Opinion & Commentary

Denver County has never had a Denver County Fair — but that century-in-the-making event will finally come to the National Western Stock Show facility July 28-31. Denver does have a County Fair, though, and today it will celebrate the life of councilwoman Carla Madison…

Turns out that Tom Tancredo was not the only Michael Hancock supporter to start shouting “Viva Romer.” State representative Crisanta Duran gave $100 to the Hancock campaign, a donation recorded on May 10 — the day before she endorsed Chris Romer and became deputy manager of his campaign…

Movers and shakers usually donate to political campaigns so that they can get the ear of an office-holder. But at today’s debt-retirement fundraiser for Doug Linkhart, they’ll be lucky if they get this lousy T-shirt… and the thanks of a longtime public servant…

The end of the endless Denver mayor’s race is just a week away, and no matter how Chris Romer or Michael Hancock may feel about creationism, there’s little evidence that this campaign has evolved. A Romer-supporting 527 is still wallowing in the mud…

Memorial Day is still three days away, but all week I have been carried away by memories. The extended Westword family lost one of its members this week when Chris Power Bain, who’d served as advertising manager in the early ’80s, passed away. There’s much more to her story than…

“Viva Romer!” That was the word from Tom Tancredo yesterday morning on Peter Boyles’s radio show, responding to the dirty-tricks campaign designed to turn Latino voters against Michael Hancock by claiming that Tancredo has endorsed Hancock. Except, of course, that Tancredo has never endorsed Hancock…

In a Denver mayoral campaign that was supposed to be so clean, the dirtiest deed yet is tied to a man who does not even live in Denver and has not actually talked to either candidate. “That’s what you get for going to lunch with Peter Boyles,” says Tom Tancredo…

Just when you thought this mayoral campaign couldn’t blow any harder, Tom Tancredo enters the ring. Not that the five-term congressman, one-time presidential aspirant, one-time gubernatorial candidate and all-time House Crazy asked to get in on the action. But once the negative ads start, how much lower can you go?…

My official ballot for the City and County of Denver’s municipal run-off election was shoved through my mail chute yesterday and I picked it up gingerly, wondering if the slime would come off on my hand. Increasingly, this campaign has made me long for a John Hickenlooper-like no-negative-campaigning shower…

“Police Brutality is Killing Us.” That was the stark message, laid out in black-and-white, in the editorial pages of the Denver Post yesterday. But this wasn’t an editorial: It was an ad placed by the America Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, part of a new Race to Justice campaign designed…

The Chris Romer campaign is finally stopping that ubiquitous ad attacking Michael Hancock for voting for a city council pay raise. Pundits are guessing that criticism from Governor John Hickenlooper, name-checked in the commercial, inspired the move; the Romer campaign is saying that the ad had simply run its course…

Let the guessing games begin! “The Most Awkward Meeting” in today’s Wall Street Journal outlines how elevator technology in certain high-rises has changed business etiquette, almost eliminating the “elevator pitch,” as execs are dispatched to their own cars — and, in one Denver building, keeping attorneys separate from IRS agents…

Visit Denver just rolled out its $2 million summer tourism campaign, tagged “Denver’s Summer of Adventure,” which touts the opportunity to have both an urban and an outdoor adventure when visitors come to this city. And so far, the target markets look like easy pickins: Kansas City, Dallas and Phoenix…

While Denver City Council’s vote to raise councilmembers’ salaries continues to raise questions — and tempers — on the Denver mayoral campaign trail, an activist in cash-strapped Aurora has determined that retiring councilmembers there will get an even bigger payday…

While Governor John Hickenlooper was wrapping up his first legislative session and Tom Tancredo was riding the right-wing blogosphere last week, the also-ran in that race, Dan Maes, was demonstrating that if you only get 11 percent of the vote, it doesn’t matter if you topple a thicket of political…

In the beginning, Michael Hancock had a very good start to Thursday: Coming off a smooth performance in a bumpy mayoral debate, he survived an appearance on Peter Boyles’s show and then learned he was ahead of Chris Romer in two polls — one by RBI, one by his own…

“You’re the fun cousins,” radio host Dan Caplis told the Denver Republicans, hosts of last night’s mayoral debate between Michael Hancock and Chris Romer. But this discussion was not all fun and games; while Romer said (over and over) that as mayor he would “ruffle feathers,” Hancock plucked plenty with…

Before there was an Internet, there were people with long memories — and two of them, former lawmakers John Bermingham and Jerry Kopel, have amazing stories of the last time Colorado grappled with the issues of adultery and fornication — if there is any difference between the two…