insights
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INSIGHTS | The soul of politics and coming back from the dead
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I died recently. I haven’t reported this, but I’ve had a lot going on since then. Finding my way back from pneumonia, a heart attack and a triple bypass has been a long, rough road that I’m still stumbling down. In a hospital bed, doctors and nurses pounded on my chest for 15 minutes until…
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INSIGHTS | Denver has lots of problems with parking
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Editor’s note: Joey Bunch is away, so this week we revisit his Insights column of Aug. 17, 2018. “Anywhere but downtown,” I emailed to an excellent source about meeting up in Denver for lunch. “The parking is ridiculous.” The gears of growth in our state’s largest city are grinding on the nerves of those who…
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INSIGHTS | Colorado usually leads the pack
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My friend Patty Calhoun, the editor of Westword, put the right words to what’s been on my mind lately during a chat on Colorado Inside Out, KBDI-Colorado Public Television’s current-affairs discussion show. In a two-part taping for the Dec. 7 and Dec. 21 episodes, we talked about Denver proposing to waive minor pot possession convictions from before…
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INSIGHTS | Washington runs hot & cold on climate, fires
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You can’t say the Trump administration has no plan to combat the ravages of climate change. Pick up a rake and head to the forest, President Trump seemed to suggest after viewing the ravages of the California wildfire. In a burned-down community called Paradise, the president said, “Pleasure, what a name.” It feels like much…
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INSIGHTS | The road ahead for GOP depends on Democrats
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Colorado Republicans wore gloom like a cheap suit on Election Night. Jeff Hays, the ever-positive state GOP chairman, went to the stage for what was supposed to be a victory party at the Marriott in Lone Tree, and told fellow Republicans he wouldn’t try to “put lipstick on a pig.” The news was bad and…
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INSIGHTS | What this election meant in the scope of time
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Colorado is going to change because of the way people cast their ballots this year. That’s true, perhaps, every election, but this one more than most. Yet it won’t be as awful or everlasting a thing as most giddy or depressed partisans will have you believe in the days and weeks ahead, especially those asking…
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INSIGHTS | Overheated politics baked this election
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Politics is always rough business, but this year, “anything goes” has left its mark on Colorado. And in two years – or, more realistically, the morning after this year’s election – we’ll do all over again. The rough politics of this election is like marking the height of a child on the door, except this…
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INSIGHTS | Denver mayor’s race should pack a punch for Hancock
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A year ago, Democrats were talking about the trajectory of Michael Hancock’s political bottle rocket, and whether it made sense for him to seek a third term as Denver’s mayor or move on to a higher office. Hancock was talked about as a potential gubernatorial candidate, potentially the state’s first black governor. Instead, Jared Polis,…
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INSIGHTS | The 2020 race could test Colo. senators’ teamwork
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The state of our union is depressing, more than usual. Political passion has moved way too far on the wrong side of reasonable, and it’s no way to run a government. I’m concerned we can’t turn back the dial. If there’s a template, however, Colorado’s senators, Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Cory Gardner, might provide…
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INSIGHTS | Gender politics divide the nation and Colorado
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America should heed the advice uttered routinely on the radio by former University of Colorado football coach Rick Neuheisel: “Get yourself together.” If politics is a sport, the roughness of gender politics is too unnecessary. Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court battle, leading to Saturday’s narrow Senate confirmation vote, gave a fresh look at how divided we…
