Jaws dropped in front of computer screens across the nation late last night when, to the surprise of many, Rick Santorum swept Republican presidential caucuses in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. While the votes were non-binding, the results are telling. So what exactly do they tell?

Coming into Colorado's...

While local races outside Denver rarely garner much media attention, a recent analysis of the mayoral race in Aurora, Colorado, published by Colorado Peak Politics, drew my attention.

CPP's take, in a nutshell: while the race for mayor of Aurora is basically among various flavors of Republicans,...

When Republican Scott Gessler announced his candidacy for Colorado Secretary of State last year, his party's strategists should have cheered. Instead, they pouted, arguably for good reason. While Gessler possessed the political instincts and solid resume crucial to take down likable incumbent Bernie Buscher, his victory would...

After witnessing the 9/11 attacks, I swore I'd never again live in a home without an American flag standing guard outside the front door. A decade later, I find myself a disillusioned patriot, wondering why so many Americans failed to learn an important and frightening lesson from that horrid day:...

With a single vote on one bill, the Denver City Council could lay to rest a viable legal challenge seeking to protect the rights of small business owners. At issue: whether the city can shut down controversial industries after previously granting them permission to operate.

Imagine this: you open your...

In a modern American political arena too often defined by ineffective partisan bickering, local government races provide us some relief, or at least they could. If only we were paying attention.

It is at our city council meetings and on our county commissions where corruption and ineptitude often goes most...

Wow. $780,000. That's a lot of money. Especially for a basic change to a university logo. It's downright offensive as college students foot the bill for substantial tuition increases.

As the University of Colorado tells it, it needed the new logo in a bad way. Its four campuses had a...

With the way some political opponents latched onto the story Friday, you would have thought Scott Gessler had just orchestrated Bernie Maddoff's escape from federal prison. Just two weeks after being sworn in as Colorado's Secretary of State, he has come under fire after he voluntarily,

Overseas on a covert research mission for the vast right wing conspiracy, I recently found myself breathing a sigh of fresh air in one of the world's most polluted cities. No, it wasn't Mumbai's campaign to improve the fuel efficiency of its cabs that did it for me. Rather, it...

Make no mistake. Disgraced University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill deserved to be fired. To be rather blunt, and as has been well documented over the last several years, he just wasn't that good at his job. But as fate would have it--and as a Denver jury concluded--he was fired...

With national polling showing that nearly one in every two Colorado voters supports ending marijuana prohibition, and an estimated 120,000 residents registered with the state as medical marijuana patients, the debate over pot promises to remain hot as we head into 2011. Next up on the media's radar: a legislative...

Maybe you've never heard of Kim Gillan. But you've certainly got a Kim in your life--that quiet crusader for the little guy who rarely seeks the spotlight. Her latest battle, to protect a tiny lake north of Denver from reckless development, could serve as a beacon of light for those...

In a time when many politicians are justifiably vilified for allowing ambition to trump integrity, I always viewed state Treasurer Cary Kennedy as a possible exception. While I often disagreed passionately with her policy views, she seemed, well, to put it politely, a bit benign when it came to her...

In writing on this site earlier this month, I dared to make the case that liberals should support Tom Tancredo's third-party bid for governor. Some of you rejected this call as some far-right conspiracy to confuse voters. Thanks for the flattery. I only wish the right could get...

Jaws dropped across Colorado Friday after a national poll showed former Congressman Tom Tancredo, a third party candidate for governor, polling within just four points of frontrunner Denver Major John Hickenlooper.

Considered a long shot since his campaign announcement this summer, Tancredo and his last minute surge...

While I was born on the East Coast and spent my early adult years there, I spent most of my childhood in the West, returning to Colorado in my mid-twenties to start a family. Life was good.

That is until I attempted to hail a cab in Denver. At...

Just days after national Democrats confessed to the New York Times that they may jump ship in their support of Betsy Markey's hotly contested bid to continue representing Colorado's Fourth Congressional District, Markey's own actions suggest she may be having her own doubts, too.

As announced...

To build or not to build? That is the question now dogging President Obama, as voters--both religious and agnostic--question his reluctance to take a meaningful stand over whether a new mosque should be built near Manhattan's Ground Zero.

It's a complicated analysis, filled with complicated and often contradictory considerations,...

And just like that I learned my alma mater was about to become a thing of the past. While some alumni might greet the news with a sad nostalgia, they shouldn't. This is a good thing.

On Wednesday, the University of Colorado announced plans to shutter its...

As a woman who wears three-inch high heels on a daily basis, often sprinting in them from one meeting to the next, I want a Senator who understands the issues facing working mothers. That's why I'm voting for Ken Buck Tuesday.

Colorado Democrats have had many reasons to smile in...