CO: Independents Battle Rigged Political System

From an opinion piece in the Denver Post:

Colorado voters are known for their fierce independent streak, but apparently we're not that independent. Our state has had 41 governors, and almost every one of them has been a Democrat or a Republican. (Not to trample on historian Tom Noel's turf, but we did elect David Waite, a Populist, in 1893.) . . . 


Without a major party, candidates have trouble raising money, lack the network of volunteers who stuff envelopes and knock on doors regardless of the candidate, and they don't have the built-in "base" of voters who mostly believe in the same policies. The only ideal that binds unaffiliated voters is independence.

Even the rules are stacked against independent candidates, as state Rep. Kathleen Curry found. She left the Democratic Party last December, registered as unaffiliated and planned to run for re-election this year as an independent — until she discovered that unaffiliated candidates must declare their independence more than a year in advance of an election. No major or minor party must follow that stringent rule.