All politics are local

So I’m slogging off the train at the station. I was toward the back of the masses getting off, as I’d been on the front car after rushing to catch it in the first place.

After getting off the platform, I saw there was some guy handing out stuff by the elevators. A quick second glance betrayed the bright blue and red of campaign literature. So I was clearly curious as to who he was shilling for.

As I got closer, I saw it was fliers for Hank Eng, who’s running as a Democrat to be our local US Rep.

The Eng story is an interesting one. I’ve mentioned more than once that this is heartland Red suburbia around here. Our former state senator was John Andrews, former GOP senate majority leader. And our Representative, until this election, has been Tom Tancredo, former fringe presidential candidate and anti-immigrant zealot.

This has been such a secure GOP seat that when Mike Coffman — our present Colorado secretary of state (who, conveniently, oversees elections) — declared his intent to run for CO-06, the Dems just sort of wrote the seat off, as they usually do.

Enter Hank Eng. Eng’s an interesting fellow. His campaign has been pretty low-key — no bluster, no wild publicity stunts or wedge issues. He’s talked mostly about character and integrity, though he has policies to back that up.

He started the campaign with a shoestring budget, but has managed — maybe, perhaps, depending on whose polling you believe — to pull within serious striking range of Coffman, who’s been hurt both by the state shifting Blue and by various problems with the voting process and voter purges. Heaven knows I’ve seen a lot more Eng signs in peoples’ yards than Coffman ones.

I was inspired enough to actually go out last night and donate to Eng’s campaign for the last few days of the campaign. It’s a bit of a forlorn hope, but it felt good.

So I went over toward the guy handing out Eng literature, looked up —

— and it was, in fact, Hank Eng.

I shook his hand, told him I’d just donated, and wished him the best of luck. He thanked me, assured me that “Together we can make it happen,” and I moved on.

So maybe I didn’t make it to the big Obama rally in Denver on Sunday, but maybe I got to shake the hand of my next Representative. I hope so.

Local politics are cool.