November 01, 2016 02:04 PM UTC

"Grassroots" Amendment 71 Campaign: Too Clever By Half

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• by: Colorado Pols

Denver7’s Marshall Zelinger reports on a misfire from the campaign to pass Amendment 71, the “Raise The Bar” measure to make it harder to to amend the state’s constitution:

Voters in Centennial alerted Denver7 to a hand-delivered flyer that some felt was über personal.

The flyers were in envelopes that appeared to be handwritten.

“It looked like it was an envelope from a neighbor,” said Centennial voter Mickki Langston. “I had just opened the door in the morning, and it fell. My immediate thought was, ‘Oh, there’s a neighbor who actually cares about this amendment.”

The envelope contains information from “Raise the Bar,” the group in support of Amendment 71. The amendment would make it more difficult to amend the state’s constitution by changing the requirements for signature collection and the overall vote.

The outside of the envelope reads: “Im (sic) your neighbor and Amendment 71 is important to me. I hope you’ll VOTE YES on Amendment 71!” It appears to be handwritten. Some of the ones delivered in Centennial had “Joey K” actually handwritten at the bottom.

But on closer analysis, there was little if anything “handwritten” about these notes:

“That just feels dishonest,” said Langston. “What bothers me is the irony of a campaign that is about preventing grassroots change using pretend grassroots tactics.”

Not only are the “handwritten” notes not authentic, being mass printed in a typeface that resembles handwriting, but the story of these fake “personal” messages provides a nice segue into the Yes on Amendment 71’s dubious claim to be “grassroots” at all:

“Raise the Bar” has received $5.1 million in contributions. Of that, about $160,000 is from 114 individuals who contributed $250 or less. The rest of the money is from corporations and businesses. More than $3 million has come from oil and gas companies. [Pols emphasis]

And that, dear reader, is how an idea that sounds good in the strategy session goes to hell in the execution.