Freedom Unaffiliated

Independence Institute
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Did you know 46% of the voters in Colorado are unaffiliated? Have you ever wondered why? Hear from the experts at Independence Institute talk about the issues important to Colorado and how to bring some sanity to this increasingly leftist state.

  1. 3h ago

    A Glimpse into Colorado’s Future with Weiser at the Helm

    Why is it that Victor Marx is going to become a superb governor? Because he’s the self-proclaimed world’s fastest at disarming someone holding a gun to his head. Seriously, watch the videos. It’s pretty impressive. How could I not vote for him? Think that’s ridiculous? During negotiations over the Colorado River Compact, things will get heated. A governor who can snatch a pistol away with his bare hands might just save Colorado’s water supply. If Attorney General Phil Weiser could disarm an armed attacker just a little faster, he’d probably get my vote instead. I’m a single-issue voter. You may value other qualifications. You might be looking for a governor who “may” have killed people, or launched missile attacks, or led some 150 successful paramilitary rescues of women and children. Agreed, these are all needed skills to be a successful governor, but snatching guns with your hands is definitely the most important. Sadly, I have to admit there is the slightest possibility Victor Marx won’t become Colorado’s next governor, because of, um, voter fraud. So, after the stolen election what will Colorado look like a year from now? Pretty ugly. Democrats gone wildThe national media is focused on the anti-Semitic socialist who won the Democratic primary to replace Diana DeGette. More important to Colorado’s future, though, is what happened in the legislative primaries. Several Democratic lawmakers lost to candidates even further to the left. Even if Democrats don’t gain a single legislative seat this fall, the legislature itself is going to become more progressive. Given the anti-president environment that usually accompanies a midterm election, and the hefty anti-Trump hate in Colorado, don’t be surprised if Democrats expand their legislative seats to a veto-proof majority. We’ll likely have a progressive academic as governor paired with the most left-leaning legislature in Colorado history. And you’ll find yourself casually browsing real estate listings in Texas. The first target will almost certainly be the Labor Peace Act. For nearly 80 years, it has been Colorado’s uneasy compromise between organized labor and employers. It has prevented Colorado from becoming either a Right-to-Work state, as business groups prefer, or a forced-union-dues state, as many unions would like. Twice in the past two years Gov. Jared Polis vetoed legislation that would have dismantled that compromise. Phil Weiser almost certainly signs it. Then comes technology. Several of Polis’ most controversial vetoes involved legislation that many in Colorado’s growing tech sector warned would make the state a hostile place to innovate. One bill restricted companies from using pricing algorithms to recommend prices for products and services. Another prohibited software and data companies from recommending rental rates to landlords. Whether you agree with those policies isn’t really the point. Companies deciding where to invest will increasingly view Colorado as a state eager to regulate first and compete later. If it moves, regulate itExpect more regulation elsewhere as well. Rideshare companies will likely face additional reporting and operational mandates, which usually means higher costs that eventually find their way into your Uber receipt. Social media companies could be required to provide more information to government regulators while facing new restrictions on content moderation. Along with high energy prices and intermittent power, the dream of Colorado being a tech hub will dwindle. Government itself may become even less transparent. Polis vetoed legislation that would have made Colorado’s open-records process slower, more expensive and more opaque. Under a new administration, that bill could easily become law. Gun owners should also brace themselves. During his eight years in office, Polis repeatedly insisted he opposed an outright ban on so-called assault weapons. He signed enough gun-control legislation to make Colorado the most gun-regulated state in the nation, but he drew the line there. No ban on “assault weapons” (guns that function the same as every other gun, but look meaner). Gov. Weiser will gleefully sign the ban. No one has ever confused Jared Polis with Barry Goldwater. But after a year of a Weiser administration working alongside an even more progressive legislature, Colorado working families, business owners and gun owners may discover something they never imagined possible. We’ll miss the days when Polis was governor. By this time next year those of us who have been watching the regulatory elite turn Colorado into the lethargic, unaffordable, overpriced state it is might regret Victor Marx isn’t performing exorcisms in the governor’s mansion. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  2. 6d ago

    A declaration of independence from Colorado’s ruling class

    Happy 250th Birthday, America! You look fabulous. As all the cool countries are saying, “250 is the new 230.” The Declaration of Independence wasn’t merely an announcement of war against a tyrant. It was the most revolutionary political document ever written. The Declaration was a landmark in human development, perhaps the landmark of all human history. For the first time government was no longer affirmed sovereign. The individual was. That simple idea changed the world. You rule yourself. Your life belongs to you. Your liberty belongs to you. Your happiness is yours to pursue as you define it. Your property belongs to you. Government exists not to rule over you, but to secure your rights, to protect you from, well, government. The grievancesThe part of the Declaration rarely quoted during patriotic speeches isn’t the soaring language about liberty. It’s Jefferson’s long list of grievances against King George, the “causes which impel them to the separation.” Those grievances are worth study. Because they’re back. Reading them today, I can’t help wondering what our Founders would think of our government today, Colorado’s in particular. Would they find today’s overlords less oppressive? I doubt it. Jefferson wrote of the king, “He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.” Colorado lawmakers and governor just dissolved two-thirds of the elected RTD Board of Directors, replacing them with hand-picked lackeys. They dissolved a Representative House. The representatives of the people can be troublesome, might be an obstacle to their plans of statewide trolleys. Best to install yes-men. Swarms of officersJefferson complained the king had “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” New offices since Polis became guv alone include the Energy and Carbon Management Commission — created just after voters shot down restriction on oil and gas and on a mission to end drilling (as you might notice in your energy bills). There’s also the Behavioral Health Administration, the Department of Early Childhood, the Prescription Drug Affordability Board, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and the Just Transition Office. I could fill the page with new offices. In the last decade alone, the state has added more than 11,500 more employees, growing 21%. Swarms of Officers? Indeed. To “eat out our substance” in the same period the state needed to hire 28% more tax collectors at the Department of Revenue and 25% more form-checkers at the Department of Regulations. You will comply. Consent of the governedJefferson also listed the top grievance: “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” Really? Do I need to spell this one out? In Colorado, consent is spelled T-A-B-O-R. Today, lawmakers simply rename taxes as “fees” so they can avoid consent. To collect those “fees,” they’ve created bureaucracies with names that sound like they were generated by George Orwell’s artificial intelligence: Clean Screen Authority. Capitol Parking Authority. Statewide Tolling Authority. Statewide Transportation Enterprise, Statewide Bridge and Tunnel Enterprise. Then there’s the Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise to collect hospital bed taxes “fees.” How about the Clean Transit Enterprise? Or the Community Access Enterprise? Lest we forget the Nonattainment Area Pollution Mitigation Enterprise, to tax every delivery you get and raise your gas tax. If it sounds confusing enough, maybe you won’t notice it’s taking your money without permission. By 2023, these fees extract $23 billion a year from Coloradans without voter approval. Since TABOR became law, state government has collected well more than a quarter-trillion dollars outside its voter-approved tax structure. Think about that. Without your consent, government has taken nearly $42,000 for every man, woman and child in Colorado. For a family of four, that’s almost $170,000. Two-hundred-fifty years ago, taxation without consent like this prompted Americans to dump tea into Boston Harbor and take to arms. Government fatigueJefferson wrote of the king, “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.” Colorado has well more than 5,000 governments and special districts. There is physically no way a citizen could keep up with the legislature, school boards, city councils, county commissions, water districts, transit districts, and the like. Each have their own taxing and regulatory powers to which you must comply. Hell, the wait at the DMV has fatigued us enough. What would Jefferson write for a modern Colorado Declaration of Independence? Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  3. Jul 8

    Violent anti-ICE protestors get a Texas-sized comeuppance

    On June 23, 2026, the federal U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas sentenced eight violent protestors convicted of assaulting the Prairieland Detention Center, an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, in an anti-Independence Day attack on July 4, 2025. Their stiff punishments rangedfrom 30 to 70 years in prison for rioting and providing material support to terrorists, among other charges. An exception was made for Benjamin Song, the group’s leader, who got a total of 100 years with an additional conviction piled on for attempted murder. Texas is a Republican red state that isn’t soft on these kinds of criminals. A court in Minnesota, California, Seattle, Oregon, Illinois, New York or other Democrat-controlled blue states might have let them off with community service or even found them not guilty. Don’t be surprised if some left-wing legal organization pays for legal fees to appeal the verdict and the sentencing all the way to SCOTUS. Several other protestors were scheduled to be sentenced on July 1. Prosecutors said the protestors vandalized vehicles, launched fireworks at the ICE facility, wounded an Alvarado police officer with a firearm and shot at unarmed corrections officers. The thugs were identified as a cell of radical ANTIFA left-wing anarchists who claim to be anti-fascist although they resort to standard fascist tactics in their violent protests. A preposterous defenseThe defense presented by lawyers who represented this bunch was preposterous. As was expected, none of the defendants took to the stand to testify at the trial. Meagan Morris’s attorney, D. Miles Brisette, claimed Meagan went to Alvarado that night expecting a peaceful demonstration and “felt deceived by what unfolded.” Likewise, Zachary Evetts was portrayed by his attorney, Patrick McLain, as a pacifist who also expected a peaceful protest claiming the fireworks were only intended to gain the attention of the (illegal alien) detainees so that they could hear the protestors’ (screamed) words of support. Apparently, this was the collective script of the group’s defense who should be treated like misguided juvies deserving nothing harsher than being grounded for a week or, at worst, sent to a reform school. This innocent-lambs defense is especially incredulous when the perps are ANTIFA thugs who proudly love to bust heads. A department of Homeland Security spokeswoman applauded the stiff sentences as “a win for the rule of law.” Given its customary liberal bias, the spin in an Associated Press story was sympathetic to the protestors, including quotes from Phillip Hayes, the attorney representing the aforementioned Benjamin Song who was found guilty of attempted murder. Hayes described the protestors as just “a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard. It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.” Following the Marxist playbookReally? So, why did they bring guns? Their real intent was clearly to obstruct the DHS and ICE from doing their jobs which is also the intent of violent mobs that interfere with ICE officers all over the country, especially in Minnesota, under the pretense of social justice and compassion for their wonderful neighbors who just happen to be illegally present in the United States. Baloney! The leaders of this movement and its paid-provocateurs by financiers like George Soros is to “resist” the governance of the Trump administration and advance the open borders and progressive Democrat socialist agenda. Civil violence is right out of the Marxist handbook of permanent revolution. The DFW (for Dallas-Fort Worth) Support Committee, providing financial support for the legal defense of the protestors, said the defendants were wrongly being “thrown away for the rest of their lives.” It added, “The egregious sentencing is to send a message to anyone with the same beliefs.” No. These sentences weren’t punishment for the “beliefs” of these criminals. It was for their unlawful “behavior.” And I certainly hope this sends a message discouraging violent criminal action by radical activists and the useful idiots who are duped into following them. The message: “If you commit a crime, you’ll do the time.” I greatly doubt that any of these criminals will spend the rest of their lives in prison. It’s more than likely that their stiff sentences will be reduced during the appeals process, especially if they come in front of liberal judges. Failing that, the next Democrat in the White House, maybe President AOC, will commute their terms or, even worse, pardon them and throw in the Presidential Medal of Freedom as a bonus. Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.

  4. Jul 1

    James Michener’s ‘Centennial’ a must-read Colorado story

    If you’ve been reading my columns, you’ve noticed I’m basically illiterate. I blame my dyslexia and public education, but my Olympic-level laziness could be the driving factor. Anyway, I basically can’t read (and, still, I graduated from CU Boulder, so another endorsement of public higher education). So, for me to recommend a book is like a nun recommending sexy lingerie. How can you take it seriously? But how can it not get you thinking? As we celebrate Colorado’s 150th birthday, may I strongly suggest you read, or re-read, James Michener’s classic novel “Centennial,” which arguably presents one of the most accurate portraits of the Colorado character. A Colorado storyI understand this is a sizable ask. The book is massive. Now that phonebooks are extinct, parents put “Centennial” on chairs for their little kids to reach the table. I listen to books on tape. So, when I saw this book took 50 hours, I almost went back to my comic book (which we now call “graphic novels,” like that is somehow going to impress women). It’s not that “Centennial” gives an accurate accounting of Colorado’s history, it doesn’t. It’s that it colors a painting of the true Colorado spirit and the bravery of those who built this beautiful, once rugged state. Michener masterfully shows our dry high-plains as a stage for life and death struggles. He describes the personalities that would say goodbye to all they knew to chance a survival in an untamed, savage and mysterious territory. If there was one word that encapsulated his story, it’s the same word that encapsulates what made Colorado the destination state for hundreds of years: risk. To modern generations “risk” is seen as “danger” or synonymous with gambling, a roll of the dice. But that’s not risk. “Risk” is the quest to manifest a goal over calculated odds. Risk is to employ one’s talents and resources to obtain a potentially unreachable outcome. Every entrepreneur understands risk, knowing even when you do everything right, failure is still an easy outcome. Michener’s book captures a Colorado now lost. It’s a Colorado where courageous people risk writing their own biography. To build. To create. To do it their way, or not do it at all. Mitchner’s book became a sensation about the time the nation was celebrating it’s bicentennial. It’s story, the Colorado story, was a proxy for the American story. As we look at 150 years of Colorado statehood, we also get to examine how Colorado has changed since “Centennial” was first published in 1974. Growing up in the 1970s in Colorado, I saw that spirit of risk and self-direction. The state was still drawing oil-and-gas wildcatters, artists of all stripes and even a new tech entrepreneur that dealt in one and zeros, not rocks and cattle. Mountains remain, culture changesNow 50 years later, it’s hard to recognize many of the Colorado qualities Michener celebrated. Colorado no longer beckons people to be left alone. It beckons people who want someone else to manage things. The frontier mentality has given way to the HOA mentality. Risk has become something government promises to protect us from instead of something free people willingly embrace. Every new regulation is sold as safety. Every permit is justified as protection. Every entrepreneurial gamble is treated with suspicion until a bureaucrat approves it. We still have mountains, rivers and those impossible sunsets that make even lifelong Coloradans stop for a moment. The scenery survived. But scenery alone isn’t the magic. The magic was always the people willing to bet everything on themselves — men and women who crossed plains, climbed passes, dug mines, started businesses, built ranches and towns, and accepted failure was the price of having the freedom to try. Michener understood Colorado wasn’t merely a place. It was a state of mind. Reading “Centennial” today feels less like reading historical fiction and more like opening a time capsule from a state that’s slipping away. It reminds us this state wasn’t made extraordinary by government. It was made extraordinary by people. It was made extraordinary by people who demanded to be free enough to fail spectacularly or succeed beyond imagination. As Colorado turns 150, I hope we remember the spirit that created it. Because mountains are forever. A culture isn’t. And once that spirit is gone, no amount of preservation can bring back the Colorado that Michener knew. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  5. Jun 25

    Regular Season Rules Needed for NBA, NHL Playoffs

    The simultaneous NBA and NFL playoffs, known as the second season, can be almost as exhausting and frustrating for the fans as it is for the players. For Avs and Nuggets fans, this year was especially disappointing, even though we knew that 15 of the 16 teams in the playoff bracket are fated to lose their last game. It’s an alleged truism that the NBA and NHL playoffs require a different kind of play than in the regular season. I think that’s a falseism. The leagues don’t change the rules for the playoffs, they change the way refs officiate. Openly changing the rules invites public controversy and requires negotiation with the players’ union on the CBA. I’m biased because the Avs and Nuggets are skill teams more than overly physical and dirty ones. The Avs won the Presidents’ Trophy having the best regular season record in the NHL over 82 games. It’s senseless to make teams play under one set of rules in the first six months of the season and different unwritten ones in the last two. Blowing the whistleThe NBA has the bigger problem. Officiating is more difficult than in other sports. Play is so fast and congested in the paint and under the rim that officials routinely make an educated guess as whether a foul was committed and by whom. That’s unavoidable but hedging the rules isn’t. The playoffs should be the highest-quality version of the sport, not one over emphasizing defense creating inconsistent calls by different refs with subjective judgment on “marginal contact.” There used to be the “one arm, bent elbow” rule allowing a defensive player to place one hand with a bent elbow on an offensive player’s back or place one forearm on his back, maintaining contact only as long as the defender isn’t pushing or dislodging the player. Today, you see a defender bear-hugging an offensive player or wrapping himself around Nikola Jokic in a pretzel hold. That’s wrestling not basketball. In the NHL, the unofficial playoff rules overly tolerate interference penalties, cross-checking, and holding. In both leagues, management wants more physicality, fewer whistles and more drama. Teams short on superstars exploit that with brute force, putting a target on the superstars’ backs. Serious injuries contributed to both the Avs and Nuggets eliminations in the playoffs. The skating-wounded included Avs superstars Makar and McKinnon. Their 4-0 loss to Vegas in the third round wasn’t the same team that beat the Kings 4-0 and the Wild 4-1. I’m no pacifist when it comes to rough physical play in the NHL. The fans thrive on that. Fighting is condoned in the rules. For anything short of homicide, you just get two or five minutes in the penalty box. (In other sports you get ejected.) Hit a guy in the head with your stick and you get 2 minutes in the box or a few more if it draws blood. Hockey and football are true contact sports. Basketball isn’t and ought not to be. Compared to the padding and helmets worn by players in the NHL and NFL, NBA players suit up in their underwear. What’s with the spooning?It really annoys me to watch the OKC Thunder Alex Caruso’s defensive malpractice spooning Jamal Murray. He’s virtually in Murray’s shorts. It’s a foul as well as obscene. Or the low-skill Isaia Hartenstein blatantly pulling on Jokic’s jersey while holding his arm in a hammer lock. On offense, SGA habitually initiates contact going to the basket then sharply veering sideways into a defender who’s gets unjustly called for blocking. (SGA learned that move form James Harden.) This is a travesty and everyone knows it. Why does the NBA let them and others get away with this stuff? Most fans don’t like it. The NBA has a flopping penalty but won’t enforce it, leery of the nightly controversy. The NHL, likewise, has an “embellishment” penalty but rarely calls it because its players’ culture disapproves of flopping. One final note. During the playoffs, networks like ESPN and TNT displaced Altitude’s cable coverage of Avs and Nuggets games. I much prefer Altitude’s local broadcasters. The network guys often prattle on ignoring what’s going on in the game. The courtside interviews with players, conducted by a token female commentator, are worthless with stock questions like, ”How are you going to close the gap in the second half.” With stock answers like, “We need to be more aggressive, play better defense, and hit more 3’s.” Then the networks distractingly run the recorded interview on split screen while play has already started at the beginning of a quarter. Ugh! Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.

  6. Jun 25

    Sundance Film Festival a crash-course in economics for Boulder

    There are few things more satisfying to watch than socialists getting mugged by reality. The Sundance Film Festival is invading my hometown of Boulder early next year. Sundance drew 85,000 attendees last year in Park City, Utah. Boulder’s hotel room inventory is about 2,900. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when Hollywood’s anti-capitalist elite collide with basic supply and demand, we’re about to find out. When things don’t go as planned, the planner-class doubles down on its religion: more planning. When restrictions, rules, permits and fees don’t produce the desired outcome, more restrictions, rules, permits and fees are needed. Sundance is an event for and by well-heeled, artsy, socialist elites. So, Boulder is perfect. Colorado progressives can role-play a modern-day Gertrude Stein offering finger sandwiches at a salon of the country’s professional virtue signalers. But where will the elite stay? No room at the innI’m guessing Robert DeNiro’s concern for the downtrodden won’t tempt him to bunk at the homeless shelter. Jane Fonda won’t crash with the Women Studies majors in some CU dorm room. Looking online, I see rooms at the Hotel Boulderado during the film festival list for $10,357 a night, then drop to $279 a night after Sundance. Fortunately, Hollywood’s A-list can always retreat to Boulder’s luxury accommodations: the Comfort Inn at the very edge of town, with a few beds at over $800 a night. Better hurry. George Clooney and entourage are rumored to be eyeing them. This is not a problem if attendees who preach the forced sharing of wealth are willing to share a hotel room with 28 other people (yes, that math is correct). Keep in mind, many hotel rooms have two beds, so that’s fewer than 15 people per bed. You could get that number down even more if lesser celebrities sleep on the floor. The most enjoyable line from a recent Gazette story: “Boulder’s hotels, meanwhile, have committed to making 70% of their room inventory available during the festival at affordable rates, according to Visit Boulder…. The organization is promoting a ‘host with heart’ approach and has published a guide with suggested prices for property owners.” Is there anything more precious than the NPR gentry ignoring reality and arbitrarily “suggesting” prices between private parties? There is something delightfully progressive about believing supply and demand can be defeated with positive thinking and a price guide. ‘Hosts with hearts’Anyway, the most they suggest the owner of a four-bedroom house rent it for is $15,000 for 11 nights. Making all the homes I found on Airbnb renting for up to $175,000 for 11 nights, well, not exactly “hosts with hearts.” Might surprise you, but you just can’t rent out your home or even a room on sites like Airbnb in leftist cities without government paperwork. You need a stranger’s permission to have people you choose stay in your own damn house. Invite your friend to stay for the week? Perfectly legal. Let him hand you $100 to help cover groceries and utilities? Government paperwork. Have him buy you dinner every night or give you a Picasso? Back to no problem. It’s said the city has issued about 600 short-term rental licenses. Not nearly enough for the Sundance rush. What’s the solution? A new and different permitting scheme, of course. Enter the fresh-and-improved Festival Lodging Rental License for your place, but only when the city authorizes a “Special Festival Event.” To be a “host with a heart,” the city’s privileged must officially sanction the party your guest might attend. In the endless meetings of planners poring over spreadsheets and debating how to accommodate Hollywood, did anyone raise a hand and ask, “Maybe we should just end the rental-license requirements and let people do what they want with their homes?” Mugged by realityThe poetry of all this is when Tinseltown’s “capitalism is evil” crowd comes together to fawn all over each other, it will be in a town that’s overflowing in black-market housing. When 85,000 festivalgoers arrive looking for 2,900 hotel rooms and some 1,000 legal home rentals, the market will do what markets always do: find a way. The irony is delicious. A festival filled with people who spend their lives warning us about the evils of capitalism may only function because of an underground economy. Nothing says “capitalism is evil” quite like desperately searching Craigslist for a place to sleep. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  7. Jun 22

    No Nonsense: Prop NN Is a Tax Increase

    On TABOR Talk we discuss how Colorado Legislators are trying to get you to give up your TABOR refunds forever. Will you let them have it?

  8. Jun 17

    Unaffiliateds rising: When primaries decide Colorado elections

    It makes no sense to be a Republican in Colorado. Or a Democrat for that matter. On the day I turned 18, even before I bought my first legal 3.2 beer (remember 3.2 beer?), I went to the courthouse and registered to vote (remember registering to vote?). I joined the Republican Party. Even at 18, I knew not affiliating with a party diluted the power of my vote. Sure, everyone gets to vote in November. But one vote among millions isn’t nearly as powerful as a vote in a primary. Back then, unaffiliated voters were locked out of primaries. Republicans voted in Republican primaries, Democrats in Democratic primaries. The smaller the electorate, the more your vote mattered. As a Republican primary voter, my ballot was one of only a couple hundred thousand. As a delegate to the Republican state assembly, my vote was one of only a few thousand. At the county assembly it was one of hundreds. At my neighborhood caucus, I was one of fewer than 10. At one point, my vote represented more than 10% of all votes cast. That’s leverage. Rise of the unaffiliatedsThen came Proposition 108 in 2016, which I voted against. Now those smug, sanctimonious “independents” get both a Republican and Democratic primary ballot and can choose which one to return. Yet my desire to leverage my vote never changed. So I became unaffiliated. And like most Colorado voters, I never looked back. We unaffiliateds get to vote in either primary. This year I’ve decided to return a Democratic ballot. To my fellow independents, isn’t it nice having choices? Those poor schmucks still clinging to the romance of party affiliation, shackled to organizations that long ago wandered past the hey-guys-let’s-not-get-crazy zone, don’t have the freedom we do. The still-affiliated can enjoy the purity of party membership while checking voicemail on their flip-phone, insulting Democrats by fax and waiting for next week’s TV Guide to arrive. To those still registered with a party, investing in Beanie Babies while wondering where the local Radio Shack moved, let me explain why I left. First, I live in the People’s Republic of Boulder. If I were still a Republican, I’d have almost no choices in the primary election. Only three of the 15 races on my Republican ballot are contested. Eight races have no candidate at all. No Republicans in Boulder has finally trickled down to no Republicans running for office. And unless you’re in complete denial, which has become a permanent condition among many Colorado Republicans, you know absolutely none of the Republican candidates on my Boulder ballot are going to win in November. That includes, sadly, Barbara Kirkmeyer, the only sane Republican running for governor. Now, if you live in a conservative part of the state where there are meaningful local races and candidates who can actually win, maybe returning a Republican ballot makes sense. But here’s the point: you don’t have to be a Republican to do that anymore. The only temptation I have to return a Republican ballot is to help Kirkmeyer win the nomination. Yes, she’ll lose to the Democratic nominee in November. Those in denial don’t need to flood my inbox explaining how me saying so will somehow cause that loss — message already received. But Barbara won’t embarrass the party. She won’t frighten suburban voters. And marginally speaking, she’d help Gabe Evans and a handful of legislative candidates who actually have a shot. Primaries decide electionsI’ve weighed that consideration against another reality. The winners of the Democratic primaries for governor and attorney general will almost certainly be the winners in November. The primary is the election. Democrats should probably leave their party, too. Why voluntarily surrender half your primary choices? Why chain yourself to a party label when Colorado law now lets you shop both aisles? The only remaining reason to stay registered with a party is if you actively participate in caucuses and assemblies and want to help place candidates on the primary ballot without petitioning on. If you’re registered with a party but never attend caucuses, you’re simply limiting your options under the current rules. Me, I’m returning a Democratic ballot. Not because I’m a Democrat. But because that’s where my vote has the most influence. And the prospect of a Colorado run by Democratic Socialists Phil Weiser and Jena Griswold is terrifying enough to make me spend it there. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

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About

Did you know 46% of the voters in Colorado are unaffiliated? Have you ever wondered why? Hear from the experts at Independence Institute talk about the issues important to Colorado and how to bring some sanity to this increasingly leftist state.

Information

  • Creator
    Independence Institute
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    195
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Independence Institute
  • Show Website
    Freedom Unaffiliated

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