No, you can’t opt out.

What’s being handed from FB over to Politico are your status updates.  In theory, all status updates containing the name of a Presidential candidate will be culled, anonymized, and tabulated.  Politico will be perusing them for political leanings, so as to improve their analytics for 2012.  I’ve long through Politico is fine and dandy for news, but had never considered them a top pick for predictions…soooo, maybe they need the help.

Thus far, all these datapoints have led Politico to suss out the sleeper story that Mitt Romney is leading the GOP pack.  Um…way to pick up on what everyone else missed, boys?

Or maybe Politico and the eleventy-bazillion contributors they are potentially sharing your info with should do their own damn fieldwork.  Now, for those of you worried about yet another intrusion on your privacy, PPC has a suggestion.

Start off with a status update that names some ’12 contender, yet doesn’t actually contain an opinion of said contender’s platform.  For instance:

“Eileen just spent three hours staring at Mitt Romney’s hair and it NEVER MOVED.”

Wait an hour or so and then duplicate the status, switching out only the candidate’s name:

“Eileen just spent three hours staring at Rick Santorum’s hair and it NEVER MOVED.”

You might easily go through the entire roster of surviving players at any time.  For added fun, use a timer to guarantee your updates are precisely spaced.

Next, start throwing in buzzwords.  Do this right and you can get the attention not only of Politico but of Homeland Security.

“Eileen would like to put Brack Obama in indefinite detention.”

“Eileen has no interest in assassinating Newt Gingrich’s character.  The man needs no help from me.”

After that, toss off a status update acting like you’re just getting old news:

“Eileen can’t believe Herman Cain left the race.  I totally did not see that coming”

Similar to this, on a day when big news about one candidate comes out, don”t so much as mention his name.  Just babble about every candidate but the one who’s the story.

Next, display truly alarming emotions:

“Eileen needed three Ambiens and a fifth of cheap table wine just to process the news that Jon Huntsman is leaving the race.”

“Eileen finally perfected her Michelle Bachman hairstyle!!!!  OMG!!!! Supercute!!!!”

Make comments that indicate you have no idea what’s actually going on in the race.

“Eileen is so proud to be supporting the candidate who just aced the debate!  Go, Gary Johnson.”

“Eileen is already planning her Alaskan themed inaugural party for when Sarah Palin wins it all.”

For the slightly more advanced user, try to start some rumors of your own.  Remember, you have the most latitude in pretending to have seen something salacious if you are in D.C. or in the location of the current primary:

“Eileen just saw Ron Paul and Rick Perry walk out the back room at Shelly’s, together.”

“Eileen just snuck onto the Rick Santorum campaign bus.  Who knew that vodka came in Jeroboams?”

If geography is not on your side, allude to the mailer you just got or pretend you’ve just turned up some ancient photograph that has front page written all over it.

Allude to damning report cards, Polaroids from the early 70s, and unedited drafts of incendiary speeches.

What if falsely cultivating something lascivious and damning isn’t quite ‘it’ for you?  You might still aim to muddy the waters with groundless speculation masquerading as fact.

“Eileen hadn’t really considered the viability of a Ron Paul/Gary Johnson ticket, but after that press release, she sees the merits.”

If you do this, have no compunction about citing campaign ads that don’t exist and press conferences that never happened.  We all need to keep the media on their toes.

Another fan favorite is spewing nonsense that still sounds impressive:

“Eileen is gravely worried over the Azerbaijani’s Minister’s comments on the Obama defense platform.  Oh, well, totally in the Senate’s hands, now.”

The beauty here is that it hardly matters if Azerbaijan even has a minister in Washington, or if any treaty is in play.  Have fun with this one.  Lying to people who try to steal your private information is a moral good.

Next, throw in the names of people who aren’t running in 2012, but who are still peripheral figures.  Hint at having seen Nancy Pelosi’s head of communications in hushed conversation with Michelle’s Bachman’s chief of staff.  Mention that you just RSVP-ed to an event where George Bush is speaking on Rick Perry’s behalf.  Say a friend just took a job with Sarah Palin; make it sound like the old bat is gearing up for a late entry.

You could even talk about whatever it is you actually want your FB friends to know and then toss in some bastard’s name to make work for Politico:

“Eileen is finally off parole!  Drinks tonight!  Buddy Roemer.  Rick Santorum.  Barack Obama.”

“Eileen’s parole party got a little out of hand.  I think I violated the Mann Act.  Gary Johnson.  Newt Gingrich.”

Alternately, when you do want to say something about politics, just misspell or alter a candidate’s name enough to throw off some trolling program.  Personally, I like giving people nicknames:  President Obama becomes, “Barry, the Big O,” Rick Perry is “Texas Rocky” and Newt Gingrich is “Lizard Man.”  Or some such.

For the truly spiteful, remember that your status need not actually communicate anything other than your contempt.  Let fly with utter argle-bargle.

“Eileen hippodrome toothbrush lost in the blender Rick Perry big green glow in the dark Ron Paul dancing ligers.  Snarf.  Precancerous mole.  Piggily.  Newt Gingrich. Bamboo.  Hot chocolate muffin.”

Step up even that with foreign words and made-up language:

“Eileen umlaut-sil-vous-Platte-river Barack Obama.  Jabberwocky Chisinau post-haste S.P.Q.R. Buddy Roemer con leche Blutwurst.”

Once all this wears thin, just make you status full of links to Politico’s rival sites.

We then asked survey participants to rank the stories relative to each other based on newsworthiness, recollection, or long-lasting effects. Points were awarded in reverse descending order (a first place vote was worth 27 points, second place worth 26, and so on), and a final point total calculated. Rather than exhaustive retrospective on each, a quick Google search will result in hundreds of links for the vast majority of the top stories, from old media and blogs alike. Our friends at Complete Colorado kept us up to speed on a daily basis, with a variety of sources for each of the stories listed below. Aside from our own searchable PPC archives, a quick rundown can be found on our allied blogs Colorado Peak Politics and WhoSaidYouSaid, as well as the Energy blog at the Independence Institute, the Education blog at I.I., and our entire list of contributing blogs found in the sidebar. The Denver Post Spot blog also provided coverage of many of the twists and turns of each story as well.

Here are the unscientific-but-fun-nontheless results produced by you, our readers. The number of first place votes is in parentheses.

1. Redistricting/Reapportionment 812 (9)
2. Failure of Prop 103 759 (8)
3. Lobato decision 709 (6)

4. Douglas County school vouchers 656
5. State Rep. Amy Stephens and SB200 634
6. Treasurer Walker Stapleton vs. PERA 612
7. Xcel rates and the New Energy Economy 594
8. Secretary of State Scott Gessler and voting issues 580
9. Occupy Denver/SEIU Wisconsin solidarity rally 533
10. Colorado Department of Labor and Employment report and the “green jobs” myth 522
11. Denver’s Mayoral race, Hancock’s controversy 493
12. President Obama’s poll numbers in Colorado, his Colorado visits, and Colorado as a battleground state 465
13. Fracking fracas 462
14. El Paso County fiasco 452
15. Jefferson County school board races, the “Dads” 423

The rest:
16. Sen. Suzanne Williams’ accident
17. Continued rise of independents in Colorado
18. Sen. Mike Kopp’s resignation
19. State implementation plan, regional haze, Clean Air Act compliance
20. Hickenlooper vs. Obama
21. Larry Carillo and Larimer County GOP
22. Republicans and civil unions
23. BlogCon11
24. Sen. John Morse’s notable quotables
25. Rep. Sal Pace’s “leaks”
26. Child care/sex offender lists crosscheck
27. Aurora’s mayoral race

Any results surprise you? While the results at the top aren’t all that unexpected, I found it interesting that the rather heated and intense Aurora Mayoral race–in contrast to the similarly heated and controversial Denver Mayoral race–came in dead last.

Didn’t see that one coming.

Covering the various candidates–Romney, Cain, Santorum, Perry–also provided one of the more humorous episodes of the past year. Each time I covered an event, I’d get an angry email or Facebook message, asking me why I was only covering that particular candidate, and not someone else. Covering Romney’s appearance in June prompted one person to claim I was “in the bag” for the former Governor of Massachusetts.

Really people? Get over yourselves.

Thankfully, I was granted the opportunity by a couple of the campaigns to sit-in on a conference call, or attend the meeting as a member of the press–not just a blogger.

And, thankfully, National Review Online reopened their blog–this time, Primary Event, to allow me to cover the 2011 Western Conservative Summit in Denver as a member of the press, and to churn out great copy on those campaigns that did decide to make an appearance.

From Romney’s June trip to Colorado, where the Denver Post’s Tim Hoover asks the candidate one of the more familiar questions his campaign will receive, on one of the key issues that has dogged Romney this cycle:

More coverage here.

At the 2011 WCS, my favorite piece was interviewing the attendees and seeking their input on who they might like to see challenge President Barack Obama in 2012.

I was there for the “battle of the Ricks,” as Perry and Santorum squared off during the conference over comments made by Perry concerning the 10th Amendment and gay marriage.

Cain, of course, took the inaugural WCS straw poll. I took satisfaction in beating the other news outlets to the story in late July, but little did I know just how far Cain would ride the seemingly ephemeral results of Denver to commanding political advantage by early fall, only to see his campaign disintegrate among accusations of infidelity and inappropriate behavior.

On that hot July day, I didn’t see either of those developments coming, and neither did anyone else. That’s part of the fun of hitting the campaign trail. In several years now of covering Colorado politics it is the expectation of the unexpected that keeps me on the edge of my seat.

Here are the slideshows, which received thousands of views at NRO:

Aspiring 3rd Congressional District Democratic candidate, former House Minority Leader Rep. Sal Pace (D-Pueblo) had some strong words for those who might oppose unions and their Big Labor agenda way back in January, as union rhetoric heated up due to clashes in Wisconsin.

The quote, reported by Debi Brazzale of the Colorado News Agency, put Pace at odds with the dominant Democratic rhetoric of the time, which was espousing a less-violent dialogue following the shooting of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who had been grievously wounded earlier that same month, and his own calls for the continuation of a “civility pledge” in the House chambers.

Thus was born Sal “The Fist” Pace–and I managed to grab (with some considerable assistance) the audio from 850KOA before it disappeared into the ether:

“I’m willing to put my fist where I need to put it. I’m willing to fight. I’m willing to get in and rumble to make sure that we’re fighting for good jobs.”

Colorado Peak Politics, whose own riff on Pace’s delicate issue of relieving himself in public rocketed to number one in their list of most trafficked posts for 2011, was among those who were willing to hammer home the crudeness of the would-be Congressional challenger, time and time again.

That’s the beauty of working together on the right side of the blogosphere. We’re starting to get it in Colorado.

And as for Pace, well, we’re sure to hear about more ‘leaks’ from his campaign in 2012.

Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.

Given the Colorado Model and the mixed results of what should have been a great year in the 2010 midterms, nothing should be taken for granted in this state.

Probable defeat by dougle-digits? Make it a cool 27 percent. Run up the score. Motivate folks to mail in their ballots. Tax increases, like other left-wing incrementalism, are similar to Hollywood villains. They keep coming back. You don’t win until the ballots are counted on election, and even places like Denver turn their back on billions in tax hikes.

If you’ve got extra ammo left over after an election, even if you win, you didn’t do your job.

Even when it comes to the expected defeat of a proposed tax increase that, let’s just say, no one had the appetite for outside of State Sen. Rollie Heath’s home turf of Boulder, as election results demonstrated.

You probably heard that one, right? It was not me, however, estimating Coloradan’s appetite for such a ballot measure, but the newly-elected Governor of the state of Colorado, former Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, back in January:

“All of our legislature can tell you they – we have our work cut out for us in terms of just balancing the budget. There’s no extra money anywhere. Pretty much everything is pretty significantly funded, and yet there’s no appetite for taxes anywhere, all over the state. Well, maybe a couple neighborhoods in Boulder. Just a joke. Turn that camera off.”

Sorry, Gov. Hickenlooper. The cameras were rolling, and I managed to catch you in that moment of honest reflection after the election scrutiny had passed, in a post at WhoSaidYouSaid:

The video was cited by Compass Colorado in an ad attacking Sen. Evie Hudak for her support of Prop 103, in one of the few TV ads to appear during the 2011 cycle, and the only one featuring content by a conservative blogger in Colorado:

The power of video.

And I had no idea it would be so, all the way back in January. At the time, it seemed like just another of Hickenlooper’s folksy, off-the-cuff forthrightness that has made him a popular Colorado politician.

As an added bonus and a quick lesson for our side, earned media that can be captured on video is campaign gold. The Independence Institute decided to highlight the work of some studies that showed more than 5000 jobs would be lost as a result of Prop 103′s passage by toppling, you guessed it, more than 5000 dominoes.

Effective. Earned media. New media gold.

Turning briefly from straight-out investigative reporting or blogging, one of the highlights of my year was working with the fabulous Tabitha Hale, formerly New Media director at FreedomWorks, to put together a panel on ‘Building a State Blog Network’ for the group’s BlogCon11 conference held fortuitously in Denver in November.

Simply being listed among the star-studded speakers list on the conference agenda was an honor. I was joined by fellow People’s Press Collective cofounder T.L. James, the implacable Ari Armstrong, my former internship mentor and news guru Todd Shepherd of Complete Colorado and the Independence Institute, and my former coworker and video partner-in-crime at the state Capitol, Kelly Maher of WhoSaidYouSaid.

Our panel was extremely well-received by our blogging peers, and that was a great compliment:

@ChargerJeff: “Ahh. This is the panel I’ve been waiting for – setting up a State Blog Network and implementing the Colorado Model. #blogcon11 rolls on.”

@maggie82: “Enjoying infö from the Colorado group on building a state blogging network…there are things @SOBAlliance could learn/apply #blogcon11″

‎@orrinjohnson: “Really, really, impressed with the Colorado righty blog networks, aggregation. #jealous #inspiration #BlogCon11″

@jasonahart: “Panel of #Colorado bloggers from @peoplespress provide great discussion on how to work together writing for the web #blogcon11″

MIC CHECK!!!

Little did any of us know that it would be the thwarted attempt by Occupy Denver to disrupt BlogCon11 that would become not only local, but national news.

This well-distributed and well-trafficked PPC short video captured just a small portion of the, um, encounter with a cadre of Occupy Denver folks. A quick search of YouTube of BlogCon11-related videos reveals dozens of similar videos.

My friend Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit had some great recaps, as did Ed Morrissey of Hot Air.

Kurt Schlichter, an attendee at BlogCon11 and contributor at Big Government, summed up the encounter and offered advice on how to deal with the Occupods:

The big lesson of the Battle of BlogCon? When the Occupiers encounter resistance – real resistance that attacks their cherished premises with mockery and contempt – they will fold. This is a generation of special snowflakes, of kids instilled with self-esteem instead of a drive to achieve. No one has ever called them idiots before and treated them accordingly.

And they can’t take it. They’ve never had to defend their views against people who think they’re stupid. They simply don’t know how. The Occupy movement is performance art, not political science. It is an information operation, not an authentic, organic expression of beliefs.

They have not earned respect and they don’t deserve it. Don’t “engage” them, don’t “reason” with them, don’t try to “understand” their views.

Mock them. Treat them like the buffoons they are. And win.

How do we know we “won”?

Colorado blogger Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom managed to capture on video the appearance of a local Denver-area private school teacher who decided that attending an Occupy rally amounted to a great civics lesson. Unfortunately, the teacher could not withstand the scrutiny brought by the public appearance, including a couple media reports, and managed to convince YouTube to pull the video for violating privacy.

Here’s a lesson for the teacher–if you’re in public, you have very little expectation of privacy, and can be recorded at will according to Colorado law. How’s that for a civics lesson?

The beauty of the Internet is that the video, though pulled from YouTube, has been cached elsewhere several times over. We’ll add a tech lesson to the young progeny’s exposure to the real world.

MIC CHECK!!!

Way back in February, a hot tip was passed our way concerning a little project out of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Leeds School of Business being conducted on behalf of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Little did I know that this one story would eventually form the basis of much of the rest of the work I’d do this year, almost all of it in a collaborative effort with Amy to dispel the propaganda at play by environmentalists, crony capitalists, entrenched lobbyists, and others determined to promote “clean/green” energy on the taxpayers’ dime.

Here’s a clip from the original report, “What is a green job?”:

The six-month, $265,000 survey commissioned by Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment uses funds authorized by the 2009 America Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This includes $3,877,949 in grant money from ARRA designated for the Montana Department of Labor and Industry for a multi-state research project dubbed, “Northern Plains and Rocky Mountain Consortium: Researching the Green Economy” (PDF) The survey includes Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa:

“This project entitled, ‘Researching the Green Economy’ will create a consortium consisting of workforce agencies in six contiguous states to improve labor market information (LMI) collection and research in order to enhance the labor exchange system for green careers within and between the participating states. This collaborative effort will allow researchers to effectively distribute green surveys, devise new methods to close the information gap pertaining to green jobs, and research the impact of green technologies on the workforce. The resulting research aims to build a sustainable dialogue relating to green labor demand and supply, build an LMI system sustaining those relationships and establish a design for evaluation as an integral part of a sustained effort.”

While the project was supposed to conclude in April, the government report did not actually appear until the last week of July.

After reviewing the report, I broke the news on the CDLE “green jobs” survey in late August:

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment released an “Interim Report on Green Jobs in the Colorado Economy” in late July estimating that 61,239 jobs, or roughly 2.8% of the state’s workforce, can be classified as a “green job” under the rubric drawn up by CDLE, the Office of Labor Market Information, and the Business Research Division of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School Business, which conducted the survey.

The “exploratory” survey–”not intended as a definitive statement describing the green economy in Colorado”–was commissioned by CDLE through a $265,000 grant (out of a total of more than $3.8 million) authorized by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and administered as part of a much larger multi-state survey that included Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa.

The stated objectives of the joint CDLE/LMI survey included qualifying the types of green occupations, training needs, wages, and ranking factors that influence or inhibit the growth of green jobs, in addition to the overall goal of establishing a baseline number of total green jobs in the state.

To promote consistency within the multi-state study and due to Colorado’s later entrance in the project, the methodology and survey characteristics were adapted and retained for use in measuring green jobs in the state’s labor market, according to the report.

The report admits that classifying jobs as green is “highly dependent” on subjective measures, that there is a potential for self-selection bias in reporting by those firms surveyed, and a “broad definition of what constitutes a green job” is open to interpretation.

Furthering the notion of a broad and comprehensive green employment definition, the survey provided a range of potential activities for companies to consider in defining a green job and concluded that, “the job itself must have, as part of its function, paid activities that produce an environmentally friendly product or service” in order to be classified as an eligible green job.

In addition to casting a wide methodological net, the report acknowledges that “most” of the jobs included in the results “pre-date the green economy,” with many having been repurposed or adapted to fit into a “green niche.” No specific numbers are offered.

Following my breaking story, I tipped off the Denver Post–a strong proponent of renewable energy and green sector jobs–which managed to spend all of one sentence on the report in early September.

So Amy and I turned to the Gazette, who happily printed our guest column, where we added quite a bit of context to that CDLE report–and the results weren’t good for green jobs in Colorado:

“Most” of the jobs, according to CDLE, actually “pre-date the green economy,” but the report fails to provide any explanation.

If accurate, the results cast doubt on CDLE’s estimate, as pre-existing jobs repurposed for the green economy are not job “creations.” Transforming a job — say from coal to wind — is still the same single job, only redefined.

A similar July study by the Brookings Institution put Colorado at 2.2 percent, or roughly 51,000 jobs, 20th in the country.

Differing methodologies have yielded no consensus on when the green economy began, a reliable green jobs estimate, potential growth rate over time, and, most importantly, any unintended externalities.

For example, a 2007 Pew study concluded there were 17,000 clean energy jobs in Colorado, an increase of 2,700 jobs dating back to 1998. Brookings, measuring from 2003-2010, estimated 16,250 jobs were added over seven years.

The CDLE “snapshot” survey, however, isn’t helpful here either, as the results “cannot be interpreted to determine any relative growth or decline in the number or quality of jobs in Colorado over a period of time.”

But compared to a 2007 American Solar Energy Society estimate commissioned by the Governor’s Energy Office and Xcel Energy that claimed more than 91,000 green jobs, the CDLE report actually would indicate a loss of 30,000 positions, a 9.2 percent annual decline.

The Gazette column, combined with news later that same week in early October that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden would be cutting staff despite nearly $300 million in government stimulus funding (another breaking news fact from Amy and me), led to my first on-air TV spot appearance on CBS4:

“You have the desire to create green jobs but all we’re creating is pink slips and red ink,” Michael Sandoval with the Independence Institute said.

Sandoval questions if the government is getting a good return on its investment. He pointed out government studies showing that Colorado lost 30,000 green energy jobs, even as NREL’s budget grew by 60 percent.

“When it comes at taxpayer expense, we’re very concerned about that,” Sandoval said.

Any other mentions of this story in local media, given the September implosion of Solyndra and a sharp increase in scrutiny for all renewable energy projects, whether subsidized by the Department of Energy loan guarantee program or not?

Nope.

Instead, the Post, aside from their one sentence recap of the CDLE report in September, linked to the Loveland Reporter-Herald’s write-up of The Solar Foundation’s “solar jobs census” that found Colorado in first place for the number of solar jobs per capita–according to the solar industry’s PR firm:

Colorado is leading the nation in the number of solar jobs it provides, new U.S. Census data show.

According toAugust 2011 data from the National Solar Jobs Census there are an estimated 1,020 solar businesses and 6,186 solar jobs in Colorado. This ranks the state No. 1 nationally for solar jobs per capita and No. 2 for overall number of solar jobs behind California.

Note the erroneous and misleading “U.S. Census data” line–this was an industry survey, not a document provided by the U.S. government.

Government report on green jobs? Meh. Industry report touting green jobs (solar in particular)? Print!

The most fascinating aspect, and one that only CBS4 picked up on, were the discrepancies between two reports commissioned by two separate Colorado governmental agencies–the Governor’s Energy Office and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. One might think that such a drastic difference in the number of so-called “green” jobs estimated by two separate agencies nearly 4 years apart, especially a negative one that could cast doubt on the whole initiative in the first place, would elicit a larger media investigation (note that the reports, from 2007 and 2010, coincide with the term of Ritter’s administration).

Sadly, no deeper plunge into the statistics has, as of yet, been provided.

Nor does the large fact that, as Amy and I quoted in our guest column and I showed in the original report, the survey itself indicated that of the green jobs they actually did find using the largest definitional net possible still yielded a rather paltry number and “most,” according to the CDLE report and the Bureau of Labor and Statistics in testimony before Congress, PREEXISTED the current green jobs economy.

Providing a corrective to this myth continues to be perhaps the highlight of the work done in 2011.

These stories proved to be consequential at the time, and while their value may have increased (or decreased) over the remainder of the year, their impact was no less important, both for my own body of work but also as symbolic of the type of value-added, original reporting that–as you’ll see in a couple of the stories–appeared under my byline MONTHS before others in the media began to glance at the stories or their possible implications. Quite often, these stories were not just the work of this solo blogger on a passionate quest for breaking stories, but often the result of collaboration and inspiration from colleagues. My thanks in advance to the many others who have contributed directly and indirectly: your input has been greatly appreciated.

On to the stories!

1. Colorado’s Independents

Back in mid-August I embarked on what turned out to be a four part series on the state’s voter registration statistics, deciding to let the statistics rather than a predetermined storyline determine what was reported. In other words, I’d let the numbers speak for themselves. While interpretations may well certainly vary, the numbers were not in dispute, as this is data provided by the Secretary of State’s office, going back as far as 2004.

The first, absolutely astonishing pattern to emerge was the tremendous growth, or “surge” as I dubbed it, of the independent “unaffiliated” voters in the state of Colorado.

Just a few weeks later, the Denver Post challenged those conclusions indirectly with an article that purported to show that rather than an increase in UAFs since 2010, there was a sharp decline. They, however, chose to look at “actives” instead of total voters, and plucked a curious baseline number of active UAFs to show their work. I challenged their assertions in an extensive rebuttal, noting the shortcomings of the Post’s methodology, and clearly demonstrated that not only were my original findings in overall voter registration not in dispute, but that by any definition–including a look only at “active” voters–that UAFs were not only not the biggest decliners (that would be the Democrats) but that they were also the most resilient voter bloc in recovering their numbers post-election (2010). Those trends have only continued through the latest figures available from the SOS office for November 2011.

Nearly three months after that September article, the Post reported that a left-leaning think tank had crunched the voter numbers and–SHOCK!–those UAFs have been surging by a very large margin, while the Democrats have been the hardest hit in voter registration statistics. The report looked at voter registration statistics in other states and noted a similar trend in other battleground states as well, but the conclusion was anything but ambiguous.

As it turns out, I was correct. Back in August. A USA Today report issued a few days before Christmas only confirmed that conclusion, yet again.

The AP’s Colorado reporter Kristen Wyatt (she’s worth following: @APkristenwyatt) tweeted at the time, “your series this week drilling down into Colorado voting data is both geeky and fantastico.”

Add to that “way, way ahead of the news cycle.”

There have been some doozies, which would be an understatement.

Nominees include the two most obvious stories, redistricting and reapportionment. The decennial battle to redraw district lines in Colorado had its fair share of partisan acrimony and alleged political subterfuge. The battle over so-called “Amycare” and SB 200? Check. The momentous Lobato decision? Yep. Green jobs failures? Certainly. Rep. Sal Pace’s, um, “leaks”? Heh. Those too.

We did a bit of crowdsourcing on Facebook to establish a consensus on nominees, but unlike the climate change-mongers, the rankings aren’t “settled.”

We’ve compiled 27 different stories, or storylines, for your perusal. Some, like Occupy Denver, have a long narrative track, extending over many months, with several facets and players and interpretations. Others stories are more one-dimensional, but were also quite notable. Whether the stories could have been anticipated to develop in 2011 (redistricting and reapportionment occur every 10 years), or were spontaneous outgrowths that could not have been foreseen even by those with “conventional wisdom” in the political arena, these stories are what made the past year in politics in Colorado so damned interesting.

Some thought 2011 would be a quiet year in contrast to 2010′s clusterf**k or 2012′s media circus. Looking back on the past several years, this political observer can only say that he agrees with our state’s border welcome signs–welcome to colorful Colorado!

There is, however, no intent to judge the merits of the particular stories themselves; i.e., to re-litigate, debate, critique or reassess the stories. We’re just concerned with what the readers found most memorable or most newsworthy compared to the other stories that emerged in 2011. Some might base their ranking on the sensationalism of the story, or perhaps their personal involvement in the narrative (like defeating Prop 103). Others may eschew the flashier but not all that impactful stories in favor of the more wonky stories that will have a meaningful influence on Colorado politics for years to come. Any method you, our readers, use is ok by us.

Just let us know what you think! The voting will close Thursday, December 29 at 5pm MST. We’ll post the rankings on New Years’ Eve eve, with links to relevant news outlets and blogs who played key roles in uncovering, reporting, and detailing the stories that come out on top. No comprehensive recaps, just a quick flashback to PPC’s favorite political moments in 2011.

Thank you.

**A special thanks to Ben DeGrow and Mary Ila MacFarlane for beta testing the survey. Any faults are solely that of the author, and formatting, well, blame SurveyMonkey. Cheers.

Ed at Hot Air provides a link roundup, and Jim Hoft points out the teacher from Denver who thought it was a good idea to bring students down to experience democracy. More at memeorandum.

There was one arrest (at 7:50):

Of course, according to 9NEWS, the mere presence of the conservative bloggers was enough to incite yesterday’s encounter. Please, 9NEWS, hire a good political reporter to replace the departed Adam Schrager. ASAP.

The Denver Post had a more accurate description of the pathetic attempt to rush a private event.

KDVR Fox 31 had video of the second Occupy Denver chanting rally: