The Tiny Spark.com

The candidate debate sponsored by the The Constitutionalist Today was a great success. My lasting impression is that we are very fortunate this year to have a field of great candidates in this most important of election years. We will need to carry on and amplify the enthusiasm I saw last night on into November and beyond.

There were three contested races on the program: US senate, Colorado treasurer and governor, in that order.

The five senate candidates —- Barton, Buck, Norton, Tidwell, and Wiens went first and it made for quite a long session with each of them answering questions from each of the panel members. There were a couple of light moments as when Ken Buck started answering a question by saying “I’m Steve Barton and I’m running for senator,” mimicking the line Steve had used to start each of his answers. One of the panelists asked Jane Norton how she differed from Ken Buck and she quipped that it ought to be pretty obvious how she differed from all the other candidates on the stage. There was, of course, a lot of substantive talk as well. Ken Buck took the “texting” and paper polls, followed by Jane Norton. Treasurer candidates Ament and Hasan really livened things up as they sparred over how the state should be invest­ing its funds and how bad (or not) the current allocation is. Ali had his ever-​present giant spread­sheets and JJ talked to the issues emphasizing his investment experience. I found it very interesting that the current Democrat trea­surer is not a financial expert but rather just another lawyer and that it has been 40 years since the treasurer has had a financial back­ground. I guess that’s what hap­pens when the peo­ple are not really paying attention to who is run­ning for office. JJ Ament took the straw polls.

Finally, gubernatorial candidates Dan Maes and Scott McInnis squared off. Perhaps because of the treasurer’s debate this one was lively as well. Both men answered the questions directly and then “yielded the floor,” not trying to run out the clock and squeeze in prepared talking points. There was an interesting con­trast of styles between Maes and McInnis. Each emphasized the kind of experience he brought to the table Maes as a self​​ made business leader and McInnis as an experienced legislator. For me the key difference was their stands on taxing and this year, who doesn’t think that’s a key issue? While McInnis has clearly opposed the Dirty Dozen and the car tax, he was reluc­tant to commit to repealing them, cit­ing the bud­get short­falls that would result. I think that stand reflects his experience in crafting budgets as a legislator and his view of what is possible. Maes on the other hand focused on cut­ting spend­ing as well as reducing taxes. It seems to me that this is the right approach for 2010: the Democrats have advanced their tax-​​and-​​spend agenda so far that McInnis’ measured approach won’t be good enough. It’s going to take some out of the box thinking to get Colorado back on track and I think Dan Maes is the one to do it. The straw poll agreed.