Colorado Politics

It didn't have to the this way. According to Colorado Pols, Colorado's Referenda C & D are going down in flames. I'm pissed. It's not election day and everything could change tomorrow, but I'm still pissed.

The way the ad campaign on both sides of this issue worked out is what is going to do in this amendment. As outlined in this post, the No side of this issue had the easy campaign strategy: just show the public that greedy politicians want their tax refund, and you're home free. In an age of nuance, where even our President doesn't do nuance, Referenda C & D are a hard sell. Such a hard sell that their side of the ad campaign was defending against the No side.

What should have happened? In my small mind, it seems that our Incredibly Republican Governor and our Incredibly Republican Former-Senator-Turned-CU President should have been seen in every television ad with any and all liberals from the State House and Senate and any other comers who wanted in to display the bipartisan effort that was being put into words (newspapers), but not visuals (tv). (deep breath) Run-on sentences suck, I know, but you get the idea. Personally, I think that Governor Owens has received so much heat from the national party for supporting an amendment that's probably considered socialism in some circles that he didn't want to take any more risk beyond supporting the measure. Instead, they showed pictures of the non-partisan Blue Book, displaying text from the ads. Excuse me? The flipping BLUE BOOK??? It's so disappointing that they didn't want my opinion on ad buys, but what the hell, that's what blogs are for.

I still hold out hope that it'll be close enough for the Yes vote to win, but if it loses, the people responsible will those who put together the television ads. They should know better.