By BRIAN PORTER | Rocky Mountain Voice
With the outcome of a few races still in doubt Monday morning, Republican Ben Aste was already focused on the next one.
Aste, the man who ran as “Uncle Benny” for the Larimer County District 3 seat, proposed a new approach to campaign funding, on a Republican call with several candidates and former Sen. Kevin Lundberg, that he hopes might gain some support.
“I’m going down and I’m going to open a ‘future election monies’ account,” he said. “This would be a place to put $5 or $10 or whatever you have each week or month.”
Democrat Jody Shadduck-McNally defeated Aste by 12.6%, despite his hard work attending events throughout the campaign, and a good distribution of signage. He earned 43.7% of the vote.
“We certainly felt like we did everything we could,” Aste said of the campaign. “I’m going to stay engaged. I always have been, so I’m not going to go crawl in a hole.”
He indicates more funding may have helped his campaign close the margin. The idea he presents holds some merit. Aste theorizes that in the stretch run of a campaign the candidates aren’t able to get the financial resources they need, because the sources are stretched thin.
“This would be easier on people’s finances, I think,” he said. “Let’s spend it now, so we will have it in the future.”
Republican Colorado House candidates Donna Walter in District 53 and Phoebe McWilliams in District 14 also attended the call. McWilliams had made a plea during the weekly call in the waning weeks of the election for more funding.
“This was a grassroots movement. There were no big donors,” she said. “I wish we could have done more, but we did what we could with what we had.”
McWilliams had the tall order of opposing Democrat Cathy Kipp, while Walter opposed Democrat Andy Boesenecker.
“When we apply pressure [in a tough district] we cause opponents to spread out their resources more,” said Lundberg, praising the candidacy of those like McWilliams and Walter to the greater Republican good.