Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be in Colorado today for three fundraisers and a so-called grassroots event. While Colorado is not an early primary state, it is a critical state on the road to the White House, and has been beneficial to her campaign coffers as she raised around $500,000 from Coloradans last quarter.
Her trip includes a fundraising stop at the Aspen home of a former Goldman Sachs executive, Robert Hurst, who, according to the Free Beacon, at one time was under investigation by the State of New York for evading taxes on luxury purchases, like high-priced art, according to the New York Times. Hurst’s scheme worked like this, according to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau: Hurst would have his art purchases shipped to Colorado where Hurst would then simply load the art on his private jet and fly it back to New York. To avoid indictment, Hurst simply paid the approximately $2 million tax bill.
Perhaps the reason that Clinton thinks that rich folks aren’t paying their taxes is because her rich friends really don’t pay their taxes? Nonetheless, with a price tag of $2,700 per person per event to attend, Clinton’s three fundraisers to her one grassroots event shows exactly where her focus is, and it’s not on Colorado’s grassroots activist scene that dominates politics on either side of the aisle here.
And, Coloradans aren’t dumb. They know that Clinton is not trustworthy as a candidate – that’s been shown in poll after poll. The most recent Quinnipiac polling on Clinton showed her losing in Colorado to nearly every Republican candidate. As Tim Molloy, head of Quinnipiac polling noted:
“Hillary Clinton’s numbers on honesty and trust may border on abysmal but Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the GOP front runner, is still battling a name recognition handicap,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “Do Colorado voters trust Hillary? No, they do not. Do they think she cares about their needs? No they do not.”
As spokesman for the RNC, Fred Brown, more sharply noted:
“Whether it’s her mishandling of classified information on a secret email server or refusal to be forthright on key issues, Coloradans increasingly view Hillary Clinton as untrustworthy and unfavorably. But instead of addressing the many issues plaguing her campaign, Clinton instead opts to schmooze with millionaire donors.”
Clinton simply doesn’t excel at retail politics, and Colorado is a grassroots-intensive place to campaign. It’s lesson her Democratic competitor, Bernie Sanders, self-avowed socialist seemed to learn from Clinton, so it’s puzzling that Clinton herself doesn’t seem to grasp it.
Did I miss the post slamming Cory for sucking up to the Koch Brothers?