Spit or Shinola?

By Valerie Maez

August 1, 2024

Originally, Shinola, was a top brand of shoe polish popular in the 1940’s. The generation of Americans referred to as “the Greatest Generation” by historians was due to their achievements, and a legacy of that generation was to be properly dressed when in public, including having your shoes polished . Mothers of that era would say to children, don’t you know spit from Shinola, as a way to suggest they should be careful when making choices. Veterans of WW2 used a different version but as my mother would have said, one is a noun and the other is a verb. Language, and the use of it in public was important in those days. Young ears were not to hear some words, and most people in that era not only understood that, but accepted that as maintaining a standard of civil society.

In 2001, Bedrock Brands acquired Shinola and re-positioned the company as a producer of watches and other luxury items company according to Google.

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So very many things in our society today lacks civility that any attempt to promote a higher standard should be encouraged. In no way should that preclude close scrutiny of any given issue. One can and should have meaningful discussions on any topic without resorting to gutter language in public.

Manipulation of public issues is rampant today. Perhaps due to a lack of diligence on the part of voters, but money can and does buy elections and mainstream media often have their fingers on the scale. Recently we witnessed that in the Colorado Republican Primary race in CD3. In Congressional District 3, Jeff Hurd won the primary without attending any public forums where a substantive debate of issues with the other candidates could occur. Hurd’s campaign amassed money from special interests and outside political action committees. He relied on the massive mailing of mailers of questionable veracity, to  political ads on television, social media, and radio to “win”. He was the beneficiary of the geographical splitting of votes by four regional candidates that pulled votes and a low voter turnout. Jeff Hurd, speaking at an event in Pueblo actually said he didn’t need grassroots conservatives to get elected. He also said he didn’t need the approximately 1800 voters in the west end of Montrose County. I will remember that in November.

Advocates for change in our voting laws to allow voting by mail, extension of the voting period, and same day registration on election day, were all promoted on the premise that such efforts would increase voter participation and deliver election results faster.

Just the opposite has happened. Montezuma County had a measly 28 percent participation in this primary. Other counties had similar rates. The close race in HD58, required a curing process and an official recount that wouldn’t produce an official Republican candidate until a month after election day. That equates into a loss of a month of campaign time for the Republican candidate for the general election in November.

The decline of voters actively engaged in voting is at historic lows which is often interpreted as  indifference by political factions that really do not want an educated, engaged, critical thinking electorate. Otherwise major media outlets and their mega billionaire consortium couldn’t be the influences of election outcomes. When the subject of election integrity is raised by advocates questioning the process, they are often attacked as election deniers, far-right extremists, and God forbid, MAGA  acolytes.

The picture of Conservative Grounds, when it was located on Main Street is one such example of hatred spread by left leaning activists that was posted on The Journal's  Facebook page. There was no call  to condemn such comments as hateful rhetoric because after all, we do support free speech. However, the silence from left sided media when venom is spewed by those whose causes they are supportive of versus say Trump, Boebert or other Republicans is glaringly obvious. Puts a dent in their credibility, wouldn’t you say?

 It is small wonder that disaffected voters often see no difference between candidates of the two major political parties because, for the most part, there is little difference between them.

Quick; tell me the difference between a Jeff Hurd or Adam Frisch, the presumptive Democrat nominee for Colorado’s Third Congressional District. If you said Hurd has an R behind his name and Frisch is a Democrat, you would be correct. A difference that makes no difference is no difference. Should we solve our problems or just keep spending ourselves into oblivion by electing uni-party candidates? Uni-Party type of candidates like Hurd and Frisch can be counted on to maintain the status quo.

The administrative state is tasked with the obligation to steer the government offices, whether based on a local, state, regional, or federal jurisdiction in an efficient manner and without prejudice. It is showing signs of decay and some of us actually are concerned about that.

Recently I attended an event that proponents of a county wide sales tax to fund the Sheriff’s Office, the Detention Center, and the Drug Task Force, sponsored. The last couple of years has seen a rift develop between the Sheriff and the Board of County Commissioners. Normally, the Sheriff submits a budget for his department to the BOCC, which after discussion, is approved. Their failure to communicate and work together is now front and center before the voters of Montezuma County in the form of a one percent sales tax that is projected to garner around 8 million dollars annually.  The rancor between the Sheriff and the BOCC is so bad, that the Sheriff no longer provides his report to the Commissioners. The current budget for the Sheriff  currently sits at around 6 million, with about half derived from property tax valuations, which is its own abyss these days.  Another elected department head that has problems.

If we cannot have reasonable airing of issues with both pros and cons placed long before ballots go out, how can you claim that voters are truly aware of what is placed before them?

Again, the Republican primary for CD3 is illustrative.

 Most voters had little information about the six candidates. Most left leaning news sites were silent on those candidates as they were more interested in focusing on the split within the Republican Party and how they could disparage State GOP Chair Dave Williams as the cause due to his positions on LGBTQ grooming in schools, Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish, his effort to close the Republican primaries to all but registered Republicans, and the State GOP Executive Committee’s decision of endorsing a candidate, that went through the Caucus and the Assembly process, as the preferred choice for voters to consider.

I was in Pueblo for the State GOP Assembly. The issue of giving the State GOP Executive Committee the right to endorse a candidate before the Primary Election was placed before the Assembly to vote on. It was overwhelmingly approved, by some of the same actors who are now saying there needs to be neutrality by voting members. Hogwash and hypocrisy! Of the six candidates vying for the CD3 nomination, only 3 went through the Assembly process: Stephen Varela, Ron Hanks, and Russ Andrews. It needs to be pointed out that Andrews had a petition out, which he wasn’t sure would be certified by the Colorado Secretary of State as having enough valid signatures, and opted for a hybrid approach to possible becoming a candidate for CD3.  As such, he had a lower threshold of necessary Assembly votes than did Varela or Hanks. Andrews garnered 17% of Assembly voting; his threshold for qualifying was only 10% due to having gone through the Caucus process and the filing of a petition. As opposed to the other 2, who needed at least 30% of Assembly voting. There is some speculation by those who are engaged in Republican politics, that Andrews’ whole campaign was to eliminate Ron Hanks from contention. As it turned out, Andrews came in last in the  CD3 Republican Primary vote.

The grassroots process of petitioning onto the Primary by obtaining enough valid signatures of voters to qualify has been compromised by big corporate money and special interests. It was interesting to witness that out of the six  Republican candidates, essentially only 2 could truly be considered grassroots conservatives. One was Ron Hanks, the other being Lew Webb of La Plata County, who used his own money to petition onto the June ballot. In retrospect, given his late entrance into the election process, it might have been better if Lew Webb had opted to run for State House District 59. Lew Webb had a powerful message about the unsustainable nature of our debt load, and he could have been a voice for real change in our Legislature.

 Perhaps he will consider running  for elective office in 2026 as Colorado could benefit from his acute business sense.