Democracy in Action

“I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat.” Representative Bob Gardner, a Republican, uttered Will Rogers’s classic quote on Thursday, as the Statehouse was hurrying through business before the three-day Easter holiday. But the line described the action a few blocks away even better,…

Lottery Lunacy

To determine which groups get what public parks during the Democratic National Convention in August, the city of Denver held its first ever “extraordinary event” park permitting lottery yesterday afternoon – a cheery little raffle that I will be referring to from this point forward as the Clusterfuck of Democracy…

Bitch is the New Black

Bitch is the New Black on FunnyOrDie.com Tina Fey started it. In her hosting role on the first Saturday Night Live back from the recent writers’ strike, Tina Fey appeared on the “Weekend Update” segment and capped her piece on “Women’s News” with a pro-Hillary rallying cry. And in recent…

Speech in the City of Brotherly Love

It’s not often in America that a rich, white military man and a rich, white wife of a former president hang on a black man’s every word. It’s not often that a presidential candidate can call the Constitution stained but endowed with infinite future promise, can call this country’s citizens…

Cry Fowl

“Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.” That’s a line from an 1810 potem by Robert Southey, and the first cited reference of the roosting-chicken term, although the story dates back to Chaucer. On Tuesday morning, March 18, a little over an hour from the time…

Delegating Denver #35 of 56: New Mexico

View larger image New Mexico Total Number of Delegates: 38 Pledged: 26 Unpledged: 12 How to Recognize a New Mexico Delegate: If Hawaii is the state that is the most like a foreign country, then New Mexico is the state that is most like another planet. It is an established…

Nichols’ Worth

John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation, came to Denver last week and gave just a taste of what this city will be like this August, when the whole world will be watching, Nichols, who spoke at the Central Library as part of the DPL’s Fresh City Life program, offered…

Wayne’s World

Wayne Allard isn’t ready to go fishing in the clear mountain streams of retirement just yet. The Colorado Republican, who was famously criticized by TIME magazine for being one of America’s five worst senators as the “Invisible Man” who never did anything, brought a $1.4 trillion budget amendment to the…

The Straight-Talk Express Goes to Utah. And Europe.

The Salt Lake City Tribune is reporting that John McCain will stop in Utah on March 27 to raise funds for his upcoming GOP presidential run. He was trounced there by Mitt Romney 90-5 percent in the state’s primary on Super Tuesday, but what a difference two months makes: McCain…

Looking for Larry

Ever since news broke last fall that Senator Larry Craig had not limited his wide-stance activities to the Minneapolis airport, but had also tried his luck at Denver International Airport, an intrepid Demver correspondent — we’ll call him Mr. seX — has been scouting the bathrooms at DIA looking for…

Crowded Cowboy Caucuses

Another weekend gone, another caucus in the books, another Obama win. If you blinked you missed Wyoming’s twelve pledged delegates, but you’d have to be asleep to miss two Democratic presidential candidates stumping in our northern neighbor, a state whose delegation made JFK the nominee in 1960 but hasn’t elected…

Delegating Denver #34 of 56: New Jersey

View larger image New Jersey Total Number of Delegates: 127 Pledged: 107 Unpledged: 20 How to Recognize a New Jersey Delegate: New Jersey is the only state in the union to have started out as a turnpike. It was built in 1776 by an organized-crime syndicate to take advantage of…

Pundit Watch: Paul Begala

Why do you argue? These were the words that may have killed CNN’s Crossfire, which was cancelled not long after. Jon Stewart’s now-legendary appearance on that show took not only conservative bow-tied Tucker Carlson to task, but also spanked democratic strategist Paul Begala. Begala no doubt thought that he was…

The Ron Paul Revolution Is Only Beginning…

Word is leaking, painfully, out of the Ron Paul commune today that the Good Doctor is ending his candidacy for the presidency, three days after he was mathematically eliminated from the Republican nomination. There’s nothing quite like choosing your own moment to exit, regardless of circumstance, and Dr. Paul holds…

March 4: “Critical Tuesday”

The night started out with Vermont being crazy. Not crazy because they went for frontrunners Barack Obama and John McCain, in sizeable fashion (Obama carried white voters, male voters and even female voters by smart margins), but because they voted to arrest Bush and Cheney, 2,012 to 1,795. If that…

John McCain: Cannibal?

I’m not a John McCain supporter. I knew him as one of my senators when I lived in Arizona, and I’ve come to know him as a presidential candidate in these last two elections. And as much of a beef as I might have with the man and his politics,…

Curb Your Enthusiasm

The Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee just spewed out another release — this time noting that “local software company Nanco Global LLC has provided a software upgrade to the Host Committee’s volunteer page at www.DenverConvention2008.com.” Unfortunately, that upgrade clearly didn’t include a stop by spellcheck…

Dress Rehearsal for Obama, Clinton and McCain

This hard-hitting slide show by political correspondent Joe Horton shows Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Mike Huckabee all dressed up with only the superdelegates of Texas and Ohio to pander to…

Delegating Denver #33 of 56: New Hampshire

View larger image New Hampshire Total Number of Delegates: 30 Pledged: 22 Unpledged: 8 How to Recognize a New Hampshire Delegate: “Live Free or Die” is the motto that New Hampshirites use to project their image of fierce independence. In truth, it briefly explains the state’s tax code, which exempts…

Pundit Watch: Frank Luntz

Beware of pollsters with agendas. A pollster is supposed to be someone just culling data from a statistically significant portion of the population, right? Someone with one eye on politics, and the other on science? Well, if you consider the efficacy of propaganda a scientific end, Frank Luntz is your…

Q&A With Former Colorado Senator Gary Hart

Former Colorado Senator Gary Hart is not just any observer of the 2008 election campaign. He sees strong parallels between the contest pitting Democrats Barack Obama (who he supports) against Hillary Clinton and his own 1984 run for the White House. Back then, Walter Mondale, the former Vice President and…

Delegating Denver #32 of 56: Nevada

View larger image Nevada Total Number of Delegates: 33 Pledged: 25 Unpledged: 8 How to Recognize a Nevada Delegate: Nevadans like to claim that their state was named for the Spanish word that means “covered in snow.” This, of course, seems deliberately misleading to anyone who has visited Las Vegas…