Twenty Years Ago in The Colorado Statesman … With just a month until the November election, crucial swing-state Colorado was in the spotlight and was turning into a crossroads for presidential candidates and other national politicians. President Bill Clinton packed the Red Rocks amphitheater for a rally put together by Alan Salazar, the Clinton-Gore campaign’s Colorado manager, and Republican challenger Bob Dole landed in town a couple days later to visit a middle school in southeast Denver. The same day Clinton filled Red Rocks, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman campaigned for the GOP ticket, stressing the Republican plan to cut income taxes by 15 percent. “In New Jersey, we reversed the anti-taxpayer policies of my liberal predecessor and, as a result, we have seen a significant increase in jobs and personal income in New Jersey,” Whitman told the crowd gathered in the Denver Tech Center. “Bill Clinton has a credibility problem on the tax issue,” she proclaimed. When Bill Clinton is in Colorado today, he needs to explain to the taxpayers of Colorado why his liberal record of raising taxes on the middle class is better than” the Republican plan. “Bill Clinton has a lot of explaining to do.”

Republican officials welcomed Whitman, including State Treasurer Bill Owens, U.S. Sen. Hank Brown, U.S. Senate candidate Wayne Allard and Attorney General Gale Norton. …

… Democrat Diana DeGette and Republican Joe Rogers, the candidates for the open 1st Congressional District Seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, put their positions in sharp relief at a debate run by students at Commerce City’s Adams City High School. DeGette emphasized her legislative record, including support for vocational training, computers in schools and college grants and loans. Rogers made a nostalgic appeal to the students, noting he’d graduated from the school in 1982, and emphasized his support for economic development, business deregulation and tax cuts. Both said they favored welfare reform, but DeGette called the recently passed Republican congressional proposal “mean-spirited” because it included cuts to school lunch and supplemental nutrition programs. Rogers argued that welfare as it existed simply maintained poverty and needed to be radically overhauled. Addressing a question from students, Rogers rejected homosexual marriage as “immoral,” while DeGette called the issue “election year grandstanding by radical conservatives” in a state where no one had ever proposed such a thing. After the debate, students tested Adams County’s new ballot box method and handed alum Rogers a big victory in the contest, 198-30 votes. …

… Former President Gerald Ford stopped at Mount Vernon Country Club on the way to his home in Beaver Creek to support a Colorado Republicans for Choice event. Several dozen Republicans braved wintry weather to attend the fundraiser, which benefited pro-choice GOP legislative candidates. “Abortion shouldn’t be a political issue,” said Ford, who had recently attended the 1996 GOP national convention, where he and his wife, Betty, endorsed outnumbered pro-choice Republicans. “I strongly differ with our platform,” he said. Still, he admitted, “It is in our platform, and if we are going to prevail at the presidential and Senate levels, we’ve got to work together as Republicans.” He urged those in attendance to support the entire ticket or risk losing control of the House to Democrats, who might then control all the levers of government. Despite the polls, Ford was confident Bob Dole – his vice presidential running mate 20 years earlier – and Jack Kemp would win. Nina Kite, president of Colorado Republicans for Choice, observed, “Whenever we (Republicans) do one of those pro-life people, the Democrats get elected.” …

… Humanitarianism and conservative politics were central to the story of Holland Hanson Coors – known widely as Holly – but it was her family and faith that brought her the greatest joy, a Statesman profile reported. Still, her central role reshaping American politics galvanized the matron of the Golden brewery’s famous dynasty. “I just have a political bent that I can’t get away from,” she said. “I always say everything should be about politics. No matter how hard I try, I can’t change my stripes.” Coors, described as an “aristocrat with lineage from Philadelphia’s Main Line,” twice chaired the Reagan-Bush campaign in Colorado and coordinated the state’s participation in Reagan’s festive and stately inaugurals. Over the years, Coors, who maintained a part-time home in Washington, D.C., had known eight presidents and first ladies, and the media regularly covered her “elegant dinner parties for national and international notables.” The gracious hostess expressed regret that President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton hadn’t made hospitality a priority when they arrived from Arkansas. “When heads of state came into town, they were totally ignored. It was a shame because the White House is beautiful and elegant,” she said. “It’s not a palace. You visit the palaces of Europe and you think, oh, my goodness, we’re so vanilla! But it’s our heritage and we’re proud of it.” The Clintons finally got the message, she added, and the president was “certainly a charming guy,” though Coors faulted the first lady. “I don’t find that Hillary is so charming. After Barbara Bush, whom everyone loved for her warmth and friendliness, Hillary is so … perfunctory.” With Democrats in the White House, Coors opened her Watergate suite for monthly “conservative counter-scheduling” to offset the liberal Georgetown social scene, inviting luminaries from Grover Norquist to Arianna Huffington. After the end of her 40-year marriage to Joseph Coors, grandson of brewery founder Adolph Coors, in the 1980s, Holly acknowledged that she had been dating occasionally – her favorite saint was Valentine, after all – but considered herself at her best when she was independent and unencumbered. “One of my daughters-in-law says you must have the attitude of gratitude,” Coors said. “For me, the joy of raising a family and now seeing the fruit of it is the greatest reward of all.”