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
30%↑
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%
July 22, 2008 10:23 PM UTC
67 Comments
about this organization? Who are their registered agents? If it is COGA, surely they didn’t use one of their recognizable names on the registration forms?
Anyone know how to look this up?
show up on the SoS database, but I don’t find them there today.
Found it. Here:
http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz…
Any of these names or addresses ring a bell?
Go to SOS Business Center and search for Colorado Counts. Don’t recognize names or the address, which is 1660 Lincoln Suite 3050.
Any detective out there (or someone who works near 16th and Lincoln)?
John Paul Seman Jr., Esq.
1660 Lincoln Street, Suite 3050
Denver, CO. 80264
Who is a lawyer that has represented the Colorado Petroleum Association in front of the Oil and Gas Preservation Commission.
Is that what Pols was referring to with “many seem to be aware” of a connection to COGA?
Is it a Hoteling site? office share?
A lot of people use that address.
Big Labor uses $155k in forced union dues to poke a politician in the eye.
Its all laid out by RedGreen, David, Parsing, and Danny below, Colorado needs Amendment 47.
Come on girlymen, rip-off those thongs and shout me down.
YES on Amendment 47 for real employee free choice.
YES on Amendment 47 because Gov Ritter believes its the right policy.
do not include me in you drivel.
I have no problem with 527 as along the funding source is clear.
What’s your funding source?
contact and custodian is Steve Adams with an East Eighth Avenue and Grant Street apartment in Denver listed as the address.
Where are you looking?
He’s AFL, right?
http://forms.irs.gov/political…
I don’t know, was hoping someone would.
once ran the Colorado AFL-CIO, but a while ago. In any case, Colorado Counts has different registered agents with the IRS and the Colorado SOS. Weird.
for organization (incorporation) and IRS filing purposes. It’s not that unusual.
Steve Adams is a common enough name, be worth making sure before we decide one thing or another.
The address on the SOS registration seems to be more interesting.
I didn’t post the full Grant St. address, as it appears to be someone’s home address.
lists the Colorado articles of organization’s registered agent as
Andrew Shidler
1660 Lincoln St. Ste. 3050
and a Jennifer Simmerman, same address, who filed the form.
This (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_20030730/ai_n10024918) Jennifer Simmerman? Gotta be a coincidence.
From an org called Organization Management Services.
http://org-mgmt.com/page_11601…
The ad is pathetic. Is that all they could come up with?
What is the point? It is almost favorable to Polis. Most Democrats as do most Coloradoans support Charter schools.
Another pathetic effort by Steve Adams.
Which I found by guessing, I don’t know who they are.
My question is when does the Polis campaign start to turn negative? They say they’re above it, but I don’t think anyone is above it. I would put money on anti-Fitz-Gerald ads running in the weeks before the primary. If so, this race will get real ugly, real fast.
Barack freaking Obama wants to reform NCLB for crying out loud! Are they saying HE’S not liberal enough for Boulder? What an asinine attack.
Perlmutter v. Lamm v. Rubenstein?
I bet it hits that and worse.
So true. That was a nasty race, but I’m glad Ed won.
Why in the world would they spend on this race? Why would they target Polis? I’m not intimately familiar with the CD-2 race so if someone can enlighten me it would be appreciated.
Although, I will say the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So I guess I like this Polis fella.
but that is the dumbest ad I’ve seen in a while. As if wanting to reform NCLB instead of repealing it is going to fire up anybody?
The slam on Polis’s charter schools is odd, too. I doubt there are any Democrats who would fault Polis for those, which admirably fill a tremendous need. The ad is probably JUST aimed at a few thousand teachers, who ALWAYS vote. Kind of a dog whistle.
I oppose vouchers and support charters (though I do not think they are a universal solution) and I think most Democrats in CO are in a like place.
Its a well produced ad, but the messaging is a bit off.
Watching the ad it made me support Jared even more – I like the fact that he wants to improve education rahter than just give the union whatever it wants with no effort to improve.
That ad could help Jared more than it hurts him…
To the first 15 or so comments. Wow you all must have some time on your hands and YOU all must support Mr. Polis. One thing is very obvious in this blog, a hit on the Pols with negativity about Mr. Polis and within minutes there are 15 plus comments, and not about the ad itself, but who, what, where and when!
What are you going to do once you find out who did it? Oh I know I bet your next move is to personally attack the group or people behind the ad (Find a reason to discredit right).
Why not talk about the ad, (like the last couple of comments) and if it is valid or not. After reading all this, it just seems you are more worried about the campaign side, who is doing what versus taking on the issues that are affecting the people of Colorado.
All three candidates will be great for Colorado, we are only so lucky to have this field.
And for the record, Vouchers is a form of privatization, and privatization (outsourcing) is killing this country. And if this is true, that is the type of issue for me to base my decision as a democrat…
and, no, not everyone tracking down the ad’s source would be a Polis supporter. Some people are just curious.
I can’t speak for my fellow members of the vast-Polis-wing conspiracy, but I for one am interested in the identity of those behind well-funded attack ads. Others may have professional curiosity, I for one am just looking for a little accountability for folks’ public attempts to influence elections.
Not quite as powerful, eh?
PS Shitty public education is killing us much more than some minute outsourced labor. We’re post industrial, remember?
All frequent readers no I hammer Polis on 41, vouchers and earlier on his in kinds.
However, I try to be fair and defend him when attacks are out of line.
While I don’t mind 527s, I don’t like misleading ones and I care who funds them.
I find following the money valuable. That’s one of the reasons that Polis recieving donationsfrom Cranberg and the odious McVaney convinces me that Polis supports valuable. That’s why I wondered what the Swiftboater contributors see in Polis that would prompt them to give to Polis.
The source of the money behind the ads has not been sourced to my satisfaction ye.
And yet you take defense when people are trying to determine who’s behind a 527 org that made a $155,000 ad buy?
These folk are concerned, the same way you are, with corporate money in politics and education. They want to know who put together such an attack, far be it a good one, on Polis.
This election seems to be rushing toward being the nastiest in recent history. If it keeps on the path of the politics of personal destruction model we will sink further into the abyss instead of “doing politics in a different way”.
The ad is certainly negative, but what’s false about the points it makes, as the release charges in the headline but doesn’t mention in the body?
His opponents just got started heading immediately into the primary. I will be surprised if Joan, the party insider, doesn’t defeat Jared, the buy me an an election candidate, after all. I’m just glad I’m not in their district. Not enthusiastic about either one and don’t much care which wins.
An election is a knife fight, not a cotillion. This is how we elect people. And while it has pluses and minuses, I think there are a lot of good parts. More info comes out and we see who will fight hard for us in D.C.
What I dislike a lot is the anonymous stuff. They need to force groups like this to show where they get their money from and who is making the decisions.
The Knife Fight conventional wisdom has certainly taken hold, and this may be “how we elect people” these days, but there are at least a few of us who would like to see it differently.
Even worse is the second part, that the election Knife Fight prepares your for the Knife Fight that is being a part of government. It makes you wonder just how many accomplishments that could have been will never be seen because the one who could have brought them about was busy looking for an exposed artery in the person nearby. It may be naive, but perhaps an election could be neither a knife fight nor a cotillion but an actual exercise in responsible leadership.
Look back to the first couple of elections – they were, if anything, worse than we are today. I think it’s how we humans naturally handle a democratic election. Keep in mind that whe are the oldest modern democracy and so we’ve been doing it the longest.
A lot of people seem to want a college bowl where we listen to what each says and vote on that. But the thing is, that would be a losuy way to do it because candidates are much more than the sum of their positions and they also learn and grow in office which changes their position on issues.
The Republic has not yet crumbled (although it was close there for a while), but while late the United States of the 18th century was revolutionary in many ways, it was far from a model democracy by most people’s standards.
Of course, you could be right. It could be that human nature mandates that in a broad-based political contest, there is no other way. It could be that people respond to attacks, dubious or otherwise, no matter what and so to try anything else would be futile. That is certainly the conventional wisdom. At the same time, I don’t see anyone really testing the theory either. The closest anyone has come in a while has been Senator Obama, who has achieved success due in no small part to rhetoric that implies he will deliver a higher standard of conduct, but of course he’s shown he’ll also engage in many of the same tactics to the extent he can do so and keep his image mostly intact. Now if you like him, he’s being smart and refusing to be pushed around, and if you don’t like him, he’s being hypocritical. I think its probably a little of both. I think he’d probably like to truly be a different type of leader, one that doesn’t have to bring out the attack sound bite of the day each morning, but in the end he’s not going to be the test case for the “Hope Only” program when the metaphorical knives are drawn.
I agree that a candidate is more than the sum of her issue portfolio, but at the same time I have my doubts about using someone’s ability to destroy his opponent as a barometer for his ability to create something great. The skill sets seem diametrically opposed. In my humble opinion, a person who can find a way into office showing actual character as opposed to “Character” the talking point would simply be better at leading and governing. It may be naive to think and/or impossible to achieve, but I’ve never actually seen evidence to prove either.
And Hawaii is a bit gentler than here. But when she has an opponent coming after her hard, she has to fight back or she’ll lose. I think it comes down to what works with the voters.
Any Dem will win in the general there so they can have at it for all I care. They’re both acceptable.
WTF is an oil and gas association doing funding anti-Polis ads against his education policies?
This whole thing makes me want to bang my head against a wall until it doesn’t hurt anymore. I turned in test ballots for the primary this morning. Made sure I filled out a couple of “protest” ballots for each party – the only item filled in was “County Surveyor – no candidate for this position”.
Perhaps you could get together with Dick Wadhams and discuss the value of excessive sloganeering.
The Rocky’s Lynn Bartels has the story:
Politics West’s Jessica Fender got a correction, of sorts, from the Polis campaign:
you dislike A41 too.
I noted earlier today
I find it a significant mistake that the campaign did not do their homework on the source of the money before they counter-attacked. It reminds me of Jared’s failure to do due diligence on A41 and presages his conduct if elected.
You don’t want to wait too long to counter an attack in a campaign, but neither do you want to work from the wrong info. And JP definitely tends toward the too soon approach.
I do want to know who specifically is funding this other than “some unions.” And do we even know for sure it’s unions? The fact that this guy was head of the AFL-CIO doesn’t mean this is union money.
pegged as unions by Bartels in her story a few posts up, based on “tax records” (I would assume that means IRS filings), not based on the AFL-CIO affiliation of Adams.
It’s interesting that we had better information, collectively, about who was behind the ads in this diary than the Polis campaign managed to come up with. Shoot first, aim later — not always the best policy for a public servant.
Not that I ever know any of it, but many of the posters here are incredibly plugged in.
Here’s my addition – a partial list of their clients – http://www.coloradocommunique….
Well after reading all these posts I just had to weigh in.
Polis campaign: Its the big labor unions using forced dues to kick your teeth in on charter schools, vouchers, education reform and education choice.
Unions run by democrats, kicking your teeth in on one of your top 2 issues (Iraq and Education).
Hummmmmmm, common themes prevail.
Unions = politics, corruption, harassment, forced dues, stagnation of reform, zero progress.
In this case you are 100% on topic with your post.
You are always 100% right (as opposed to left).
On the flip side, you are always 0% right (as opposed to correct).
But hey, 1 out of 2 ain’t bad…
Compare graduation rates at charter schools to standard DPS schools.
Polis is being condemned for supporting them?
In the case of schools Libertad is 100% correct in blaming union corruption for the problems.
There are major problems with the public schools. But the number 1 cause is lack of parental involvement and number 2 is voters electing school boards that roll over for the unions.
Elect a school board that will stand up to the unions and then the union is reduced to being an advocate for their members but is no longer running things.
You are never going to be able to affect some of the shitty parents, but it’s used as a blanket excuse to cover for the union’s inability to represent anything but their own security.
He should be pretty thoroughly embarrassed by this episode.
Maybe he should spend less time posting on blogs and more time focusing on the campaign?
Had the Polis campaign been more on-the-ball, they wouldn’t have had to issue a retraction, or cover their butts trying to find some small oil & gas connection to try to defend their statement. Nor would they have had the person they incorrectly named making sharp elbowed comments that hit close to home against Jared.
The campaign IMHO missed the opportunity to rail against 527’s and for clean campaigns. Becker seems determined to promote “Oil & Gas Lover Joan Fitz-Gerald” regardless of how well it fits the occasion. Like I said earlier – reminds me of Dick Wadhams and his limited vocabulary of “Boulder Liberal Udall.”
Polis can buy s seat on the State Board of Education, and try to buy a congressional seat, but he can’t pay for a competent staffer? Hilarious…