I do not think it will come as a surprise to any of my regular readers (there are some, right?) that I am not particularly fond of our current president (Ed: no! Really? Sheesh…). I really have trouble understanding his passionate supporters being willing to overlook, well, so many things. And as I type these words, we are just a few hours before the last debate of the presidential campaign season. So since I cannot predict the future, please just circle whichever of the following statements seems most accurate: “Wow, what a debate, full of content, insights, and deep thoughts on key issues” or “wow, even the mute button didn’t help, what a debacle.” 

I can imagine one group of people whom I suspect are very strong Trump supporters — the descendants of 19^th century U.S. President James Buchanan. It has taken just shy of 160 years, but those relatives must be pleased that history books will soon record their ancestor as the second worst president in U.S. history. But for the moment, I am going to step away from the presidential contest and take a peek at what is happening with our elected folks here in Colorado (Ed: finally).

Amid a hyper-partisan election, I’m pleased to report that many of your elected officials are actually doing their job, as seen in several Colorado Politics stories. Sure, U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner is running inaccurate and very negative ads attacking Hickenlooper (though I did see an advertisement recently in which Gardner actually talked about himself, claiming to be a great environmentalist. spoiler: not so much), but he and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter just got a bill signed by President Trump to improve our nation’s ability to forecast space weather. That story didn’t make the national news – stories about people cooperating rarely do – but it was an important bill. You may well be wondering about weather in space because it is, well, space. But the Sun’s cycles of tossing off solar flares and other electromagnetic energy directly impacts things like our satellite systems and our power grid. So, having a better handle on what the Sun is doing is something that directly impacts our nation and state. 

Along similar lines, two members of Congress that are not known for agreeing on much — Republican Doug Lamborn and Democrat Jason Crow — just co-founded the House Space Force Caucus. As a retired Air Force officer, I have my thoughts on the utility of a stand-alone space force, but given that it is here, Lamborn and Crow did a good thing in creating a caucus for it. There are lots of caucuses (cauci?) and they do important though usually unnoticed work. 

And lastly, well-known Senate workhorse (and my former boss) Michael Bennet introduced simple and seemingly tedious legislation to triple the funding for the national suicide hotline. His hotline work is particularly important in times like these, and as a retired military member, who sees far too many of my brothers and sisters in arms take their own lives, this is a vitally needed improvement in our national mental health. (Oh, and he is working on more boring legislation to help mitigate our next national pandemic, which is coming, folks).

Look, politics creeps in to nearly everything, I get that. I recently renewed my Colorado concealed carry permit (as a former Air Force cop, my thinking is that there might be times when my training could help), and in the letter approving my renewal, our local sheriff (in El Paso County, so you can guess the partisanship) sent a rather long letter along with my new card. That letter included such observations as “You, and many citizens like you, have demonstrated good judgment and common sense, and have proved to our community what has been known all along: we should focus our attention on armed criminals, not the law-abiding citizens.” I’m guessing he’d be against, say, an assault rifle ban. Oh, and he also warned me that even though this is Colorado, Marijuana (he capitalized the “M”) is still a schedule 1 narcotic under federal law (what, no shout of “states rights?”) and that I can’t have my gun and my pot. No worries, as I do not partake, but it does suggest that partisanship is found at all levels.

Nonetheless, even in the most heated moments of our political campaign season we find good public servants on both sides of the aisle working hard for what they feel is the betterment of society. And I know I’ve leapt atop this rickety soapbox before, but I think it is important to keep beating that drum.

So let me again ask you, dear reader, to consider that while our government is flawed in many ways, but it is, for the most part, constructed of good people working hard for what they feel is best. I do not put Trump in that category, of course, but here in Colorado we have a pretty good group of hard workers, occasionally distracted by electoral matters. For that we can be grateful.