Bob Schaffer's out of touch, wrong on critical issues rap-sheet grows by the day. I found this latest charge in Ed Quillen's column in the Sunday Denver Post.

Read the whole column online at http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_10799075

or scroll down to the extended post text.

The Referendum A test still carries a lot of weight with me.  Once again here's a case where Bob Schaffer sided with big-monied interests and against Colorado farmers, ranchers and communities.

Hopefully, he'll be sliding into the dustbin of Colorado political history by 10:00 PM on November 4th.  Being too cozy with the "drill baby, drill" crowd of oilies is bad enough, but working on the wrong side of water policy is unforgiveable.

PS - If you get a chance, drop a complimentary email to Ed (his email link at at the end of the Extended Post Text).  It is so hard to find something worthy of praise in the Denver Post these days that we should encourage Ed to continue his good work.

opinion

Real Colorado
By Ed Quillen

Article Last Updated: 10/23/2008 10:28:20 PM MDT

Do you live in the "Real Colorado" or the "Fake Colorado"? I started wondering about this after reading about recent politicking in another battleground state, Virginia.

A few days ago, a McCain campaign adviser named Nancy Pfotenhauer said that northern Virginia, which leans Democratic, had succumbed to that sad fate because so many people had moved in there from Washington, D.C. But McCain could still win the state because he was ahead in the "real Virginia," which was "more Southern in nature."

I confess I've held similar thoughts about Colorado. For me, the "real Colorado" is a live-and- let-live unpretentious egalitarian place where people drive beater pickups, a backwater that is "more Western in nature." The "fake Colorado" is a growing area of 5-acre lots between Denver and Colorado Springs where one finds gated developments, restrictive covenants and a driveway status contest between Hummers and Tahoes.

Real Coloradans know a come- along from a widowmaker. Fake Coloradans can't tell a siphon tube from a center pivot, and have never heard of Brick Pomeroy and Bloody Bridles Waite. Real Coloradans are pragmatic types worried about putting food on the table; Fake Coloradans fret about the constitutional rights of an egg.

But those distinctions are merely my own prejudices, and don't really tell us how to discern Real Colorado from Fake Colorado.

So I started by sorting through this year's campaign propaganda, including a robo-call from someone purporting to be Bob Beauprez, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor in 2006. He listed five points of Roman Catholic doctrine, even though he didn't want to tell me how to vote.

The political message that came closest to defining Real Colorado comes from Bob Schaffer's campaign for U.S. Senate. His campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, almost always refers to their opponent as "Boulder liberal Mark Udall." Are we supposed to infer from this that Boulder is not in Real Colorado? Schaffer lives in Fort Collins, which is also a college town with a pedestrian mall, latte shops, brewpubs and active environmental movements like the "Save the Poudre Coalition." They're both seats of counties that stretch from High Plains agriculture to the Great Divide.

It is difficult to discover a distinction that would put Boulder in Fake Colorado and Fort Collins in Real Colorado. But I finally found one.

In 2004, Democrat John F. Kerry carried Boulder County with 66.3 percent of the vote. In Larimer County, home of Fort Collins, Republican George W. Bush prevailed with 51.8 percent of the vote.

Presuming that is the distinction, we should change our license plates to eliminate the mountain profile, since Kerry did well in the high country: Eagle, Gilpin, Gunnison, La Plata, Lake, Pitkin, Routt, Saguache, San Juan, San Miguel, Summit — all carried by the Democrat.

And I can feel like a Real Coloradan because Bush carried my Chaffee County. Plus, I live in a small town, which Sarah Palin says is where you find Real Americans, even though I'm not voting for her because us Real Coloradans prefer flannel shirts and blue jeans to them fancy elitist outfits she sports.

No, actually I've found another way to distinguish Real Coloradans from Fake. In 2003, Coloradans defeated Referendum A, a $2 billion water hustle. Bob Schaffer supported it. Boulder Liberal Mark Udall opposed it, just like two-thirds of Colorado voters. So which candidate more accurately represents the Real Colorado?

Ed Quillen (ed@cozine.com) is a freelance writer, history buff, publisher of Colorado Central Magazine in Salida and frequent contributor to The Post.