This weekend, Colorado politicians descended on Grand Junction en masse to pay homage to the Western Slope at Club 20’s fall conference.

Nearly every statewide candidate can be counted on coming to a Club 20 meeting before Election Day. It’s a small, simple way of saying, “I understand that Colorado’s challenges encompass more than the Front Range.”

They burnish their rural credentials by rubbing elbows with local leaders, trade wingtips and ties for boots and bolos, and address the issues they think resonate with Western Slope voters.

But our social complexities can’t be ascertained in a single, perfunctory visit. Who do candidates think we are? Hopefully not the small cross-section of people who shaped Peter Hessler’s thoughtful Grand Junction-based analysis, “How Trump is Transforming Rural America.”

Read more at The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.