October 20, 2015 11:47 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Tuesday (Oct. 20)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Oh, Canada, something, something. It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example).

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► If you have not yet received a mail ballot for the 2015 election, you should probably start looking into the matter. Go to GoVoteColorado.com to check your voter registration status or to print out a sample ballot. You can also check out JustVoteColorado.org for more information. For more details on local school board elections, check out ProgressNow Colorado’s voter guide.

► Former FOX 31 reporter Eli Stokols left Denver for Politico last spring, but somehow he’s still about the best political reporter in Colorado. Stokols gets the story on Sunday’s secretive fundraiser for Jeb! Bush, featuring his brother, former President George W. Bush, which was held at the Denver Art Museum penthouse of billionaire J. Landis Martin.

Among other tidbits, Dubya does not like Ted Cruz, and event organizers were scrambling at the last minute to fill the room with $250 tickets for young professionals. You’ll learn none of this from Colorado media outlets, which inexplicably ignored the event altogether.

► Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb announced today that he is dropping out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. That’s probably a good idea, considering his weird performance during last week’s Democratic Presidential debate.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Congressman Ken Buck (R-Greeley) was a featured guest at a swank fundraiser in New York City hosted by David Koch. No word yet on how, or why, Buck ended up with top billing at The Metropolitan Club.

► Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana — yes, that David Vitter — is seeking to replace Governor Bobby Jindal in Louisiana’s weird electoral system that starts with a first round of voting this weekend. Vitter’s favorability ratings are plummeting, and if no candidate receives 50% of the vote, a runoff election will be held on Nov. 21. Vitter is pushing his “sanctuary city” legislation in the Senate as a key issue for his gubernatorial hopes, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appears inclined to help him out by calling for a vote on the issue.

► Economic issues are scheduled to take center stage at the Oct. 28 Republican Presidential debate in Boulder, which should give candidates ample time to discuss the tax benefits of legal marijuana.

► Canada’s Liberal Party won huge victories in Monday’s national election. As the New York Times reports:

The nine-year reign of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party came to a sudden and stunning end on Monday night at the hands of Justin Trudeau, the young leader of the Liberal Party.

Starting with a sweep of the Atlantic provinces, the Liberals capitalized on what many Canadians saw as Mr. Harper’s heavy-handed style, and the party went on to capture 184 of the 338 seats in the next House of Commons. The unexpected rout occurred 47 years after Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, first swept to power.

Justin Trudeau, who will be 44 on Christmas Day, will become Canada’s second-youngest prime minister and the first to follow a parent into office.

As Trudeau told supporters in Montreal last night: “Sunny ways, my friends, sunny ways, this is what positive politics can do.”

► Newly-registered voters in Colorado continue to lean toward the “Unaffiliated” category, which poses a difficult question for Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Not as difficult, perhaps, as the large number of Democratic voters who like Bernie but don’t think he can actually win the Presidency.

► Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) continues to dance on the grave of Colorado HealthOP, which will be forced to close its doors at the end of the year because of a lack of federal funding. Of course, Gardner is well aware of the reasons for the health co-op’s failure, because he supporting cutting funding as a Member of Congress:

Bottom line: Cory Gardner is not just an observer in this destruction of the Affordable Care Act’s nonprofit co-op system, which was itself a compromise put together after a more robust (and arguably much more functional) “public option” insurance entity was discarded. From Gardner’s support for throttling the co-ops during high-stakes budget negotiations to trying to kill the “risk corridor” reimbursement program off completely, Gardner worked to bring to pass the very “crisis” he claims to be upset about.

► Governor John Hickenlooper is wrapping up a two-week trade mission that included visits by a Colorado delegation to Japan, China, Turkey, and Israel. 

► A water treatment plant is up and running in Gladstone, set up to treat a waste water spill from Gold King Mine that occurred in early August.

► Colorado’s pension plan — known locally as PERA — will be fully funded by 2055.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Polls continue to be unkind to Jeb! Bush, showing consistent declines in favorability ratings for the former Florida Governor and 2016 Presidential hopeful. Favorability ratings have remained relatively stable for everyone else in the Republican field.

► According to new poll numbers from CNN, Republican Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina is on her way to craterville. Support for Florina has dropped to 4% from a high of 15% last month.

► The Benghazi Select Committee is scheduled to meet again on Thursday, but after three years of spending lots of money for no real purpose, it’s time to end the charade.

ICYMI

► Still on the fence about Climate Change? It’s probably getting pretty lonely up there. More than 3 out of 4 Americans now acknowledge a belief in Climate Change, including a majority of Republicans.

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