Surely, the best news Colorado Democrats have heard in a while was the reappearance of conservative über-villain Doug Bruce.
Bruce recently won a party appointment — voters would have had more sense — to fill the House District 15 seat in northeast Colorado Springs.
It’s not all negative for the Right, I admit. On entertainment value alone, throwing the vitriolic Bruce into a mix — where he can go toe to toe with equally nasty folks like, say, Michael Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs — should provide for some wonderful melees.
In the end, though, constituents will witness a huge waste of time.
And for the Republican Party, it’s just another illustration of why ineptitude has placed it in the minority.
The native Californian will always be best known as the architect of the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which limits government budgets and requires voter approval of new taxes.
Many believe mandating government to ask voters each time they raise taxes is reasonable. Referendum C’s passage a couple of years ago shows that voters will cede more funding when they believe it’s warranted. It works.
TABOR was a huge victory for limited-government conservatives. For this, Bruce has been the target of some unfair ridicule.
But, boy, has he taken the ball and run with it.
In fact, to state that Bruce has brought scorn upon himself is to state that you peddle in understatements of astonishing absurdity.
Principle is one thing, but Bruce considers anyone who fails to strictly adhere to his philosophy — often not very ideologically conservative at all — as “phobic” monsters.
The anti-Ronald Reagan, then. Instead of a joke, there is almost inevitably a personal attack. Instead of reasoned response, there is nearly always an emotional acting out — the same emotion-based logic he chides liberals for adhering to.
More than that, he has an inability to work not only with enemies, but with allies. Is this the type of representative Republicans believe will convince a skeptical public that leaner government is better government?
My own dealings with Bruce over the past three-plus years are, from what I hear, symbolic. One message left on my voice mail a couple of years back began with “You don’t have to be scared of me.”
Some people, sadly, confuse avoidance with fright.
The few conversations — which would be better described as harangues, or what one might title “Bruce on Bruce” — were meant to sway my opinion on one issue or another with force of voice rather than reason.
My last e-mail correspondence with Bruce was regarding Denver Mayor John Hickelooper’s recent A-I ballot effort, where in a column I gingerly suggested that a voter might look at one of the bond issues as a necessity.
Bruce accused me of being a socialist. Now, I’m many dreadful things; believe me, I know it. But a socialist, I’m pretty sure, isn’t one of them.
“I just don’t understand why he wants to be disliked so much,” former state Sen. Norma Anderson once said. “He calls everybody names ”
When people personalize politics, they undermine their credibility. But Bruce’s ad hominem attacks also weaken the credibility of the entire Colorado Republican Party.
After recent spectacular defeats, Republicans have little credibility to nurture around these parts. Some rehabilitation has occurred as the party has shifted the center stage from strident voices to energetic and smart people like Sen. Shawn Mitchell and Rep. Cory Gardner.
Incidentally, these are conservatives very much as principled as Bruce. And though you may disagree with them on policy, none of them mistakes anger and stubbornness as ingredients for success.
In the end, Bruce’s vanity appointment has little to offer the public. As you can imagine, Bruce will steal headlines from more eloquent and reasonable men and women in the legislature.
Republicans, for the most part, understand it’s time for new blood. And if Republican Bruce cared about limiting government as deeply as he says he does, he’d remain a commissioner in Colorado Springs.
But then again, it’s always “Bruce on Bruce,” isn’t it?
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
