Colorado Politics

Voting here was ridiculous. I'm glad to see that Hickenlooper is pissed and is going to do something about it. If there's anyone who can make sure it doesn't happen again, it's probably him. And how cool is it that he has said he will personally pay the parking tickets of anyone who got tagged while they were stuck waiting hours and hours to vote? Very cool, that's how cool: very cool.

I went to the Tattered Cover where conservative estimates were putting the line at three hours. So I bailed from there and went home to check the intertubes for other nearby polling places. Rude Rec Center supposedly had short lines, so I headed there. After creating my own parking space, I queued up for what was going to be nearly as long of a wait: fewer people, but more computer problems. After about 40 minutes in line, a kind, old voting judge took pity on me and my crutches offering to get me to the front of the line. "Not necessary," I politely protested. But she assured me that they were to help out the disabled and the discomforted. I was the latter if not clearly the former. Before I even left work for the day I had begun hoping for such a break. I took her up on it; she moved me to the front of the line, and counseled me to walk slowly and to look like I was in a lot of pain. Yeah, like I was going to be able to wipe the big smile off of my face after jumping 300 places in line.

I voted for just about all of the losers and voted Libertarian where I could. I just don't understand the Colorado political landscape. The voting makes no sense. Tancredo is one of the more conservative guys in Congress, and he won no problem. Likewise, the corrupt Republican, Musgrave, won against her well financed Democratic challenger. But the state races went strongly to the Dems. In the governor's race Dem Ritter pummeled Beauprez who was a generally-moderate, well-regarded conservative while in Congress. But the state issues went strongly conservative with marriage definitions passing and domestic partnerships failing. Marijuana went up in smoke which I am really shocked by. If decriminalization can't be voted in here, but can in Alaska and Oregon (or is it WA? or both? whatever...) then I can only imagine how many tokers those states must have. Coloradoans were (stupidly) progressive in their making yearly minimum wage increases part of the state constitution. But Denverites were (smartly) not progressive in voting down a minimal tax raise that would have funded preschool programs. ("Fuck the children," as Hope rightly said.) It just doesn't all add up. The cognitive dissonance felt collectivley by the state should be enough to bring our businesses to a halt. I know that I for one have barely been able to focus on work since hearing all of the contradictory results.

Jonathan 11/09/2006 08:31:00 AM