No jokes here. First, Jared Polis is pouring yet another ewer of his own wine into his campaign operation. The more Polis pours from his own wallet, the more his opponents’ best talking point against him — that he’s trying to buy the race — sticks. Polis needs to figure out a way to raise a lot of money from a lot of people not named Polis or he’s going to find out how closely the primary voters in CD-2 read the news. Maybe many districts couldn’t care less where a candidate’s money is coming from, but this isn’t one of those districts. Compare to Shafroth, who apparently has raised close to $800K (old report….new report coming April 15) almost entirely on individual donors, or Joan Fitz-Gerald who, while raising significantly from non-individual sources, is still going to lots of different places for her money. Polis’ strategy seems to be that self-funding while running on an anti-special interest platform that targets Fitz-Gerald’s contributions is going to work. It’s not.
Second, Shafroth opened his campaign quest to petition onto the August 12 ballot yesterday. Conventional wisdom seems to be that Shafroth’s problem in this race is a lack of name recognition and that Joan Fitz-Gerald is therefore the favorite by default if nothing else. That actually doesn’t bode well for Fitz-Gerald, because if Shafroth can make inroads by wearing out a bunch of shoe leather, he will out-show Ms. Fitz-Gerald. He is far more personable than she, and to date her real base of support seems to be handing a lot of votes to a lot of constituencies while in the state senate. On the face of it that may seem a good place to stand, but from my vantage point that kind of support seems shallow. Shafroth’s strategy is to meet as many people as possible, and he can probably meet enough people to make a difference. If Ms. Fitz-Gerald does the same, will it have the same effect? I doubt it. I’ve seen both of them speak publicly a few times now and the clear edge goes to Shafroth.
