Herb Rubenstein, 7th Congressional District Democratic candidate, author—and former Washington D.C. lawyer—is a Colorado politician with good reason. Rubenstein’s “New Politics” platform springs not just from his moral and political convictions concerning leadership and succinct plans for addressing critical issues, but also from the very nature, as he sees it, of Colorado’s political climate and the voters that create that climate. “The government and political scene in Colorado get universally high marks from other places around the country,” says Rubenstein. “There is very low graft, very low cronyism here. I think there’s a great deal of respect.

“Which helps fuel my candidacy for the 7th Congressional District Congressional seat,” he adds. “Talking to thousands of voters over the past year in Colorado has shown that Americans want to throw out ‘old politics.’ They are calling for a new approach to how political campaigns are conducted, and how elected officials fulfill their duties to the people.”

“I call it ‘New Politics,’” he says. “New Politics require that we elect new candidates and that old candidates change their stripes. Only old politics could bring us the corruption we’ve seen of late, the negative campaign tactics that turn off voters, and the voter fraud controversies that destroy people’s faith in elections—that’s not what Colorado’s about.”

When Mayor John Hickenlooper weighs in on how the rest of the country views Colorado politics and how he sees the political lay of the Colorado land, he’s as optimistic as Rubenstein, so much so, he wouldn’t be surprised to see the Democratic National Convention land, at some point, in Denver.

“People, when they look at us, see a community or a state that supports individual people rather than parties,” says Hickenlooper. “They see people in politics who have unusual backgrounds, as opposed to those who are career politicians. It’s a bit more accepted here. That’s the perception I get that other states have about Colorado. Here, it is more about the individual, than it is the affiliation.
“And when it comes to possibly getting the Democratic National Convention here, the issue comes down to whether we have enough hotel rooms,” he says. “The Democratic Party is interested, though, in exploring the possibilities.”

Much like Mayor Hickenlooper, Joshua Hanfling, founder of Setameeting.com, an online meeting scheduling service and Qube Visual, a signage and graphics company, comes from a decidedly businessman’s political perspective. Hanfling’s family lineage is seeped in politics, and he plans to throw his own hat into the political race at some point. “I was raised in D.C. and both of my parents were involved in government,” he says. “I grew up around politics; my parents ran Joe Lieberman’s campaigns in Connecticut.
“Colorado is viewed around the U.S. as one of the most independent states in the country,” he adds. “Look how close the presidential race was here. With Colorado, you can’t say that we’re Democratic or Republican. There’s a lot of independent thinking out here.
“You’ve got Denver and then everyone else, basically,” he says. “Water is an issue, but the people in Denver don’t care as much as they might if they lived outside of the city. That’s a big issue. You can’t say there’s one major economy that drives the state.”
Hanfling also believes that hosting the Democratic National Convention in Denver would do much to elevate the importance of Colorado in national politics. “We’re trying to get the Democratic National Convention here,” he says. “The thing is, we do have a convention of 35,000 people planning to come here for a consumer electronics show, so we can do it. Hosting the Democratic National Convention would definitely make us more important on the national scene.”

But Hanfling takes issue with the lack of business-minded representation in Colorado politics. “My issue and frustration is that there are no business people on the Denver City Council,” he says. “As much as I know and love a lot of people in the Denver City Council, there’s a lack of business people. Hopefully, that will start to change.”

Speaking of issues—Penfield Tate, III, who ran against Hickenlooper for Denver mayor in 2003 and who is a full-time practicing attorney these days with Trimle, Tate, Nuland & Evans, P.C., says that Colorado is viewed by the rest of the country as naive—which is a good thing because that adds up to clean and inexpensive. “In relation to a lot of other cities—Dallas, Detroit and Chicago, as examples—we don’t run dirty, negative campaigns. Our campaigns are about ideas and issues, not personalities.”

Tate, who suggests that he may pursue the political arena again at some point, says that the economy and jobs, along with pre-school through twelfth grade education are the key issues in this state. “Though immigration is getting the headlines right now,” he says, “I don’t think folks on the street would put that over Colorado’s economic and education issues, which I believe are at the top of the list.”

Marc Holtzman, Republican candidate for Colorado governor doesn’t necessarily agree with Tate. Holtzman can’t speak to Colorado’s reputation with politics without espousing on the immigration issue—what he believes is very pressing on Colorado voters’ minds. “I believe people here take politics seriously, that people are civically minded, that most people want to see a political situation where good people can disagree in an agreeable way,” he says.

“There are 400,000 immigrants living here illegally, which is putting a $600 million strain on state budget, one of the highest burdens of any state in the country. I’m not against immigration; I’m for immigration, but we’re based on laws. No one has a right to assume a sanctuary status and amnesty. I oppose that,” says Holtzman.
Hickenlooper, as well, takes a stand on the immigration issue, but he also lists education, the environment and health care as pressing concerns for Colorado. “We’ve got issues around water and climate disruption—we are in many ways uniquely vulnerable to that,” he says. “Education is a huge issue, as is health care and immigration. I’ve been pretty supportive of the main framework of President Bush’s immigration design: secure the borders, and establish a system where people obey the law, but don’t end up deporting twelve million people out of the economy.”

On the prickly topic of health care reform, no one is more passionate—or more decidedly specific—on how to get Coloradoans affordably insured than Rubenstein. His New Politics philosophy is exacting and determined, as he takes on dealing with health care and the uninsured with a no-nonsense plan that provides health insurance for everyone.

Rubenstein’s plan calls for every child to be insured by July 1, 2008 and every adult insured by January 1, 2010. “This is an ambitious plan that requires leadership in politics and in the health care industry,” he says. “Clearly the government must lead us to a new public-private partnership that gets every American the affordable health care they deserve.”

Rubenstein also calls for the creation of a National Commission on the Future of Health Care and State Commissions in each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia to begin to develop innovative approaches to expanding affordable health care to all citizens. “Skyrocketing costs of health care are destroying our largest companies, hurting our workers, and causing millions of Americans, employed and unemployed, to be without health insurance,” says Rubenstein. “We can no longer afford to have our citizens go bankrupt each year due to skyrocketing health care costs.”

But Rubenstein’s verve is equally met by Hanfling’s passion for Colorado politics, particularly as the governor’s race draws near. “As I said, politics are in my blood,” says Hanfling. “I’ve spent a lifetime fundraising for folks. As for who would make a good governor, Bob Beauprez is a good man, but I’d be happy with Bill (Ritter) too. They are running a good campaign. Hickenlooper’s got unfinished work to do in Denver.

“Whomever wins could learn from past mistakes,” he adds. “Dick Lamm turning down the Olympics was a mistake and now we’re in the running to get it again. We’ve got a good shot at that.”
And no discussion on the governor’s race would be complete without talking about Hickenlooper’s recent decline to run. Hickenlooper sounds, perhaps, a bit coy in discussing why he chose not run, hinting at what sounds like a “keeping that door open” possibility. “Right now is not the right time,” he says. “We have too many projects started. I think that to leave right in the beginning, too close in the beginning of many of our current projects would have left me feeling incomplete in some way.

“That being said,” he adds, “There certainly there are a lot of years in the future to have other opportunities.”