By Vince Bzdek

Ballots go out Monday as the June 30 state primary elections bear down on us. As a result, it is suddenly the season of proliferating political debates, and there have been some doozies already.

I had the chance to see two very different debates in the last week, and comparing and contrasting them speaks volumes about the kind of people raising their hand to represent us,  and where the Republican and Democratic parties are right now.

The debates that contrast the most are Tuesday night’s at DU among the three Republican gubernatorial  candidates — the first time Victor Marx has finally shown up for a debate with Barb Kirkmeyer and Scott Bottoms — and the debate among four Democratic candidates for attorney general last week in Parker.

The Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics cosponsored both debates, the governor’s debate with 9News and the AG debate with the Common Sense Institute.

First off, let’s compare  candidate  qualifications. Barb Kirkmeyer is the most qualified of the three GOP governor candidates. A longtime county commissioner who is now a state senator from Weld County, she has become one of the legislature’s primary budget-writers.

She also once voted in favor of having Weld county explore the idea of seceding from the state.

Then there’s Victor Marx.

Marx describes himself as a “high-risk humanitarian,” author, and Marine veteran. He is the founder of All Things Possible Ministries, a $7 million-a-year organization dedicated to rescuing women and children from trauma and human trafficking globally. Marx says his nonprofit has saved tens of thousands of people often in conflict zones, a claim that has been contested, and that he once, as a civilian, had to call in an airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters. He has also said that his stepfather made him kill a man in rural Mississippi when he was 7 years old. 

And Marx, as a minister, claims he often does exorcisms, ridding people of demons. It works so well, he says, that can do them on the phone. 

Rep. Scott Bottoms, a conservative pastor from Colorado Springs, has passed one law as a prime sponsor in the two terms he’s spent at the legislature. He insists the legislature and governor’s office are at the center of a pedophile ring, and claims to have uncovered $30 billion in corruption in Colorado. He has also claimed that 45,000 to 50,000 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua have taken over Colorado.

So a pastor, a minister and a state senator.  Compare that to the roster of AG candidates.

Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty attended Cornell University and Boston University School of Law. (All the AG candidates have law degrees, while none of the governor candidates do). He began his career as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he rose through the ranks to lead a team of over 1,300 prosecutors and professional staff. Dougherty moved to Colorado to work for the attorney general and soon became deputy attorney general.

Hetal Doshi is a former deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department, where she led over 800 public servants in landmark cases against Big Tech, Big Ag, and Big Healthcare monopolies.

Doshi, a first-generation American, went to law school in Virginia and  worked in firms in Atlanta and New York City before moving to Colorado in 2012 to work at the U.S. Attorney’s Office

Jena Griswold, the leading AG candidate right now, was the youngest secretary of state ever elected in the United States in 2018. She was the first person in her family to attend a four-year college and then law school. Her legal practice from 2011 to 2013 at a Washington, D.C., firm focused on Latin America and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

David Seligman, a graduate of Harvard Law School, is executive director of Towards Justice, where he is a workers’ rights attorney. Prior to moving back to his hometown to join Towards Justice, David was a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. He also clerked for judges on the United States Court of Appeals.

Now, I’m not saying you have to be an Ivy League lawyer to be a good politician, but these four AG candidates all have extraordinary track records in their professions. Though I didn’t always agree with their positions, I came away thinking every one of them was qualified for the job.

Why are the Democrats attracting these kind of high achievers to run for office while Republicans are still enlisting conspiracy theorists and amateur exorcists? Any one of the AG candidates could clearly run intellectual circles around all of those governor candidates.

So which debate told you more about the serious issues Colorado is wrestling with? You would think the governor’s debate, it being about the most important job in the state.

But I learned a lot more about Colorado’s biggest policy issues from the AG debate, where the contenders sparred over water challenges, affordability, the state’s confrontational stance against Donald Trump and threats to voting rights.

The candidates largely agreed that water issues are no longer just a worry for farmers, ranchers, and utilities — they’ve also become a major focus for the Attorney General’s Office. 

That includes the looming negotiations over the Colorado River agreement and a lawsuit filed by Nebraska seeking to use eminent domain to build a canal on Colorado land.

Dougherty said his litmus test for what matters most in the state is which issues are causing the greatest harm to Colorado, with priorities such as protecting elections, water and the environment.

Seligman vowed to focus relentlessly on Colorado’s affordability crisis, adding that he would fight for the most marginalized, particularly immigrants, as they confront the high cost of living.

The candidates also weighed the specific pros and cons of Attorney General Phil Weiser’s many lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s policies and executive orders.

Meantime, the gubernatorial  debate was decidedly light on big policy issues. 9News moderator Kyle Clark mainly focused on vetting the candidates’ backgrounds and the various extraordinary claims made by Marx and Bottoms.

That meant voters weren’t left with a strong sense of where the candidates stood on some major issues like water, voting rights, Colorado’s ability to attract new business and our affordability crisis.

The debate repeatedly turned to Marx’s extensive personal history, and at one point, moderator Clark asked Marx how voters can tell if he’s lived one of the most extraordinary lives of any person to ever exist — or if he was just a liar.

Rep. Scott Bottoms and Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer accused Marx of being a fraud and a con man. If front runner Marx wins the primary, “It could be the extinction of the Republican Party,” Kirkmeyer said.

“You’re mean,” Marx replied as his dog sat at his feet on stage. (First time I’ve seen a dog at a debate, I must admit.)

One of our readers summed the debate up nicely in a comment posted to the E-Edition:

“This wasn’t a debate in as much as it was Clark and (9News political reporter Marshall) Zellinger making points to each candidate about controversial issues/topics, trying to get them to look unprepared. Bottoms and especially the Phony Marx came away looking like buffoons.”

Another reader was more caustic:

“This article convinced me to vote in the GOP primary for Karl – sorry, Victor – Marx. He is the most entertaining candidate I’ve seen in a long time. Reminds me of Jack Fertig, a drag queen who dressed like a nun and ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1982 under the moniker ‘Sister Boom Boom,’ also known as ‘Nun of the Above.’ He got over 23,000 votes.”

Here’s the thing:

The Republican Party could do our state a huge service right now by offering up fiscally conservative talking points that spark a serious  conversation in these campaigns about how Colorado cuts its out-of-control overspending and becomes competitive in attracting new businesses so the economy starts to grow again. There’s nothing more urgent and important right now.

 Instead we have dogs at our debates, prayers offered as closing arguments and candidates talking about whether or not they have killed someone.

The state Republican Party has a serous and competent new chairman in Craig Steiner, the former head of the influential Douglas County GOP.

His first order of business must be chasing out the bozos and buffoons in the grand old party so Colorado has serious opposition to the Democratic supermajority and the business community has an effective voice in politics again.

Serious times call for serious candidates, and Colorado benefits mightily when we voters have a real choice among strong candidates — on both sides of the aisle.