The tide of battle is turning in favor of Referendums C and D on the Nov. 1 ballot. That’s due at least as much to the divided and vainglorious opposition than to the supporters of the campaign.
There are no fewer than five opposition groups, each launching its own uncoordinated and increasingly virulent advertising. Lacking even a semblance of grass-roots organization to counter the 700 community groups now working for C and D, the opponents inveigh against the referendums by such tactics as accusing C and D supporters of being “pigs.”
A confrontation Wednesday between rabid opponent Jon Caldara and the mother of a developmentally disabled son showed that such incendiary rhetoric is as likely to burn the accusers as it is to scorch the intended victims.
Caldara was parading at the Capitol with a papier-mâché porker when Carol Meredith and her developmentally disabled son confronted him. “Don’t call us pigs,” Meredith demanded.
Caldara heads the tax-exempt Independence Institute, which has been refusing to disclose the donors funding its campaign against the ballot issues. Taken aback by Meredith, Caldara muttered, “I never have called you pigs. I called the people under that dome spending like pigs.”
Meredith didn’t accept the notion that legislators who try to help developmentally developed people like her son are “pigs” while the people who need such aid somehow aren’t.
Embarrassing as it was, the confrontation at the Capitol was the lesser of Caldara’s pig problems this week. He’s been illustrating his claim of “pork” in the budget for months by claiming the state paid for a $5,000 piece of art featuring 12 dildos swinging from hooks – even including photographs of the dildos in his color pamphlets attacking the ballot issues.
Friday, Lynn Bartels of the Rocky Mountain News reported that artist Tsehai Johnson did indeed make the dildo display and submitted it with other works to the Colorado Council on the Arts in 2003 along with an application for a $5,000 fellowship. But the state agency turned her down.
Confronted with the facts by Bartels, Caldara admitted: “That’s correct.”
In short, Caldara’s most publicized example of state waste is a knowing, willful, premeditated lie. Caldara’s brazen deceit evokes humorist John Henry Faulk’s description of the kind of man “Who would lie on credit when he could tell the truth for cash.”
Next, there’s Marc Holtzman, who picked this week to do his own hog calling, with commercials showing live pigs and railing against C and D. Because Holtzman’s only announced plan to deal with the state budget crisis if C and D fail is to cut public school budgets, his pig ads only prompted accusations that the childless, multimillionaire bachelor doesn’t care about educating kids.
Those attacks were overwrought, but people who call other people pigs can’t expect their targets to respond with critiques of pure reason. In yet another sign of Holtzman’s faltering campaign, his campaign director, Dirk Hallen, jumped ship this week to run Cortez Republican Scott Tipton’s 3rd Congressional District campaign for the seat now held by Democratic Rep. John Salazar.
While greatly helped by their opponents’ ineptitude, the Yes on C and D campaign did gain some ground on its own, replacing the “mortician-chic” ad featuring talking head Bill Owens with an effective and colorful campaign showcasing the schoolchildren that C and D would help. The contrast between those young faces and the Holtzman/Caldara pig-calling could not have been more devastating.
Besides improving their television ads, supporters intensified their increasingly effective ground game with local volunteers walking door to door. Backers have order 100,000 yard signs and one volunteer I talked to Friday had already given away 1,000 of them.
The result of all this is that C and D are rising in the polls, though the numbers remain close. My secret source, a posting by Dan Willis at Coloradopols.com, reports the numbers are now 48-44 in favor of C and D. That’s far from a lock but clear progress over the tiny 43-42 lead Referendum C enjoyed in The Post’s August poll.
The fight is far from over. But the growing support for C and D at least exposes the futility of calling your opponents pigs.
Bob Ewegen (bewegen@denverpost. com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post. He has covered state and local government since 1963.
