PERRY: Hide, folks. Political extremists have Colorado and you in their crosshairs

Hunker down, Aurora. Open season on voters has begun.

As of Wednesday morning, U.S. political creatures are fresh out of the primary election gate and coming soon, and often, to a TV, phone, mailbox, radio station, newspaper, browser window and bus bench near you. Buck up.

As the country has become increasingly polarized, political candidates have become increasingly desperate to find fewer open-minded victims, er, supporters. Back in the day, when you had to pay close attention to tell whether someone from Colorado was a Republican or a Democrat, people here talked a lot about whether to spend more on schools, or not. Spend more on roads, or not. A lot of politicians leaned over the party lines, because the lines were so blurred. “Conservative” back then referred to those politicians who were averse to big or fast changes. Colorado was forever a “if-it-ain’t-broke…” type of state. There was a time, and it really wasn’t so long ago, that if you had a flat tire on a Colorado highway, you knew that some good-hearted person would stop to help. These days, people piloting cars that cost as much as homes, with windows as black as night, try to force others off the road or cliffs or whatever just to get the the hell out of the way. They don’t stop to help.

That same mentality rules their politics, too. In Arvada, a group of tea-party extremists, who call themselves “conservatives,” lied and cheated to force state Sen. Evie Hudack to step down or face a recall because she supported two wimpy gun-reform bills two years ago. It was a mean, vitriolic assault that resulted in one of the chief attackers winning a GOP primary this week for Senate District 19. Laura Woods ran against a serious conservative, Lang Sias, a veteran of both Iraq wars, a lawyer, graduate of Vassar College, very-right-wing family guy who also teaches Top Gun pilots and lectures at West Point. He was, until this year, a likely star of Colorado GOP politics. Tea party politicians, including Woods, painted him as a gay-loving, gun-grabbing lefty. And Woods? She doesn’t care how many Columbines, Aurora theater massacres or shoot-em-ups at Arapaho High School there are. Guns are the answer, not the problem.

“I like to shoot our guns,” Woods says on the homepage of her campaign website. “and our favorite dates are at the shooting range.”

How romantic. How weird. And what was her worst date? Years ago, I knew there were people like this. They were in southern California or became governor of Texas. Woods is from Kremling. I’m sure these Coloradans existed, they just never got elected. Well, almost never. There’s always been Colorado Springs. Which brings me to the Colorado Springs Gazette. Unlike so many who live in the Springs, such as Douglas Bruce, Congressman Doug Lamborn, Ted Haggard, James Dobson and Terry Maketa, who will and do say the most shocking things, the Gazette has traditionally been a demure editorial voice, dutifully nodding to conservative political causes and being so risky as to warn against getting tattoos because they might limit employment. On more than one occasion, the paper has declined to endorse in political races, even for president in 2008. So imagine everyone’s surprise this week when the Gazette lobbed an endorsement nuke at Andrew Romanoff. He’s running against veteran Aurora politician Mike Coffman, whose Aurora 6th Congressional District seat was redrawn to make it possible for a Dem to win.

“…wannabe career politician Andrew Romanoff is trying to unseat (Coffman) — one of Colorado’s strongest assets in Washington,” the Gazette said, while endorsing during this week’s primary election, even though neither Romanoff nor Coffman had primary opponents, and even though Aurora’s 6th Congressional District is about 100 miles north. “Romanoff was the hyperliberal speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives…”

Hyper-liberal? Romanoff? In the same editorial, the Gazette says that Coffman never makes political decisions. “They are practical. Coffman is that rare leader in Washington who thinks of individuals first, bureaucracies, politicians and ideology second.”

There you have it. Coffman, who almost never, ever votes against his party line, never makes a political decision. Why bother waiting for an election to unfold before making an endorsement? What could possibly change or be revealed between now and November?

What in the hell did Romanoff ever do to the Gazette? Time will tell. So, too, will the endless TV commercials, radio spots and Facebook bumps coming our way until we can’t stand it anymore. We haven’t decided who’s right for Aurora this year, but we know it’s not someone who finds love on the firing range. 

I want my Colorado back, but I’d settle for a little sanity through Election Day.

Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com