Vail Daily letter: Mulcahy for state Senate
As nasty as politics get, the battle between Don Suppes and Kerry Donovan for Colorado Senate District 5 has certainly got to be one of the worst local ones in recent memory, and while much of the serious mud is by independent Political Action Committees that are beyond the candidates’ control, there has been more than enough nonsense coming from both camps, and a notable lack of disclaimers for what does come from the PACs.
From claims that candidate Suppes is a white supremacist who doesn’t like little league to claims that candidate Donovan supporting abortion when it’s used for gender selection, the claims continue to the point of absurdity. It’s as if these PACs have a hat full of unforgivable sins and draw one out every week to whip into accusations.
In a recent article in the Grand Junction Sentinel, candidate Suppes claims he doesn’t believe in such tactics but then brags “it works, it absolutely works.” In the same article, candidate Donovan states that while she promised to run a clean campaign, she sees nothing wrong with negative campaigning if it is used to point out differences between candidates. One must wonder how much sleep either candidate is losing over mudslinging going on by the PACs that support them.
Most would agree that pointing out significant “differences” between the candidates over issues such as white supremacy, hating little league and gender selective abortion would be worth noting, if there was much likelihood they were true. Personally these are such extreme claims I doubt there is little truth to them and as such they have no place in a campaign without definitive proof, none of which has been forthcoming. But what is glaringly lacking here is respect for the voters’ intelligence both by the PACs and the candidates themselves.
As a voter who is tired of attempts to manipulate my intelligence (and then hearing Suppes brag that “it works, it always works”), I’d like to see the option on the ballot to throw the whole dang bunch of them out. However, as that is not a option I’m going to take the opportunity to make a statement and vote for Libertarian candidate Lee Mulcahy for Colorado Senate District 5. Lee is a guy who (blessedly) doesn’t have a political action committee working for or against him, has been deliberately excluded by a joint effort of the Republicans and Democrats from four of the seven debates for Senate District 5, and has spent less than a few thousand dollars on his campaign and has largely been overlooked by the press.
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Not surprisingly Mulcahy is polling a distant third as of last week and I doubt Donovan and Suppes are too concerned about the competition. However an article this week about Mulcahy in the Vail Daily (the first mention they have made of his candidacy) got a rousing 895 Facebook shares, which while impossible to quantify into votes is about as close to going viral on the Vail Daily as there is. There is clearly interest in change out there. Could District 5 be seeing the beginnings of a Facebook revolution?
Mulcahy warrants some serious consideration from voters who believe the time has come for a change. For those who don’t know his story, here’s the short version. For many years Lee was the No. 1 requested ski instructor at Aspen, but got fired when he tried to lobby for better pay and working conditions for instructors there. As additional retribution, Aspen Skico also permanently banned him from their facilities and federal lands they lease from the Forest Service (and the Forest Service went along with the request). That led to his personal resolution that things had to change and he has decided to give it his all to use the power of an elected office to work towards restoring a balance of power favoring the people and oppose federal overreach of many of our rights that are being eroded. He favors many issues that would help rebuild the middle class, but is sensible that the state must remain business friendly to create jobs and promote growth. He has a good feel for the issues of rural Colorado and is surprisingly middle of the road on many things.
If you don’t like the past results of voting either Democrat or Republican, then speak your mind and vote for Lee Mulcahy for Senate District 5.
Chris Neuswanger
