Donald, compared to centralized online polls, in person straw polls are safer from automated ballot stuffing by both internal and external actors. Online maybe “MARBLE CAKE ALSO THE GAME” but never at a straw poll.

Also, Donald, your insistence on early money’s importance in your second point is, strangely enough, balanced by your dismissal of early money’s importance in your third point.

Dan, Congrats!

1. Ken Buck may have a chance at the top line on the U.S. Senate primary ballot, but that doesn’t mean he’d win the primary.

2. Activists attending candidate forums may favor Maes over Mcinnis, but they’re not putting their money where their meaningless straw poll votes are. No one has beat a well-financed candidate for governor or senator in Colorado. McInnis has the money and the organization needed to win. So far, Maes does not and probably won’t.

3. In the treasurer’s race, credibility, experience and endorsements by the former governor and treasurer Bill Owens and by three former U.S. Senators, among many others, is putting J.J. Ament ahead of his much wealthier opponents even at a candidates’ forum dominated by activists. This doesn’t mean the GOP can beat the incumbent Cary Kennedy, however.

My problems with candidates’ forums is that while they make the organizers feel good, they don’t do much to educate voters. This is because the candidates don’t get to show their stuff or their lack of it. You can’t make much of an an impression in a 5-minute talk loaded with family history, irrelevant quips and a couple of carefully targeted jabs at opponents. Like online polls, straw polls are fun for the winners but don’t reveal much and shouldn’t be relied on by anyone who is trying to decide who to back in any given race, imho.