Thu, Jul 31, 2008
Democratic Primary
Posted to Current Events category
There are three Democrats in the race for my local Congressional District: Jared Polis, Joan Fitz-Gerald, and Will Shafroth.
A few weeks ago I was called by a political poll about the race. As far as I could tell from the questions they asked, Will Shafroth was running on a platform of having a wife and kids, not on policy matters. I found that a little odd and suspicious until this morning, when I checked wikipedia on all three candidates. The article on Jared Polis describes him as 'openly gay'. Suddenly all the 'family' questions made sense. Shafroth was running on a "I am a man and not gay' platform". Ewww.
According to Shafroth's website, he has been endorsed by both Denver newspapers, which swing much farther to the right than the Boulder area that the Representative will actually be representing. This would suggest to me that he is the surrogate Republican in the race (this is a fairly solid Democratic seat) even if the push-poll questions had not made me suspicious.
I'm having trouble deciding between Polis and Fitz-Gerald.
I like Jared Polis' policies on various issues, and his website seems to address more of them and in more detail than Fitz-Gerald does. He has been a successful creator of several businesses and worked as head of the State Board of Education (an elected post), and created a foundation that, among other educational endeavors, supports education for immigrant children and homeless and at-risk children. He has also pledged not to take PAC money.
He seems competent (unlike Shrub's business background of repeated failures), and I like his ideas. He has a well-done personal website and one for his educational foundation as well as the political one that's tied to the campaign, so he seems to be a resident of the 21st century. But he does lack legislative experience.
Fitz-Gerald was the first woman President of the Colorado State Senate, and is very plugged into the old-style Democratic organization. She was previously a County Clerk (in a strongly Republican county) who introduced Vote-by-Mail to Colorado. She has most of the big endorsements from Democratic politicians and unions.
Legislative experience is desirable, but I am very disappointed with the way the organization Democrats in Congress have failed to do the things we elected them to do in 2006. They threw away two years in which they could have made corrections to the appalling course this country has been on. Legislative experience is way too likely to mean 'business as usual' in all of the worst ways.
I think I am going to vote for Polis in the primary.
Posted at: 9:07 am MDT
Comments
Re: Democratic Primary
Jared Poliswrote on Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:40
Thank you for your blog, and for your vote. I look forward to working hard for you in Congress.
No, I'm not a regular reader of your blog, but google-alerts notified me so I figured I would personally thank you for your support. Send in your ballot in the next few days to ensure it is counted.
We WILL turn this country around, and I'm excited that the next President and Congress will present an opportunity for new ideas and new ideals, and I look forward to representing you as we undo the damage from the last eight years and move forward with a bold new progressive agenda.
Jared Polis