Campaign names ad absurdum

If anything can be gathered from looking at the growing list of state initiative campaigns this year, it’s that campaign monikers often tell voters absolutely nothing about what issues are being supported or opposed.


Apparently, in order to run a successful campaign, your cause must have the words “Colorado,” “protect,” or “economy” somewhere in the title, and if you can do all three it’s even better.


Here are a few names of campaigns that lean toward the ambiguous:

A Better Colorado – Campaign title supporting "right-to-work Amendment 47 to restrict the way labor unions organize.


Protect Colorado’s Future – A labor-backed campaign against Amendment 47 that is also supporting two measures dealing with corporate fraud and just-cause for employee termination.


Defend Our Economy – Campaign name to oppose initiatives submitted by Protect Colorado’s Future.


Colorado For Equal Rights – Probably not the “equal rights” most people had in mind. This campaign has put Amendment 48 on the ballot to define a fertilized human egg as a person.


Protect Families Protect Choices Coalition – A campaign set up to oppose Amendment 48.


Coloradans for a Stable Economy – A business-funded campaign to oppose a measure that would increase state revenues from oil and gas drilling to pay for alternative energy projects. This group earns extra points for having both “economy” and “Colorado” in their name.


A Smarter Colorado – Campaign funded by environmental groups that will be supporting the diversion of state oil revenues going to alternative energy.


Coloradans For Middle Class Relief – The name for an effort by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union to require companies with more than 20 employees to provide medical health-care coverage and to give employees injured on the job stronger legal rights.


Coloradans for Responsible Reform – A campaign by the business-friendly Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce to oppose the initiative efforts by Protect Colorado’s Future and the UFCW.


Clean Government Colorado – A campaign by the conservative Independence Institute think tank created to bar automatic union dues deductions from public employee payrolls and to restrict campaign contributions from government contractors.


Colorado Civil Rights Initiative Committee – Despite a confusing allusion to “civil rights,” the campaign is to support Amendment 46, an affirmative-action ban.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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