Colorado is U.S. Cultural Leader

The latest National Endowment for the Arts study of cultural participation ranks Colorado at the top or near the top among the fifty states in a host of categories of cultural activity. Colorado’s extraordinary participation rates were partially attributed to voters having approved the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) in 1988.

The importance of the SCFD was cited for funding the growth and improvement in art, cultural and scientific organizations throughout the Denver metro area. And equally important, it has provided access to families and children regardless of economic means.

Twenty-eight years of the SCFD program has contributed to generations of involvement with young generations now becoming parents and adults contributing to the record-levels of cultural participation.

Hunt also credited the metro area’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities District which voters first passed in 1988. It's been responsible for the funding and growth of some 300 arts, culture and science organizations across the seven-county metro area. “They make arts and cultural facilities accessible to children and people that who may not have the economic means to pay the admission price," Hunt said. "We may be seeing now, after about a 30-year period, that translating into greater participation." (Margaret Hunt, Executive Director of Colorado Creative Industries, talking to CPR’s Jo Ann Allen, 9/1/16)

Colorado’s rankings track with the high arts-participation rates in Western states in general, the NEA said. But the Colorado results in particular seem to validate the seven-county metro area’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities District program – a voter-approved tax district that supports art, music, theater, dance and museums, said Margaret Hunt, executive director of Colorado Creative Industries. (Denver Post, 8/31/16)

The SCFD renewal will be Ballot Issue 4B, located near the end of the long 2016 Colorado ballot. It will read:

DENVER METROPOLITAN SCIENTIFIC CULTURAL FACILITIES DISTRICT (SCFD) BALLOT ISSUE 4B:

SHALL THERE BE AN EXTENSION UNTIL JUNE 30, 2030, OF THE AGGREGATE 0.1 PERCENT SALES AND USE TAXES CURRENTLY LEVIED AND COLLECTED BY THE DENVER METROPOLITAN SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL FACILITIES DISTRICT THAT ARE SCHEDULED TO EXPIRE ON JUNE 30, 2018, FOR ASSISTING SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL FACILITIES WITHIN THE DISTRICT…

Please vote to renew the SCFD and keep Colorado’s acclaimed program of culture for all in place for another 12 years.

Colorado Republicans Feeling Better

In spite of Donald Trump’s mediocre debate performance and obsessive defensiveness about it, Colorado Republicans are feeling as good as they have about the election since June and Trump becoming the presumptive presidential nominee.

A rising tide lifts all ships and a one or two point presidential race greatly helps Republicans hold Mike Coffman’s district and their one-seat majority in the Colorado Senate.

Even the U.S. Senate race with the poorly positioned Darryl Glenn will likely tighten due to senate candidates being subject to the vagaries of the presidential race. If the Colorado presidential race stays close, a senate candidate more in tune with the party’s center would have been very competitive in Colorado.

In Memory of Helen Crossley

Helen Crossley

The staff and students at the Crossley Center for Public Opinion Research are sorry to hear of the passing of Helen Crossley last Sunday.

Helen’s gift to the University of Denver Korbel School started an academic center that has provided scholarships for graduate-level students, taught more than 90 students public opinion and foreign policy, and participated in WAPOR conferences in Nice, France and Buenos Aires, Argentina and AAPOR conferences in Anaheim, California and Austin, Texas.

The Crossley Center recognizes the contribution of Archibald Crossley to survey research and to its standards and is a tribute to the lifelong dedication of Helen to the profession. Helen actively followed the Crossley program and was briefed at her home in Princeton last spring on the progress and future plans.

The entire DU community, the Korbel School of International Studies and the Crossley Center for Public Opinion Research offer our condolences to the family and thank Helen for her generosity.

SCFD Celebrates Its Founding

Don and Marylee Beauregard
with 1988 and 2016 yard signs

In the mid-1980s, Colorado’s cultural facilities were in financial crises. A modest state appropriation to Denver’s four major cultural institutions – the Zoo, Natural History Museum, Art Museum and Botanic Gardens – was withdrawn due to a shortfall in state revenues. The City of Denver was not in a position to help the institutions, except for a basic subsidy of cash and in-kind services that had been frozen and endangered for years. The institutions were forced to close floors, cut hours and started charging admission fees.

A group of trustees from the four organizations came together to help their institutions and the cultural life of the community in general. Later, they were joined by leaders from the performing arts community and other civic leaders who saw the dire need.

What they came up with in the form of the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) has become a nationally recognized model for supporting arts and culture. It collects a modest tenth-of-a-cent sales tax that flows directly to the programs with minimum overhead. The seven-county Denver metro region will vote this year to renew the SCFD, and a campaign has been mounted with some of the originators from 30 years ago, joined by a new group of cultural supporters and civic activists.

Barry and Arlene Hirschfeld, among the original organizers, sponsored a celebration of the founders
and a campaign fundraiser last week, which brought together many of the people who helped from the early years:

Barry and Arlene Hirschfeld and
KK and Floyd Ciruli with Popsicle

Dan Beauregard, with the first steering committee; Tim Davis, the first to assess art’s impact on the economy; Pat Grant, the House sponsor, who worked very closely with Rex Morgan, a trustee of the Denver Art Museum, on various aspects of the bill; Paul Power, a senate sponsor of an alternative bill that created adding mid-size regional organizations; Bob Greenlee, the first SCFD chair, who led the Board that made many of the sound decisions that still exist today; Vicki Sterling, with the original Colorado Business Committee for the Arts and an arts patron; Eddie Conners, who knew the earliest stories of the concept and saw to it the Denver Botanic Gardens was at the table; Ed and Dick Robinson, among the earliest business supporters; Wilbur Flachman, who helps in Adams County; and Cathey Finlon, who provided media advice since the beginning.

The SCFD renewal will be Ballot Issue 4B, located near the end of the long 2016 Colorado ballot. It will read:

DENVER METROPOLITAN SCIENTIFIC CULTURAL FACILITIES DISTRICT (SCFD) BALLOT ISSUE 4B:

SHALL THERE BE AN EXTENSION UNTIL JUNE 30, 2030, OF THE AGGREGATE 0.1 PERCENT SALES AND USE TAXES CURRENTLY LEVIED AND COLLECTED BY THE DENVER METROPOLITAN SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL FACILITIES DISTRICT THAT ARE SCHEDULED TO EXPIRE ON JUNE 30, 2018, FOR ASSISTING SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL FACILITIES WITHIN THE DISTRICT…

Please vote to renew the SCFD and keep Colorado’s acclaimed program of culture for all in place for another 12 years.

Trump Chokes – CNN 62% to 27%

Presidential debate, Sept. 26, 2016 (Photo: Getty Images)

Donald Trump went into the first debate with momentum, but his performance did not reassure swing and undecided voters that he has the knowledge, temperament or values to be president.

Debates typically reinforce current trends, but this debate had a host of new factors that not only gave it a record audience, but made it high theater.

• Woman candidate
• Celebrity provocateur
• One-point race with fluid voters

Trump started strong and made his points on trade and need for change, but he spent massive amounts of time in defensive exchanges on his taxes and business practices, the birther movement, his Iraq position, and women’s looks.

In the stages of debates, the expectation game, the actual exchange, the early commentaries and the secondary analyses, Trump is behind with the immediate post-speech talking heads and the first polls in. CNN reports people believed he lost 62 percent to 27 percent, and importantly, independents broke for Hillary Clinton 54 percent to 33 percent. Among those voters who say it moved their vote, Clinton won 34 percent to 18 percent for Trump. AOL did an online poll that gave it to Clinton 55 percent to 45 percent Trump.

There are still two more debates and more than 40 days of campaigning, but Trump missed probably his best chance to put the race away.

September started as a disaster for Clinton, culminating in the September 11 stumble, but the month ended with the September 26 Trump choke.

Chokes: A word Donald Trump introduced to the presidential rhetoric in reference to Mitt Romney’s 2012 run and Marco Rubio’s debate performance.

Late September Polls Keep Bennet With Solid Lead

Michael Bennet continues to lead the Colorado senate race by double-digits. In the latest Quinnipiac poll, Bennet received 52 percent to Darryl Glenn’s 43 percent – modest change from the 54 percent to 38 percent in the August 18 Quinnipiac poll.

Mail-out ballots are expected to arrive on October 19. Glenn has less than a month to close a significant gap.

Glenn’s challenge remains that his party is not united behind him (12% of Republicans for Bennet, Glenn has 2% of Democrats) and he’s losing independents (52% to 41%). Although he has a slight lead among white men (4%), he’s losing white women (11%).

Super Bowl of Debates and Tie Game

Record debate viewers will be watching a tied race (possibly 100 million; 20 million more than all-time record of 80 million, Reagan vs. Carter 1980). The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll shows the race 46 percent Clinton, 44 percent Trump and 6 percent for third-party candidates (out of field, Sept. 22).

Out of 13 states being tracked, Trump now is winning 7 and Clinton 6 by RealClearPolitics count. Silver’s 538 forecast has Clinton winning 283 electoral votes, but RealClearPolitics only gives 272 (needed 270). Colorado is now 2 points, a drop of 8 points since mid-August.

In the latest Quinnipiac Colorado survey, Clinton is winning 7 percent of Republicans while losing 2 percent to Trump. Eight percent of Republicans are backing Gary Johnson and 3 percent of Democrats.

The race is 2 points between the frontrunners because Trump is beating Clinton by 9 points among independents. Johnson and Jill Stein are also gathering in 21 percent of independents.