Benjamin Franklin thought the turkey should be our national bird, and after 2020, it might have a shot.

The reputation of the term, besides being a delicious flightless bird, has fallen on hard times. Groucho Marx used it to describe a movie or show that was destined to bomb, as he often predicted his would. It got worse from there: “a person or thing of little appeal; dud; loser. a naive, stupid, or inept person,” defines Dictionary.com.

With that in mind, the Colorado Politics staff fanned out across Colorado’s collective political barnyard to find out which person, place, thing or happenstance of this year really needs to be called out for the gobbler it is.

Let’s talk turkey.

Every day is “Bring Your Kids to Work” day

“Well before Thanksgiving came around, 2020 had already seen its fair share of ‘turkeys.’ With so much real-life tragedy going on around us this year, it can feel almost inappropriate to gripe about the small stuff. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening! My ‘turkey’ of choice has to be the fact that every day became ‘bring your kid to work day.’ Being a working mom was hard enough when I had an office to go to and my kids had classrooms to study in. I can’t tell you the number of times I was on one important Zoom call or another and my kids, Leo and Ryder, were just off camera peppering me with questions and requests, while I was trying to listen or make a point. I bet they’d say the same about me during their remote learning classes!”

– House Speaker KC Becker

“Like a heartbeat, drives you mad”

“I offer the single thing that has brought enough joy to offset the countless turkeys we have endured in 2020: The TikTok video of a man skateboarding down Highway 20 in Idaho Falls (Idaho) while drinking Ocean Spray cranberry juice and lip syncing Stevie Nicks in Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams,’ Look it up and smile…. And his name is Nathan Apodaca!!”

– George Sparks, president and CEO of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Enough of the fighting!

“Senseless partisanship. What we have in common overwhelmingly outweighs what divides us. We should redirect emotion wasted on conflict and use it to achieve consensus.”

– Laurie Cipriano, communications director and spokesperson for Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development

Bon appetit: 2020

“Pot shops open but schools closed. Good for a healthy appetite at Thanksgiving, but detrimental to our kids’ ability to learn.”

– Luke Ragland, president of Ready Colorado

Saying grace over Trump

“The biggest turkey in 2020 is that the federal government pursued so many federal policies that were damaging to air, water, and the environment and seem antithetical to the values and beliefs that so many Christians hold. As someone who grew up in the religious South, I was taught that caring for creation and others was central to one’s values as a Christian. I believe that the most faithful thing you can do is to be in service of others with humility. Environmental policies that protect our air, water, and open spaces are core values, whether you are religious or not. “

– Hannah Collazo, state director Environment Colorado

Precedence and Zoom chatter

“It would have to be a tie between people that never figured out the mute function on a Zoom call and overuse of the word ‘unprecedented.’ “

– Abe Laydon, Douglas County commissioner

Cancel culture

“The biggest turkey of 2020 was ‘cancel culture.’ This year we saw John Wayne, a man who died in 1979, being cancelled for statements he made in 1971. There are still no clearly defined rules around who is eligible to initiate a cancellation, who is eligible to be cancelled (i.e., can a 4-year-old be cancelled for telling a little girl she has a watermelon butt? I mean that is sexual harassment), how many times can the same person be cancelled, how long does the cancellation remain in effect, and most importantly, can a cancelled person cancel someone else. Until I get clear answers I’m cancelling the cancelling. Oh, I almost forgot, I need to cancel my trial subscription.”

– Dr. Robert Davis, vice president of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance 

Low blows on oil and gas

“Colorado’s oil and natural gas industry has been particularly gut punched in 2020. While voters soundly defeated draconian measures to limit oil and gas production in 2018, legislators passed SB181 just a few months later promising there is a difference. But those promises proved empty in 2020 when appointed Commissioners at the COGCC passed similar setbacks to what were handily rejected by the voters. We now see fracking and fossil fuels getting attention when comparing presidential candidates but in Colorado oil and gas is already hurting due to unnecessary and unscientific political and regulatory actions.”

– Debbie Brown, president of the Colorado Business Roundtable

“Political malpractice”

“This won’t be terribly original, I’m afraid, but I don’t know how it could be anyone aside from Cory Gardner. His undying fealty to Donald Trump not only sold out the state he was supposed to be representing and broke his 2014 campaign promise to speak up when his party was wrong, it was also just inexplicable political malpractice.

“Ken Buck is also worthy of a nomination. After echoing nonsense GOP claims about non-existent voter fraud for years, he gets caught pressuring local party officials to commit criminal election fraud. This guy is the state party chair and a sitting congressman. Talk about a turkey.”

– Andrew Baumann, pollster at Global Strategy Group

Can everyone mute their phone?

“People (like me) who constantly forget to mute themselves on a conference call!”

– Chris Jackson, attorney, Holland & Hart

Another Zoom peeve

“People who feel the need to hold a Zoom call when there’s only 2-3 of us! No one needs to see me on video at 8 am. and what’s wrong with a good ol’ fashioned conference call?”

– Loren Furman, vice president of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce

A volunteer firefighter’s view

“When I’m not clerking, I also serve as a firefighter in Golden. The biggest turkeys are:

? “Distracted drivers. I’ve responded to far too many crashes caused by people on their phones.

? “People who throw cigarettes out their car windows. We’ve fought several brush fires along the sides of highways because of them.

? “People who don’t slow down or move over for emergency vehicles.”

– George Stern, Jefferson County clerk and recorder

Outside the margin of error?

“I mean, the obvious biggest Turkeys of 2020 were also the biggest Turkeys of 2016: Pollsters.

“While there are exceptions, they have collectively shown themselves to have failed to adapt their methodologies and analysis to the contemporary American electorate. Pollsters are super expensive, Ouija boards are cheap – the former needs to focus on more reliably outperforming the latter.”

– Dan Baer, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate

California, stay out!

“The turkey that should tick off Coloradans in 2020 is the extreme amounts of California money pouring into our state’s politics. It’s one thing for Coloradans to debate ballot issues, candidates, and water use. It’s healthy for us to campaign against each other. It’s another thing entirely for California to tell us how to run our state … and I say this as someone who was born in Cali. There’s a reason my family left the failing state, and Californians’ money would be better used reforming all they’ve destroyed instead of trying to bring us down with them.”

– Kristi Burton Brown, vice chairman of the Colorado Republican Party

Homeless ‘whack-a-mole’

“Under the direction of Mayor Hancock, the city has chosen to play ‘whack-a-mole’ with the lives of thousands of people who are without housing in Denver. The city sweeps people gathered in tents or tarps or with any cover from the weather from one block to another to another and calls this an answer to homelessness.

They are doing this at the very same time as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends for COVID safety that cities not sweep encampments but rather let people stay in place and provide sanitation resources. The alternative to this which CDC provides is for the city to provide individual housing options for all encampment residents – something Denver refuses to do. When will our city admit homeless whack-a-mole does not work???”

– Terese Howard, Denver Homeless Out Loud activist

Denver’s Park Hill Golf Course Small Area Planning Process

“Although this turkey was half-baked in 2019 with a secret settlement between the City and the property’s owner, Westside Investment Partners, the three-year small area planning process – coinciding with Mayor Hancock’s last three years in office – has already been decided and stacked in favor of the developer, political cronies, and those with a financial interest. The process is a ruse to buy time for Westside to seduce residents with unenforceable promises of a grocery store and affordable housing in an effort to mislead City Council and woo it into removing the conservation easement and changing the open space zoning.

“The ‘community engagement’ plan disguises the biggest land grab since Denver took homes and businesses through eminent domain for the ill-fated I-70 highway expansion project in 2018. Purchased at the bargain price of $24 million for 155 acres, PHGC is the last vast green space remaining in central Denver that just happens to be in the heart of communities of color. We can give thanks when Denver voters or the courts ultimately send this turkey packing, clearing the way for Denver to finally purchase this much needed land for the public’s benefit.”

– Lisa Calderón, former Denver mayoral candidate and chief of staff for Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca

The vertically-challenged person’s lament

“Hotels that put the soap dish and shampoo holders under the shower head. Short people could drown before they find what they need!”

– Cathy Shull, executive director, Pro 15 

Anonymous trolls

“People on social media using a pseudonym. They have real strong opinions but no courage to put their own names behind them.”

– Eva Henry, Adams County commissioner

The president and the pandemic

“2020 has been a year of turkeys, that much is for sure. But the biggest turkey of all has to be the President of the United States musing to a national audience that injecting bleach could be a cure for the coronavirus pandemic. If this whole situation had a point where it became surreal, surely it’s that moment.”

– Michael Hancock, Denver mayor

Where’s the beef?

“Colorado’s a beef state! Why are you doing turkeys?”

– Former Colorado Ag Commissioner Don Brown of Yuma

‘You’re on mute’

“The phrase, ‘You’re on mute,’ I never thought would be so much a part of every single meeting that I’m on, and especially even months deep into the pandemic when we’re all on Zoom. Like, it still happens to me daily. You’d think I’d learn from it, but apparently not.” 

– Jamie Torres, Denver City Councilwoman