The front page of the November 5, 2008 Rocky Mountain News. It was a pleasure to look through the post-election print editions of the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post. Both papers stepped up big-time, delivering hefty issues filled with vivid photos and articles whose attempts to provide instant…
Oh, sheet. Now that the election is over, there’s no need for that ballot privacy sleeve many of us carried with us as we exited our polling place yesterday. But simply tossing it isn’t an option — not for an environmentally committed voter, anyhow. So what to do with it?…
Seal it. Just minutes before the polls closed in Colorado, more than 300 election workers were fueling up with pasta, salad and strawberry shortcake from Jason’s Deli at Denver Elections Division headquarters, 3888 East Mexico Avenue. Other workers hauled in red ballot boxes to the building while members of the…
I have a feeling this band is going to break up pretty soon… We’ve been blogging the vote — and a whole lot more. Today in Backbeat Online: • The 2008 presidential campaign told as a ’70s rock opera. • A live review of the Beastie Boys and Tenacious D…
Anybody home? Not three doors into my door-knocking experience — part of the last-minute stumping campaign for Obama in Adams County — I started to think, “Maybe the Obama campaign does have too much money.” My sister, her hubby and I had hit up the Obama HQ at 94th and…
Where’d everybody go? I’m a little worried about voter turnout. All day, I’ve been looking out the window toward my polling place, the St. Charles Recreation Center in Denver’s Cole neighborhood, in search of a line or any hint of chaos. But it’s been very quiet. At 3 p.m., I…
Sticker shock? I’m so tired of seeing all the “free admission/ice cream/taco with an ‘I voted’ sticker” deals. Do all these businesses realize that 60 percent of all Coloradans voted early, most by mail? And if you voted by mail in Denver, you did not get an “I Voted” sticker…
A banner from the Colorado Progressive Coalition’s website. Earlier today, the news from the Colorado Progressive Coalition sounded dire. A press release from the nonpartisan group, which had been conducting get-out-the-vote campaigns in Weld County, said that Spanish-speaking voters were “running into major problems” casting their ballots, and a protest…
An Obama booster at East. Standing on a chair that makes him seem slightly taller than the high-schoolers and community residents gathered outside East High School, Anthony Graves of the Denver Democratic Committee begins to hype up the crowd around him. “People, we have to focus,” he declares. “We have…
Or did I? Or did I? I have no idea, really. After moving to Colorado this summer, I, of course, took two months to send in my voter-registration form, beating the deadline by only a week or so. Then, this morning, when I tried to confirm my registration online, some…
Snoopy rocks the vote. This morning at around 5:30 a.m., I switched on Channel 9’s morning show in the middle of an excerpt from a vintage Peanuts animated TV special that went on for several minutes without any commentary whatsoever. I wondered: Did anchor Gary Shapiro need to use the…
Tomorrow, will it be morning in America again? 10:16 a.m., November 4, 2008: Election day finally arrived, with its fears of people lined up around the block at polling places. But I dunno… I woke up feeling calm, went through my usual routine and now sit at my desk at…
Don’t you miss those hanging chads? It happened again. I woke up this morning, filled with the sense of wildly inflated self-import that comes from voting in a historic election in a hotly contested swing state. At around 9:20 a.m., I leisurely walked across the street to my polling place,…
Good citizens preparing to do what good citizens do at Nativity Lutheran Church. Everything went smoothly earlier today at Nativity Lutheran Church in Commerce City, which, according to a sign affixed to one side of the double doors, is Adams County voting center number 37. A sign taped to the…
An image from Edison Elementary’s website. I was looking for any opportunity to become a disenfranchised voter as I hit the polls this morning at 8am. Line too long? Disenfranchisement! Election workers not friendly? Disenfranchisement! Pencil not sharp enough? Dis-en-fran-fucking-chisement!!! Unfortunately, my mission was hampered from the beginning. The long…
Red Rocks Elementary. When I walked into Red Rocks Elementary (my polling place) at about 9:25 this morning, there were two or three voters there already — not even coming close to filling up the twenty or so booths available. Which meant I got more attention than I’ve ever had…
Bye-bye, A.I. So the big NBA trade yesterday happened right here in Denver: Allen Iverson for, most notably, hometowner Chauncey Billups and former Nugget Antonio McDyess (plus Cheikh Samb). Nothing against Billups, who if not as good an all-around player as Iverson, at least has a good narrative to bolster…
Can you feel that burning hope? It was a bit lonely at the Barnum Rec Center polling station, at 360 Hooker Street in Five Points. In the couple of hours after polls opened at 7 a.m., roughly 85 people meandered in to vote, and around 9:20 a.m., most of the…
Vote “yes” on Amendments 47, 49 and 54 — or else union operatives will shoot this dog. Believe your eyes. What you see above is an actual campaign ad (or at least a satire of one) courtesy of the Denver Metro Young Republicans, whose cleverness inspired an article in today’s…
Hank Eng. In “Did You Know Mike Coffman is Running for Congress?,” a blog published on October 6, I noted that Coffman, who’s hoping to fill Tom Tancredo’s old seat in the 6th Congressional District, had been almost entirely absent from the airwaves at that point owing to the impossibility…
Keep away from children. If you’re a subscriber to the Rocky Mountain News, your Tuesday edition arrived in this nifty newspaper condom. The large print on the side you see above reads, “Vote Freedom First: NRA Political Victory Fund: Bob Schaffer for U.S. Senate.” The fine print adds, “Paid For…
