Columns

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. No, relax, I’m not going to ply you with Lombardi-isms this week, but when I saw pleas for help from two area nonprofits in the last week, I found myself thinking about the need for us to dig down and support people in need in our community. It made me think of the kind of inspirational speech the coach of the Green Bay Packers would have given to his team while I was growing up.

Editor’s note: Columnist Greg Romberg’s space this week is being taken by his daughter Rebekah Romberg. Rebekah, a senior at Evergreen High School, recently won the Mountain Rendezvous Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Good Citizen Scholarship for her essay on being a good citizen. Rebekah was given up to two hours to write the following essay based just on her own knowledge and without either prior knowledge of the question or access to any research or resource materials.

Many Americans can recall what was perhaps the first really nasty ad of the television era, run by Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign. In it, a little girl counts the petals she picks from a daisy. Gradually, her voice is replaced with a countdown and then, ominously, a mushroom cloud consumes the screen. Vote for Johnson, the ad suggests, or perish in a nuclear holocaust.

As you have no doubt concluded from the many recent GOP presidential debates, it’s an election year. And it’s a watershed year for Colorado politics, in many ways.
Jeffco voters will be casting ballots in races that range from county commissioner to U.S. Congress. And nearly all the voters in our coverage areas find themselves electing U.S. House members and state legislators in redrawn districts that will be game-changers for candidates and voters.