Northeastern Colorado Representatives

Speaking of Colorado politics – I’m a fan of eastern and northeastern Colorado in general, but what’s the deal with their lousy choice of Congressional representatives? In 1990 they chose Wayne Allard, who has two claims to fame: (i) he’s not liberal, and (ii) he doesn’t like gays. His one activity of note during his fifteen years in Washington D.C. was sponsoring the anti-gay marriage amendment of last year. Both of his senatorial campaigns were run on an agenda of not being liberal (with no real specifics beyond that). Colorado being a slightly conservative state overall, that proved enough to get him 51% of the vote each time. Time Magazine recently named him one of the five worst senators in America, on grounds of being invisible. That’s probably too harsh; there are plenty of senators who are actively worse, but let’s just say his tenure has hardly been inspiring.

The current representative for Colorado District 4 is Marilyn Musgrave, who is the darling of the extreme Right because she hates gays. This has worked out well for her; being the darling means more campaign donations and keeps her elected. Her campaign this season has been totally pathetic; her entire message to voter has been that her opponent declared bankruptcy in the past and is therefore a cheat. Nothing wrong with bringing that up, but gee Marilyn, would you mind just once telling everyone what your voting record is and what you stand for? Of course, most of us know the answers to those, but it’s funny that she’s so self-righteous but apparently chicken enough not to be honest about her self in her campaign.

Before Allard came Hank Brown, who was also something of a putz, but by comparison to Allard and Musgrave he is looking positively statesmanlike. He’s also done decent (afaik) work as president of UNC and CU.

I should cut northeast Colorado some slack. In between Allard and Musgrave came Bob Schaffer, who I thought was a fairly decent legislator and representative. He’s out of office now, being that political rarity: a candidate who term limits and upon being elected actually kept a pledge to retire.

I just looked at the map of District 4. That has a weird shape. It includes the liberal areas of Fort Collins and parts of Boulder county, as well as the whole of the eastern third of Colorado. So Lamar and Fort Collins – 220 miles apart and vastly different culturally – get to be represented by the same person. Great.