And they’re off.
After a glacial start by supporters of Referendum C, the campaign went electric this week with an entertaining war of words that won’t end until Nov. 1.
We ought to be high-minded about this – after all, it’s essential that these campaign shenanigans not divert attention from a necessary debate about the state’s fiscal shortfall. Well read on, the last paragraph is pretty high-minded.
Referendum C opponents started this week’s hysterics with a television ad starring gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman and an ugly, hairy, snorting pink pig. We’re not quite sure, but Holtzman seems to imply that beneficiaries of state funding are pigs at the trough.
Oink, oink. A spokeswoman for the advocates, Katy Atkinson, slammed Holtzman in unusually earthy language given that they are both card-carrying acolytes of Gov. Owens. She may have been mad because there was so little attention to reality in Holtzman’s ad. He bashes Referendum C as giving the politicians – presumably including Owens – a $5 billion “blank check” to increase the size of government.
Holtzman has been struggling to establish an identity with Colorado voters, and in response to his ad, Atkinson sought to help him out a little bit. “As a childless, 50-something, never-before-married bachelor, we can understand why Marc Holtzman cares nothing about our schools and our kids,” she said in a news release. “As someone whose entire family lives in Pennsylvania and Florida, we can understand how he doesn’t care about senior healthcare in Colorado. As someone whose largest home is in New Zealand, we can understand why he’s not concerned about problems facing ordinary Colorado taxpayers.”
At least the Holtzman ad is colorful. Atkinson’s side is airing the TV version of a mortuary photo shot of Owens earnestly delivering a fiscal seminar. Tepid stuff compared to a snorting pink pig.
Holtzman campaign chief Dick Leggitt responded to Atkinson’s fire by accusing her of debasing the policy debate. Then he called her a “10-cent flack for the other side.” Atkinson rifled back, “This is coming from a 10-cent flack from Virginia. At least, I’m a homegrown flack … .”
The verbal war came as a delightful surprise to voters and political analysts who hadn’t dared hope for such theatrics this early in the campaign. Whoever thought fiscal responsibility would spark such fireworks. Referendums C and D are fiscal recovery measures meant to compensate for a flaw in the structure of the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that has forced ugly, hairy, snorting cuts in state programs, including highways, prison spending, education and health programs. We trust the wisdom of such an approach will come through in one ad or another.
