Wayne New
Has hell frozen over? Tonight, Romney/McCain donor Wayne New bested Democratic favorite Anna Jones to capture the Denver City Council District 10 seat. This district runs directly through the middle of Denver and encompasses diverse neighborhoods from Colfax Avenue to Country Club. Jones was the heir apparent with the endorsement from sitting Councilwoman Jeanne Robb, but somehow missed the mark by nearly five points.
Despite New’s long-time unaffiliated voter registration, another political blog screeched that this man had (gasp) given $250 to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Perhaps even worse, he gave $250 to Presidential candidate John McCain. What a terrible human being. Actually, these are pretty minor donations in the grand scheme of things.
Reviewing the two candidates’ responses to the Denver Post candidate questionnaire, the two sounded fairly similar – blah, blah, blah housing, blah, blah, blah transit. Where the two were remarkably different was in their answers to questions about whether city employees should have collective bargaining rights.
New’s answer:
I am not aware of any difficulties in the city’s current employment system that would require civil service collective bargaining rights.
Jones’ answer (not sure what she’s talking about in the first part):
Should such a proposal be forward to Council, I would want to hear more and would be open to the proposal.
New’s answer is simple, yet packed with common sense. While not everything New says in his other responses speaks to our love of the free market, we will happily take a common sense, middle-of-the-road guy over an out-of-touch liberal like Jones any day. The same dynamic occurred in the auditor’s race – the guy not affiliated with known Democrats was elected.
The 2015 Denver election results highlight a growing awakening among the electorate – even in the heart of Denver – to how damaging (not to mention intrusive and restrictive) liberal policies are. In short, even Denver voters have a point at which liberal policies go too far and Denver liberal candidates may have pushed too far.