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Vail Daily recap of endorsements from president to Eagle County, Colorado

Vail Daily Editorial Board
Vail, CO, Colorado
newsroom@vaildaily.com

EAGLE COUNTY ” Tuesday is Election Day ” finally, blissfully, an end to the advertising, the phone calls, the litter of signs, the blizzard of claims large and small, half-baked and too late.

Tuesday will tell all, or mostly all. The country, and the county, will have a new direction, big change or not.

In any case the big day is just about here. Voter turnout should be among the highest in a long time, though you never know. That claim has been made before.



So our main and most important recommendation is that you vote. This is the very cornerstone of our way of life, after all. Citizens indeed do have a responsibility to study up and make their best choices.

These are ours, recognizing fully that you have or will make up your own mind, based on your values, your best sense of what our fine community and country need most now.

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Here’s a recap of our endorsements this year:

For president, a divided editorial board tips to Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate.

We like John McCain, an improvement over George W. Bush, and have not bit on the temptation to trash opposing candidates in the heat of the season.

Our majority recognizes, though, that McCain offers a continuation of the current governance, while Obama offers a different ” fully American ” direction more focused on the middle-class economically and rehabbing the United States’ standing abroad.

For U.S. senator, Democrat Mark Udall is the better-rounded candidate who can be trusted to work across the aisle with Republicans on the difficult bipartisan issues that confront this nation.

Democrat Jared Polis simply has worked harder for Eagle County’s vote than his no-name Republican rival for U.S. House despite having a slam-dunk advantage in a district dominated by Boulder. He’s not Joan Fitzgerald, our favorite who was defeated in the Democratic primary. But he shows that he knows where Eagle County is, and has worked particularly hard and creatively in education.

Republican Al White, a well-rounded state representative hitting his term limit, is the best choice for Senate District 8. Much like Udall, he inspires trust and is not allergic to good ideas from the other party.

The Daily’s editorial board is most divided in its choice for the state House district serving Eagle County.

A slight majority tipped to Republican Ali Hasan, whose enthusiastic campaigning and creative ideas have dominated the discussion even more than Democratic wailing about the amount of personal investment he has put into running for office.

Nothing wrong with freshman appointee Christine Scanlan, the Democrat, and she’s a safe choice. But to the slim majority of the editorial board, ideology matters in that the Republicans’ fiscal prudence is needed at the state level, along with more creative ideas and provincially speaking, a representative from Eagle County for the first time since 1984 would be a nice change, too.

For Eagle County commissioners, in some ways more important to this community than even the presidency, we split the ticket.

All of the candidates this year would go a solid, competent job, though with widely different approaches between the Republican and Democratic candidates.

We settled on Democrat Jon Stavney to join incumbent Democrat Sara Fisher as the board majority to keep Eagle County headed generally in a progressive direction with affordable housing, as well as thorough planning for development pressure and environmental considerations.

But we also picked a Republican, former Commissioner Dick Gustafson, for the fiscally more prudent influences he would bring to a board that for the past few years has not demonstrated much consideration for the taxpayer who shoulders the load of progressive initiatives that are on the costly side.

Still, you won’t waste your vote on Republican Debbie Buckley or Democrat Peter Runyon. Both are completely competent, decent people who have served well in public office before.

And in Avon ” having a blissfully quiet election this year ” we recommend incumbents Kristi Ferraro and Amy Phillips to continue along the town’s current path, along with former Mayor Buz Reynolds, who brings a wealth of longtime knowledge and a sometimes contrary point of view that will only add to the thoughtfulness of Avon decision-making.

Perhaps most of all, we’re all looking forward to the end of a long day and night Tuesday, when the votes are in and at least mostly counted.

This is when it’s especially great to be citizens of this country. Whatever happens, we won’t riot, there will be no troops in the street. We’ll move peacefully ” if with some residual grousing ” into the next terms of office. No matter who is filling the seats.

Vail Daily Editorial Board


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