Many elected positions have minimal management and organizational responsibilities. The Colorado Attorney General’s office, with 400 employees, is not one of them. The work of the AG’s office is important and should not be given short shrift.

Nothing in those two paragraphs should have been a surprise to someone who has been involved in Colorado politics for as long as Suthers. He certainly would have put in the time and the effort if there was enough support for him to make a run, but there wasn't. Maybe people really were "encouraging" Suthers to run for Senate, but that's not the same thing as "recruiting" him to run and pledging assistance. If Suthers couldn't generate enough support to even try running for an open seat in 2008 and against a non-incumbent in 2010, he certainly wouldn't be able to put together a campaign against strong incumbents like Hickenlooper or Udall.

From everything we hear, Suthers is done with elected office.

—–

David Thielen:

Who's going to win Eurovision?

The one that does that thing with that other thing.

—–

Dwyer:

Okay. Dear Alva, where the hell was I? I missed the whole mail bag thing last May.

I don't remember May. Or, are we back to the secret code ring, again?

My question: Is ColoradoPols going to make the new software more user friendly?

We need to be able to preview comments. We need to be able to quickly see a thread and see who has responded to our comments.

It used to be more fun. Although, the crude language has fallen off…I don't know if there is a corelation or not?

We got a lot of questions asking about the changeover from the old Soapblox site, and they all have the same basic answer: We're working on it, we promise. We've addressed some of the problems with comment boxes shrinking in width as they descended, and we're with you on the importance of a "preview comments" ability. Please let us know if you run into weird glitches along your Pols' journey.

The transition to WordPress has been buggier than we hoped, and as frustrating as trying to explain the meaning of "Top Secret" to Rep. Doug Lamborn. Things are starting to get back to "normal" around here, but there's more work to do and more fun to be had — ultimately we will be able to do a lot more fun stuff with WordPress than we could with Soapblox.

—–

GalapagoLarry:

Question for the Govs: Do large corporate entities, particularly the publicly traded kind, create net unemployment; whereas, small businesses create net employment?

This is a tough question to answer, and not just because we are frightened by calculators. In our view, we need an answer to a different question before we can really answer your question: What is a small business?

The U.S. Small Business Administration classifies a "small business" as any business (with some industry-specific exceptions) with less than 1,500 employees and $35.5 million in sales. The Small Business Association (SBA) Office of Advocacy, meanwhile, labels a "small business" as a business with less than 500 employees.

Republican politicians particularly like to lump all small business types into one definition, because it helps them complain about a broader level of "tax increases."Sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies, S corporations — they're all "small businesses." Movie stars, authors, and athletes are often included in this definition by default when they form legal entities that get thrown into the "small business" stew.

A 2011 study by economists at Yale indicates that large businesses contribute more to overall unemployment than small business, which makes sense if we're weeding out "small businesses" that don't actually employ people.

—–

That's it for this "Ask Alva" mailbag. We'll do another call for questions soon.

One thought on “Alva Asked: Colorado Pols Mailbag”

GalapagoLarry says:

April 17, 2013 at 8:49 pm

Thanks. And thanks to Price Waterhouse for keeping the answers safely secret until they could be revealed during Monday's ceremony.

The meaning of "small business" has been so mis-applied. Most folks think "mom and pop" and a dozen other employees, or so. Gets you all teary-eyed when you think of raising their taxes or expecting them to follow "burdensome government regulations". Same with "farmers".

I seem to remember reading that the Chicago Sun Times (no Penny Shopper, that), because all its various departments had been spun off into separate (but not independent) entities, qualified for the IRS definition of small business.

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