By Andrew Ripemoff
As any experienced political campaign strategist will tell you, every time an anonymous person defends their candidate by posting in the comments section of a political blog, it immediately translates into an 5-7% jump in the polls.
You probably don’t believe me, but the geniuses behind the Bill Ritter re-election campaign have been caught doing this exact thing. And since they’re the election experts, you know this strategy has to work. The Denver Post reports that at least one member of the Ritter team employed by the Kenney Group was caught making anonymous blog posts praising the Governor. Bloggers and reporters from around the state became very suspicious when they actually found someone who was praising Governor Ritter.
Naturally, it goes without saying that anonymously skewering politicians in a very public manner on the Internet is wrong and very unseemly. I should know. I do it every Friday.
But, as we’ve seen this week, Bill Ritter’s professional Internet trolls aren’t the only annoying people making news.
We now turn to a recent controversy in Basalt over a traffic sign, of all things. Apparently the town has some sort of "environmental board,” – a group that decided to have obnoxious warning signs put up around town. The board is called the "Green Team," is an overzealous government entity - named after a color - whose primary function is to march around giving orders on how people should run their lives.
Anyway, the Green Team had these big "WARNING" signs made, instructing people not to idle their car longer than two minutes. They posted the banners underneath the "Welcome to Basalt" signs at the town’s entrance. The Aspen Times reports people were complaining about how it wasn’t a very inviting message to visitors. The city council got the message, and after a late-night council vote, the public works department changed the signage to read:
"WARNING - Extremist Environmental Nuts Live Here"
Okay, not really. Instead, the signs will be relocated, which means the Green Team is actually promoting a growing form of pollution known as "sign pollution." A fact apparently lost on these guys.
A Green Team spokesman said: "Well this whole controversy certainly caught us off guard. We figured tourists visiting our town would love to spend their vacation being lectured by self-righteous nannies. Go figure.”
And if we’re going to discuss clueless people in government, we probably ought to talk about Governor Ritter and his appointment of Don Elliman to the newly created position of Colorado’s “Chief Operating Officer.” Elliman will help distribute the $7 billion in Obama pork headed our way. The responsibilities of Elliman’s new position has led some critics to refer to him as “Co-Governor” but that is unfair to both him and Mr. Ritter. After all, one man is a respected state leader who spends his time overseeing billions of taxpayer money. The other spends his time in spandex with Mike Merrifield.
Here I’m talking about a Castle Rock bike ride the Governor took last week to promote bike safety. There was an official press release about it and everything. Apparently the Governor rode for 62 miles, which helps explain Elliman’s costly new gig. Hours spent biking is time away from the pesky tasks of actual governing. Ritter is taking some heat for creating this new level of bureaucracy, but as someone who rides bikes a lot, I can understand where he’s coming from. Oftentimes, after a long, hard day of mountain biking under hot Colorado skies, I come home way too exhausted to cook dinner, or do laundry, or direct billions of stimulus money to various state agencies.
So now, the unelected Elliman will be in charge of stimulating our economy while Ritter is in charge of making sure the air pressure on both bike tires is full.
For Elliman's efforts, taxpayers will fork out an extra annual salary $146,000. This, needless to say, is a hefty figure that has lawmakers up in arms. State Rep. Paul Weissmann, who a few months ago raised concerns about the $100k+ salaries of Pinnacol executives was equally outraged at the thought of a Ritter crony getting $146,000 of taxpayer money. He’s scheduled hearings to investigate.
Ha! Ha! Just kidding.
Weissmann hasn’t said a word about it. Laryngitis is my guess. But trust me, if Elliman ever takes a high paying job with Pinnacol, Weissmann will be all over it.
Meanwhile a spokesman continues to defend Ritter, repeating that oft-quoted line from that great American leader, Harry S. Truman, who once said, “The buck stops at Elliman.”
In fact, the spokesman told the Post that Colorado’s share of the stimulus, $7 billion, is “...more than the Governor’s office can handle...” Which shouldn’t come as a big surprise. The annual state budget of $17 billion dollars is also too big for the Governor to handle.
So I guess we’ll see how this all plays out. In the meantime, look for Mr. Ritter’s newfound skills at delegation to translate into more free time from him to use on his biking hobby.
I’m not sure where his next trip will be, but it sounds like Basalt would be perfect for him.