The term is “too cute by half.”
And I can think of no better term to describe Jared Polis — and folks are catching on.
By all reasonable measures Jared should be easily re-elected. He’s very popular. The media loves him. And, most importantly, he’s got as much money as it takes to buy it.
There will be a historic anti-Democratic wave across this nation sparked by Joe Biden’s incompetence, but fueled by inflation. By election time, working families won’t be buying the “transitory, supply-chain problems” myth.
And it’s as if Polis only just now read the opinion poll saying we’re really pissed off about inflation.
Shazam — Jared Polis’ top priority now is to help Coloradans in this affordability crisis.
In his new-year’s charm offensive he pledges to temporarily reduce a bunch of the tax increases he himself signed into law over the last three years. He calls them “fee” increases. We don’t get to vote on “fee” increases, so he must own every single one.
Like this one: He wants to “delay” the gas tax increase he signed to go into effect this year, by (hold for effect)…one year.
How patronizing, smug and insulting. He’s going to put his own gas tax hike on hold until after his reelection. Magnanimous, yet belittling.
He wants to do the same one-year delay with the savage and unsustainable family leave payroll tax increase. Of course, when this was on the ballot, Jared Polis —who owns the largest megaphone in the state — hid under his covers. Leadership on affordability right there.
He wants to take a huge slice of our TABOR refunds to shore up the state unemployment fund. Are our memories that short? It was his executive orders that put almost every service worker in the state on the unemployment rolls in the first place.
The governor is going to give special breaks to certain, election-important constituency groups to make their housing more “affordable.” Yet he won’t do anything to take on the urban growth boundaries and terrible growth control that is pricing working people out of home ownership.
I’ve never seen a politician as fast on his feet as Jared Polis. It really is something to watch.
He rarely gives clear answers to direct questions. He does a policy rope-a-dope. For those who might not know, that’s a boxing tactic of goading an opponent to throw tiring, ineffective punches.
Jared does this by effortlessly diving into layers of policy minutiae, explaining how what he just did TO you is actually great FOR you. He tires out whoever is trying to get a straight answer or hold him accountable. Move over Muhammad Ali.
But folks might be catching on. There’s some encouragement that maybe some of his benefactors in the media are getting tired of his razzle-dazzle as well.
It pains me to pay 9news’ Kyle Clark a compliment, but his tenacious question asking might have signaled that reporters have had enough. He asked Jared a simple yes or no question about the clemency given to Rogel Aguilera-Mederos. Governor, did you talk to Kim Kardashian West about it?
This is a throw-away, low-risk question to which the gov would only say “I haven’t read all her tweets.” Kyle asked three times. Three rope-a-dopes.
Citizens might be joining reporters like Clark and Marshall Zellinger in asking him simple questions over and over, demonstrating his refusal to answer.
The 9news video of the Zoom meeting between Polis and family members of Aguilera-Mederos’ victims showed these hurt people catching on. They questioned over and over — Governor, why didn’t you just wait two weeks to see what the judge’s re-sentencing was before you intervened?
“Why is waiting two weeks the wrong thing to do?” That’s how one pained woman pleaded to no avail.
Just as with Clark and Zellinger, Polis looked them in the eyes and rope-a-doped them with babble like “I hope this brings you closure.”
It’s little wonder why the victims said, “you are victimizing us again … it’s entirely political.”
Will reporters take on the governor’s newfound desire to take on affordability?
All they need is to look at the laws he has signed, and the new rules his administrators have propagated and ask him how it makes Colorado more affordable.
He’ll answer that he hasn’t read all the tweets.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.
