Back when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan (Go Blue! Heck, please let me have this one. We are 2-0 now, but that isn’t likely to last) I minored in economics. I remember a few things about shifting supply curves and the Nash equilibrium. I can talk about the M1 and M2 money supplies. But what I really remember is what one of my professors said one day about getting rich in America. He said it only takes two things to become wealthy: the ability to see a need and the willingness to take a risk.

I thought about that professor’s remark recently when I read, in Colorado Politics and elsewhere, about Heidi Ganahl’s filing to run for governor against Governor Polis (by the way, congrats on the wedding!). It seems that Ganahl recently filed paperwork to run for governor in 2022 and is seen as the GOP’s best hope, at least for now, to unseat a popular governor in an increasingly blue state. She herself called the effort to beat Polis as a “moonshot.” 

Now, my bias is well-known (Ed: you’re not as famous as you think, just tell them you are a Dem) and I also know Polis a bit, and so I’m a strong supporter of his. But as a suave and debonair columnist (Ed: no, you are not, and both those words mean the same thing), I will readily admit that Ganahl appears to be an impressive person and perhaps a strong candidate. 

She is currently the only Republican elected to statewide office, though (forgive me CU) it is a tad less impressive when you learn that her statewide office is the regent-at-large position for the University of Colorado. Important work to be sure, but not quite up there with governor, Attorney General, and such.

Ganahl appears to be the model of what my old professor was talking about. She founded a pretty cool company called Camp Bow Wow, which takes care of, well, dogs, with a variety of services ranging from boarding and grooming to picking up, well, stuff that needs to be picked up after a dog, well, you know. She is apparently a multimillionaire from this clever business, something that she and Polis have in common. She must have accidentally forgotten her role in the $100 million business when she attacked Polis over “friends in San Francisco” and his “silver spoon,” but in fairness, she’s been fabulously wealthy for less time than Polis.

So, there is much to admire about Ganahl and her climb to the top of the business world and her public service to CU. But here is where things get a tad sticky…

I despise hypocrisy. I hate it in myself, and I especially hate it in folks who want to be, or already are, elected officials. I am enraged that, for example, Trump attacked Obama over playing golf as president while playing much more golf himself. I just hate it when people don’t take responsibility for what they have said and done.

Which, of course, brings me to twitter…

Frankly (putting on my old guy white belt and combing over my bald spot), I don’t get twitter. I have an account I created back in 2008, for some reason, and since then I’ve tweeted a relatively miniscule 326 times, most in the first year when it was a new toy. In reviewing my tweets, I see that I often commented on Colorado’s great weather, Michigan football, and in one case, reported on left over frosting from baking brownies. 

But Regent Ganahl appears to have taken a different tack. I say “appears” because when she decided to run for governor, she apparently also thought it would be a good time to re-write history. She declined to say, one way or the other, whether she thought the 2020 election was legitimate (spoiler: it was). She prefers not to speculate on whether she thinks Colorado’s unaffiliated voters should vote in the GOP primary (I say no, but that’s for another column).

And she deleted hundreds and hundreds of tweets. In May, she had over 2,000 tweets, with nearly 5,000 likes, as the kids call it. But as of last week, she only had 187. That’s even fewer than me, though the reporting did not state whether any of the remaining tweets were regarding leftover frosting. The thing is, as you likely already know, is that stuff posted on the internet is never truly deleted, so she was a tad naïve and, frankly, hypocritical, to think she could re-write her history of public statements. 

Look, if she supported Trump strongly (she did, it appears) she should either state she made a mistake or she should announce her continued support. But it is hypocritical to refuse to do either, just as it is hypocritical to attack Polis from being wealthy when you yourself are worth bazillions. I’m not smart enough about twitter to know if deleted tweets can be resurrected, but perhaps an electronic Lazarus is possible? 

Ganahl might want to have a chat with former GOP Gov Bill Owens on how to remain honorable and yet still win statewide. That said, I’m not especially worried about Polis getting beaten. But regardless, I’d really respect a candidate more if she or he stood by, or recanted, earlier political positions. We all evolve in our thinking. The far greater sin is to seek to remove your previous point of view from the public record and claim you never thought any different.  

Now if you will excuse me, I need to find out what this crazy tick-tock thing is the kids are raving about…