Colorado campaign season, mercifully, just got a little more interesting — uh, Interesting. Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon, aka Youtube’s Most Interesting Politician, learned this week that he has the 1,000 approved signatures he needs to get on the Nov. 4 ballot as a boldly independent, self-financed, rugby-loving candidate for governor.
He was never worried about making the ballot, he said last Monday on the patio outside Shotgun Willie’s strip club, which his lovely wife, Debbie Matthews. His volunteers collected more than 3,000 signatures, he said, after vowing to run if he got for his 60th birthday in April. He easily cleared that hurdle, as well.
Dunafon gained political prominence in the tiny town of Glendale when he led a crusade to beat back a city ordinance that could have shuttered Shotgun Willie’s, a metro Denver institution, like it or not. The city wanted to force brighter lighting, a tip box and other rules that would make Glendale’s strip clubs too weird to work, which was probably the whole point.
Dunafon signed up so many new voters — including an event at the club — that the ordinance was repealed, three members of the City Council were voted out and Dunafon began his rise to power. Nonetheless, he went up through committee assignments, started the Glendale chamber and newspaper and served a term as mayor pro tem before ascending to the mayor’s seat. He led the charge to build the city’s , a sport Dunafon played, coached and loves.
The result of his resume? The Most Interesting Politician, he says in a series — among dozens of other starring-Dunafon videos on Youtube. He and his wife had hoped to sell a documentary or reality show about their lives that revolve around flesh, politics and their Colorado ancestries.
Dunafon said the show is on hold, because he’s not willing to turn over editorial control. “If you do that, they can make you look any way they want,” he said, a cigar in hand, as grinding music-to-strip-to thumped out an open door into the club.
But governor?
Dunafon says he’s in it to win it. I spent some time with him at the club this week, and very soon you can read all about his platform, campaign strategy and the way he says he can beat the partisanship out of Capitol politics. “It’ll be Hell for awhile,” he pledged.
Dunafon has a dim view of the two-party system and the pointless acrimony it creates. As an independent, he he won’t be beholden to anyone beyond the voters, he said. I challenged him on whether he could really win, with no party machine powering his campaign and no donors to speak of. He countered that long odds are a poor excuse not to try. He has faith in social media and his own large collection of Youtube ads to get his message out. He thinks others are as fed up with partisan political theater as he is, even as he ironically puts on a Hell of good show in some of his funnier videos.
Dunafon also has picked his running mate, Robin J. Roberts, the president of Pikes Peak National Bank in Colorado Springs for 11 years. Her focus will be helping small businesses grow, Dunafon said.
Here’s Roberts in her own words.
