Now that Republican banker J.J. Ament has joined the GOP field in the race for State Treasurer, we may finally have a primary in Colorado that gets interesting (the GOP Governor’s race has been pretty tame except for one or two shots).
As The Colorado Statesman reports, sparks are starting to fly a little bit. Even if the sparks are confined to the kind of sniping that the uber-rich attempt:
“I currently am blessed with a great paying job. My opponent doesn’t have a job and hasn’t in some time. I think it’s important that people do public service as a sacrifice. A very transparent way to distinguish myself is that I have a job in the private sector and I am sacrificing that for public service,” Stapleton said.
Walker Roberts Stapleton, of course, is a direct blood relative to the Bush family. What kind of important hard-hat wearing work does he do that distinguishes him from Ament? Well, we’ll let his own website bio explain:
Walker is an active real estate investor in Colorado and has made investments in land, retail and residential real estate throughout the state. He also is president and CEO of SonomaWest Holdings, a small publicly traded real estate company.
Not exactly a coal miner, that Stapleton (being a real estate investor kind of requires you to already have money), but he has a job and Ament doesn’t! Nanny-nanny-boo-boo.
We’re excited about this race. Two rich dudes exchanging nonsensical, petty attacks trying to pretend they aren’t as silver spoon-fed as the other guy.
Good stuff.
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as a neon-blue pool of mine tailings at 10,200 ft.
And what’s up with Pols’ preoccupation with slamming the independently wealthy? Money may not make good people, but it doesn’t necessarily make bad people either.
Down with finance-based discrimination! Equality for all!
when they try to come off as working class heroes or they try to derail health care reform.
and read the quote from Stapleton.
He doesn’t claim to be a working class hero. He claims to be a guy making lots of money that is running for an office that pays considerably less money.
If neither of these guys had jobs for the next 20 years, they’d be fine. They’re both rich. No need to have an argument about who’s richer or poorer or who has a job or who doesn’t.
It’s not my fault if Walker Stapleton can’t control his message.
It’s how much money he will sacrifice by being in office. I agree with spaces, there is no intention by Stapleton of being Blue-Collar – but rather uber white-collar.
While we can ridicule him for telling us how much of a sacrifice it is to go from a 7-8 figure salary to a 5-6 figure salary – calling it a sacrifice makes him look spoiled – we can’t ridicule him for something he didn’t say.
Come on Pols and RSB. Read what he’s saying.
Stapleton is attacking Ament over the fact that Ament doesn’t have a job. It’s totally disengenuous because it implies that Ament is independently wealthy–whereas Stapleton works for his money.
Ament has had plenty of jobs in the past, over a wide area of fields (his own website causually omits the fact that he worked for Citi Group, but I digress.)
The point is that this has very little to do with who would be the better Treasurer, and everything to do with ad hominem attacks to prove which of them is less silver spoon-fed. Pols gets this one exactly right.
Pols did. And then you did.
Stapleton implied that Ament isn’t sacrificing income, and that he is sacrificing income. Read into it what you want, but the quote is plain as day.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s a silly quote in the first place, and it’s splitting hairs at best. But this is only a “story” because of the spin.
Stapleton is trying to paint Ament as a rich guy who doesn’t need a job. Which is funny, because he’s in the same position.
He’s not trying to say he’s sacrificing a good salary to be Treasurer, and if he is, that’s a really silly message. Vote Stapleton – he’s willing to take a $68,000 a year job!
But that is clearly what he’s saying. It’s why he used the qualifier “great paying” in reference to his own job. If he was trying to paint himself as middle class working man, why would he even mention that he makes a lot of money?
And if he’s not saying he’s sacrificing a good salary to be Treasurer, why would he go on to say:
Admitting one’s own tendency towards inventing spin is tough, I understand. It’ll come in time. Start by admitting that you massaged the perception of an innocuous quote to frame two Republican candidates as undeserving of the Treasurer’s seat based on their wealth. And then attack “uber-rich” Democratic candidates for the same “failing”.
For he does suffers so….
Anybody remember Marc Holtzman ? Stapleton and he seem like birds of a feather. I remember Holtzy telling everyone he was from blue collar coal country in PA. What a fucking joke.
Stapleton is sacrificing his great=paying job for the good of the people! Is that not a hero?
Maybe he’s not a blue collar hero, but a white collar hero.
I love when Republicans try to compare running for public office to serving the country in the military or peace corps or something. Putting yourself in a political race, and trying to get one of the top-level elected jobs in the state is hardly sacrificing anything.
and his analogy that his kids work on his campaign was akin to serving in Iraq. Just shows you what the mindset is.
even if it’s not much of a financial one in this case.
Politicians sacrifice time with their families, privacy, and often their reputation in the name of “serving”.
Whether that service is done in good faith, and whether the sacrifice is true, comes down to the individual politician.
I can tell you that, having worked with state politicians for many years, most of these “public servants” take that term very seriously. And sacrifice a great deal personally (though rarely professionally) in the name of that service.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with the fact that those who run for office often do it for selfish reasons.
I would be far more wary of someone who says they’re running because they want to “serve their country” than someone who wants to run because they want to make changes to public policy or law.
If you buy into the notion that most who run for office at a statewide level do it for purely virtuous and patriotic reasons, then you’re being dillusional IMO.
or is that a perception you picked up from movies and media reports?
I’ve come to know a large sampling of legislators from both sides of the aisle, and I tell you that my experience is that they are predominantly good people with strong convictions who believe they are doing what’s right based on their understanding of the world.
Like you, I assumed they were all selfish bloodsuckers until proven otherwise. Not delusional. Just did some first-hand research.
Of course, the higher up the ladder you climb, the less virtuous the average politician becomes.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with running for selfish reasons, and I certainly don’t think that everyone who runs for office for something other than “serving their country” are doing so because they’re bloodsuckers.
I just think that when you say that you’re making a sacrifice to become an elected official it’s incredibly disengenuous. People who run do so because they want the office, the power, and everything else that comes along with it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that either.
Stapleton’s comments are exactly the kind of pretentious holier-than-thou BS that spews from the mouths of people who are concealing their real reasons for running. So far, he hasn’t given a logical explanation of why he would be a better treasurer than JJ Ament–or Cary Kennedy for that matter.
most local candidates run for selfish reasons.
And sure they want the office and the power, but it’s still a sacrifice of one’s private life to serve in a public office. That sacrifice often includes less time spent with family, especially in a state as broad as Colorado.
Stapleton’s comments are definitely holier-than-thou BS. We can absolutely agree on that. My issue was with the (disingenuous) way Pols framed the debate.
But I appreciate your willingness to have a real conversation.
By the by, I saw that quote mere moments ago and immediately thought of this conversation. Talk about politically-loaded BS.
Thanks much. But what does that have to do with this ridiculous girly slap by Stapleton?
I just can’t bring myself to let a Bush be in charge of my money.
Prolly pay himself a big bonus, go broke, and ask for a bailout.
I wouldn’t vote for a banker for dogcatcher.
…he’s making the point that J.J. is a laid-off Citibank worker who was let go just before the crash. That the guy doesn’t have a job, is looking for one, and is willing to accept the State Treasurer’s seat as a stand-by.
Has anyone asked J.J. if he’d still be interested in the position if he were offered, say, a 7-8 figure position with Wells, Vectra, Key, J.P. Morgan, or any other financial institution for that matter, between now and next June?
Just curious. But maybe that’s a valid question.
tough crowd in here…..
They see through offensive posturing like that.