AMAZING RACE

Curry’s Write-In Campaign Challenges the Odds

By David Frey, 9-08-10

	Colorado Rep. Kathleen Curry

What Colorado state Rep. Kathleen Curry is doing has never been done before. Not successfully, anyway.

No write-in candidate has ever successfully won a race in Colorado. And only one unaffiliated voter is known to have won a seat in the state legislature – back in 1891.

“I wouldn’t be running if I thought I had a zero-percent chance,” Curry said. “I think I have a good percent chance.”

Curry, of Gunnison, who has served for six years as state representative for District 61, a massive district that includes much of the Western Slope, left the Democratic Party in December after parting ways over what she said were disagreements primarily over fiscal policies and clashes with party leadership.

Her decision forces her to give up her position as speaker pro tem, the No. 2 position in the state House of Representatives, and chairmanship of the House Agriculture Committee, a key position for her largely rural district.

But as a politician, it also puts her in a major disadvantage in the upcoming election. Curry had to run as a write-in candidate, counting on voters to pass over her Republican and Democratic challengers, whose names both appear on the ballot. They must not only write in her name – at least her last name. They must also fill in the box marked “write in.” Forget to mark the box and the vote won’t count.

Don’t count Curry out, though. Hers is a weird race in an equally weird campaign season across Colorado. Although she’d make history if she wins, she’s counting on name recognition and her six-years’ experience in the House to win over voters. Her two opponents have been running lackluster campaigns.

Curry has taken in and spent about ten times as much as either of her opponents. Republican Luke Korkowski, a Crested Butte lawyer, and Democrat Roger Wilson of Carbondale, chief technical officer for a children’s education Web site, www.starfall.com and Blue Mountain Arts, trail far behind her in fundraising.

The result is a strange race with a strong incumbent who has to hope voters will write in her name versus a pair of political newcomers who have party support but little visibility.

Curry insists she can win, though. About 20 years ago, Peggy Lamm ran as a write-in candidate for a House seat and fell some 80 votes short. That’s still a loss, but she had an excuse. Many voters wrote in the name “Dottie Lamm,” the former Colorado First Lady, instead of “Peggy Lamm,” Curry said.

Although Curry has left the Democrats, she’s hardly kowtowing to Republicans. She is supporting Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper in his run for governor as a Democrat.

She’s considering more oil and gas regulations to protect landowners from the impacts of spills and water contamination and to ensure royalty owners get all the money they’re owed by energy companies.

Those are issues that aren’t popular with the energy industry, which has heavily-funded Republican candidates.

And she hasn’t backed away from her right-to-float bill, which would give rafters and kayakers the right to boat through private property, another issue unpopular with many Republicans.

But she said she didn’t vote with her party enough to please the Democratic leadership. And she said she was more fiscally conservative than the Democrats, which put on strains as legislators looked for ways to balance the state budget.

“I’ve kind of walked down the middle,” Curry said. “This is a diverse district. We walk the gamut, from Silt to Aspen, Lake City to Crested Butte. It can’t get much more diverse.”

She decided to leave the party before the election, she said, to give Democrats time to field another candidate if they wanted to, and to avoid betraying voters who supported her under the assumption she would remain a Democrat.

Switching parties after the election, she said, would be “rather deceptive for the people who worked for you and counted on you. I don’t think that shows much integrity to get the benefits of their support and then turn your back on them.”

Curry’s district tends to be unaffiliated. Among some 37,000 active voters, about 43 percent are unaffiliated. Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans.

“The Democratic Party is more focused on looking for new revenue and less focused on cutting programs, and I feel my voters are tapped out. They can’t afford any more fees or taxes,” she said.

Balancing the budget is the biggest issue facing the next legislature, Curry said. Cuts in education, Medicaid matches and tourism marketing could have big impacts on this district, she said, and dwindling funds at the state house mean less money to deal with issues like the bark beetle infestation, which has killed off stands of trees throughout the Western Slope.

“You go down the list. All the budget issues we contend with are going to have a direct impact on us,” Curry said.

She argues her experience in the legislation makes her better equipped to handle those issues than her opponents. That would mean beating the odds to return to her seat, though.

It may not take a miracle, but it would make history.

Follow David Frey at www.davidmfrey.com or on Twitter.

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