Government is a core pillar of society. When choosing our leaders, there is a lot to unpack, and this column is intended to help readers do just that before Election Day.
I once helped a friend sail his 40-foot catamaran through the Caribbean. As we crossed the Gulf Stream at night, a precarious adventure for this rookie, my friend noticed some unusual lights ahead of us. As he quickly deciphered what the International Code of Signals (ICS) was indicating, we course-corrected and narrowly avoided disaster. Had he not understood the signals, and just as importantly, had he not had the will to act, I might not be writing this column today.
Similar to the ICS, the primaries are over in Colorado and now it’s up to us voters to understand the signals, and be intentional about the direction we want to go. Some decisions have been made, or effectively been made already. Brent Baker will be our next Sheriff because there were no challengers to the two Republican candidates, giving that party a multi-decade lock on “law and order” and public safety issues. And given how blue our state has trended, especially in statewide elections (think urban voting power), I’d bet the farm that Jena Griswold will be our next Attorney General (AG) and Phil Weiser will be our next Governor.
The AG field of candidates was impressive. Too bad they couldn’t be more strategic about which newcomer would run. As such, the candidate who is least qualified but has the most name recognition won. In the race for the Democrats’ nomination for governor, voters appear to have favored a non-Washington insider in Phil Weiser, who also ran a very strong campaign. For the Republicans’ nomination for governor, spectacle once again won over experience, and based on the razor-thin margin, it’s clear the Republicans are as divided as ever.
One of the remaining interesting races is for State House District 57, with Russ Andrews challenging incumbent Elizabeth Velasco. This race is interesting because it highlights the multitude of divisions among voters in Colorado. Conservative versus progressive drives many issues, but mostly at the national level. In Colorado, rural versus urban is a larger source of division but can often unite Western Slope elected officials from different parties.
And let’s not forget the age-old divide between the “haves” and the “have nots.” If you struggle to make ends meet (aka the “have nots”), then affordability supersedes all other issues and you may not even have the luxury of voting, let alone becoming an informed voter. If you have disposable income to make political contributions, let alone millions of dollars’ worth of contributions, then you already have an incredibly disproportional share of power, and your power is probably growing at a disproportionate rate. With some local and state office exceptions, if you are an elected official, you are officially a “have” making life-altering decisions for the “have nots.”
A question I asked both Andrews and Velasco that highlights their division is: How do you, or would you, determine that a new law is needed to solve a problem? This question gets to the root of the rising tensions between liberalism and post-liberalism that I addressed in a previous column. The candidates’ differences speak to the chasm of divide in our country.
Andrews speaks with great confidence about his proposed solutions and apparently sees many issues as black or white (literally in the case of gun violence). He cited capitalism as the solution to many issues, and government as the problem. On the other end of the political spectrum, Velasco’s perspective is that if there’s a problem, and the government can afford to enforce a new law, then government is the solution. Their responses made me think of the quote, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) was another topic, specifically my pet peeve issue of TABOR giving voters the option to vote on all tax initiatives, EXCEPT real estate transfer taxes. It is the pinnacle of conservative hypocrisy, written into our state’s constitution. Velasco clearly understood the issue, but stated that fixing it is a “complex issue.” Andrews didn’t seem familiar with this aspect of TABOR and stated, “he needed to think about it.”
We also discussed immigration enforcement versus public safety and gun rights versus gun violence. Their respective perspectives track as you might expect, but the issues are far too complex to cover in this column.
So, what are the signals we are receiving from the primaries in local, state and national races? My read is that the country is trending conservative (with exceptions and not necessarily trending Republican), Republican talking points are trending toward post-liberalism, Democratic Socialists are gaining ground and clearly the “haves” are rapidly increasing their power.
In Colorado, I’m seeing signals indicating Democrat and Republican candidates generally moving farther and farther to the extremes, while voters are fleeing both parties by unaffiliating. We’ll have to wait until November to see whether being unaffiliated translates into independent-thinking voters.
Often feeling lost on that sailing trip in the Caribbean, I remember thinking of the quote “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will take you there.” Time will tell whether we understood the signals of today, and whether we mustered the will to act accordingly.