A weekly dive into the pages of Colorado Politics’ predecessor, The Colorado Statesman, which started in 1898.

Forty Years Ago This Week: According to Colorado Republican Party Chairman Bo Callaway, not just the usual political gossip – but some pretty serious personal allegations – were swirling everywhere he went it seemed. And the Rocky Mountain News had picked up on the chatter, publishing an account from an anonymous witness claiming Callaway had been spotted demanding a different table from the one he had been seated at the moment he arrived for lunch at Copperfields in downtown Denver.

The shocking alleged reason for Callaway’s request? He’d been seated in a section of the restaurant with only women, the anonymous witness claimed. The News’ source said that because Callaway hadn’t supported the Equal Rights Amendment and had been subjected to a thorough ruffling of his feathers when he was defeated in the 1980 Republicans U.S. Senate primary by a woman, Mary Estill Buchanan, he couldn’t stand to eat lunch surrounded by women.

But “that story was as far from the truth as possible,” Callaway told a Colorado Statesman reporter. “When (state) Sen. Joel Hefley, R-Colorado Springs, and I walked in to the restaurant, we remarked how we were surrounded by girls and how it was unusual that a whole section of the restaurant would be filled with them.”

Callaway said he and Hefley sat down and then the waiter said he had another booth ready if they’d like more room and privacy to chat.

“So we moved,” Callaway said. “There was nothing anti-women about the scene. I enjoy women.”

In other news, “The Republican Party is the electronic party of computers while the Democratic Party is the party of index cards and yellow legal pads,” Gov. Dick Lamm lamented at a Boulder County Democrats Truman Memorial Dinner.

Lamm argued that the Democratic Party had lost the way it had in 1980 because the party was no longer seen as the go-to for innovation and new ideas. Since they’d ridden the wave of FDR’s twelve years in office, Lamm said, Democrats had become seen as defenders of the status quo and nothing more.

“The only thing all Democrats could agree on in the last election,” Lamm said, “was the need to stay in power. The public want more. But we must be more than the party of new ideas to meet long term needs. The Democratic Party is going to have to learn how to market their new ideas.”

It had been the Republican Party’s all-out endorsement of technology that had given them the scope and access to more donors, while the Democratic Party was depending to much on a small number of donors giving large sums, he added.

“This is not a good position for a party which refers to itself as, ‘The Party of the People,'” Lamm said. “We have to borrow traditionally conservative ideas: decentralized government, good management practices in running government, stronger crime measures and the acceptance that the era of cheap energy is over.”

Fifteen Years Ago: After nearly a decade, the Western Colorado town of Rifle had not fully recovered from the oil shale bust of 1982, and Rifle Town Manager Selby Myers thought he had the solution: the $104 million in surplus tax revenues to be refunded to Grand Junction’s 41,000 residents.

Myers proposed asking Grand Junction to share its sales tax surplus with residents of Rifle because many of them commuted to shop at the mall and other big box stores in Rifle’s much larger neighboring community.

“While residents of Rifle, Parachute, Debeque, Fruita, Rangely and Delta contribute sales tax to Grand Junction,” Myers wrote in a memo to the Rifle Council, “the residents of Grand Junction do not deserve the entire amount.”

But Rifle Mayor Dave Ling swiftly killed the idea. “There is little likelihood of it happening. There would be an additional expense to make the refunds. We need to concentrate on our own businesses here in Rifle,” he said.

The Grand Junction City Council had not even placed Myers’s item on the agenda.

“I don’t see how it could be done,” said Councilwoman Cindy Enos-Martinez. “We haven’t even figured out how to refund it locally. To do it regionally would be a nightmare. He’s on a path to nowhere.”

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.