Tag: ernest luning

Colorado Independent journalist Corey Hutchins sat down with reporter Ernest Luning of ColoradoPolitics.com and host Jon Caldara, president of the Libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, to talk about voting issues in Colorado on...

Colorado Sixth District Congressman Mike Coffman is making national headlines for trotting out a Glenn Beck-style Obama conspiracy theory on Denver talk radio. He said the president is secretly working to grant citizenship to millions of undocumented residents who will return the favor by voting for Obama next November. That's great radio except, as Colorado media watchdogger Jason Salzman points out, illegal residents can't become citizens until they're legal residents, and none of that could happen for any of them by anywhere close to Election Day. More than that, the theory dovetailed with a bill Coffman recently sponsored to strip languages other than English from voter ballots, the two taken together making Coffman seem provocatively anti-Latino. The "undocumented resident voter" theory isn't the only out-there bit Coffman has delivered lately. His handlers might have pulled in the reins after the loose nuggets he tossed out at a GOP fundraiser in Denver last week.

Last weekend Colorado Republicans huddled at their annual Centennial Dinner and took a presidential election straw poll. To their credit, perhaps, attendees at the party seemed as uninspired by the GOP candidate choices so far as does the rest of the nation. They liked Mitt Romney best, a safe choice. Runner up was not a safe choice. Maybe it was the late hour and the flowing champagne, but after Romney came Minnesota Congresswoman wingnut Michele Bachmann, the Tea Party U.S. history fan who announced she was contemplating a run at the White House the same day she put the battles of Lexington and Concord in New Hampshire instead of Massachusetts. Also strange is that Colorado Republicans also liked Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty. The former governor came in third in the poll. He was the first candidate to formally announce for president but few Americans outside of Minnesota and the Centennial Dinner crowd could pick him out of a line up.

It's not exactly a tidal wave. But the three Republican members of the House who have gone on record as supportive of state Senator Pat Steadman's civil unions bill suggests Democratic House sponsor Mark Ferrandino is right to be confident that the bill will pass if it could somehow climb over likely House committee hurdles.