The cat’s out of the bag.
Colorado’s Governor, a Democrat, is a brilliant (though Libertarian-oriented) former Congressman named Jared Polis — the first Jew ever to serve as Colorado Governor.
He was overwhelmingly elected in 2018, defeating State Treasurer Walker Stapleton, with 53 % of the vote to Stapleton’s 42%, which is why the Centennial State is often referred to in the local media as a “purplish” state.
Colorado has never elected a woman as its Governor, nor have Coloradans ever chosen a woman as their United States Senator. But the GOP hopes to change that this year, because they nominated University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl to take on Polis.
In today’s Denver Post, in an article by Seth Klamann, school district officials in Colorado called out Ganahl for her criticism of Colorado schools allowing school children to come to school dressed as cats, https://www.denverpost.com/2022/10/04/colorado-schools-heidi-ganahl-students-cat-claims/).
Earlier this year, your solitary reporter was gifted by his family with a gorgeous tabby, whom he named Marlow, after Charlie Marlow, a solitary sea captain in Joseph Conrad’s dark 1899 novella, Heart of Darkness. Famed director Francis Ford Coppola based his epic 1979 antiwar film, "Apocalypse Now," on Heart of Darkness; in the novella, Marlow, the narrator, tells his drinking buddies in London about his time as a sea captain on a Belgian steamer who is assigned by his company to go far up the Congo River to find solitary ivory trader Walter Kurtz. Coppola changed the venue from central Africa to Vietnam. A very young Martin Sheen plays Army Captain Benjamin Willard [Marlow], a veteran assassin who is serving his third tour in Vietnam. Let’s just say that the American military portrayed in the movie came out looking not too good, including Lt Col. Bill Kilgore, played by veteran actor Robert Duvall, who commanded the squadron consisting of notably noisy U S Army helicopters landing on the beach to the tune of Wagner’s "Ride of the Valkyries” (Ritt der Walkuren).
Many cinephiles, including your solitary reporter, consider the line by actor and Assistant Director Jerry Ziesmer as a mysterious man in civilian attire who sits in on Willard's initial briefing — whose only line in the film, referring to Willard the assassin, is “Terminate with extreme prejudice” (referring to the assignment to kill Kurtz) — to be the greatest line in the lengthy script. In the movie, Kurtz, the ivory trader played by Marlon Brando, has gone native, as his flock considers him to be a god.
Marlow, your solitary reporter’s cat, has sat on his lap, fat and happy, many times, as he has watched Coppola's movie.
Associate solitary reporter Sophia Kenwood, the Executive Director of the Denver Democratic Party, spoke with Ganahl moments ago to inform her that her chances of unseating Polis are in the range of one to two percent after she lost all hope of receiving any support from Colorado school officials. Kenwood also has a tabby named Ezra, based on the Prophet Ezra in the Hebrew Bible.
Then Ganahl, overwhelmed by the negative chorus occasioned by her comment about Colorado schoolchildren being allowed to come to school dressed as cats, abruptly threw in the towel, saying she doesn’t want to be a Republican candidate for anything any more, thus imploring the State Republican Party to nominate, in her place, her candidate for Lieutenant Governor, a well-known election denier, Danny Moore, to run in her stead.