{"id":804966,"date":"2020-03-06T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=380037"},"modified":"2020-03-06T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T17:00:00","slug":"opinion-susan-knopf-erik-underwood-democratic-candidate-for-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/opinion-susan-knopf-erik-underwood-democratic-candidate-for-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Susan Knopf: Erik Underwood Democratic candidate for Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Susan Knopf<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Erik Underwood impressed me the first time I met him. He ran for governor in 2016 and stopped here on the campaign trail. He was back last week. He told Summit County Democrats he\u2019s running for Senate. He has great ideas, worthy of your consideration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the only candidate who has ever worked in the United States Senate,\u201d Underwood said. \u201cJohn Hickenlooper has never worked in the United States Senate. Andrew Romanoff has never worked in the United States Senate. I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Underwood is running as a Democrat but worked in the Senate as a Republican. That fiscally conservative background now informs his liberal views. He supports the same agenda: voting rights, a woman\u2019s right to choose, pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients. He also advocates making programs self-sustaining and not dumping the burden on the backs of taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Underwood\u2019s website<\/a> says he has a plan for a health care public option. He proposes to pay for that program with a Wall Street pennies per trade tax. He is not the first candidate to propose this solution to this issue.<\/p>\n

Like Senate candidate Romanoff, Underwood is very concerned about the environment. Instead of signing up for the Green New Deal, Underwood is selecting programs he thinks most benefit those who are left behind in the economy. He wants to \u201cempower rural and urban people through renewable energy entrepreneurship.\u201d He advocates creating a \u201c$15 billon direct loan program to launch and foster people in rural and urban communities to create wind and solar panel companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur infrastructure is falling apart,\u201d Underwood said. \u201cBridges are deemed unsafe. There\u2019s lead in our drinking water, not just in Flint, but in parts of Denver.\u201d He says underserved communities are most likely to be at risk of drinking unsafe water. \u201cWe have to replace these lead pipes. \u2026 This is not good for our people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Underwood\u2019s journey is interesting. He says he was one of six children raised by a single mom. Jim Clark was his Big Brother mentor from the time Underwood was 8 years old. Through the years, he developed a relationship with the Clark family. He lived with them during his high school years, and they helped him secure a path to college. His collegiate honor status won him a job in the office of Republican Ohio Sen. George Voinovich.<\/p>\n

Underwood is a tech entrepreneur<\/a>. He says he came to Colorado working a joint venture with AT&T, which he says is now embroiled in a protracted legal battle over proprietary rights to technology. He says he\u2019d like to lower the legal voting age to 16<\/a>. He says, \u201cIt\u2019s always been teenagers who advanced positive change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Senate candidate, also came to the Dem\u2019s meeting last week, Christopher \u201cCritter\u201d Milton, of Alma. Public education is his No. 1 issue. He states on his website<\/a>, \u201cOur country was founded by individuals who held unique beliefs but worked together for the greater good.\u201d Can\u2019t argue with that. He is a Unity Party member, so he won\u2019t be one of the candidates caucusing Saturday. <\/p>\n

Summit County registered Democrats will caucus promptly at 2 p.m. at Summit County Middle School. Party Chair Patti McLaughlin recommends Democrats check in at 1 p.m. It\u2019ll be fun to schmooze with fellow Dems and discuss the candidates. Republicans meet at 10 a.m. at the Summit County Community and Senior Center.<\/p>\n

According to the Colorado Democratic Party<\/a>, Romanoff, Stephany Rose Spaulding and Trish Zornio are going though the caucus and assembly to make it onto the June 30 primary ballot. Hickenlooper and Underwood are going through the caucus and assembly as well as the signature-gathering petition process.<\/p>\n

The exact formal nature of these processes is coming under intense scrutiny<\/a> nationally, as it appears Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden are squaring off as front runners in the bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.<\/p>\n

For the record, Sanders is not a Democrat. He is a proudly self-proclaimed democratic socialist<\/a>. He caucuses with the Democrats. At the same time, Joe Biden has not been putting on his best face on the campaign trail. He often appeared muddled. Let\u2019s hope he can rise to the occasion as he did in his victory speeches in South Carolina on Feb. 29 and in California on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the South Carolina African-American community<\/a> waited to support candidate Barack Obama until they saw Iowa whites would support him. This round, Democrats waited to see who South Carolina blacks would support to find their front runner.<\/p>\n

Susan Knopf\u2019s column \u201cFor The Record\u201d publishes Fridays in the Summit Daily News. Knopf has worn many hats in her career, including working as an award-winning journalist and certified ski instructor. She moved to Silverthorne in 2013 after vacationing in Summit County since the 1970s. Contact her at sdnknopf@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Susan Knopf Erik Underwood impressed me the first time I met him. He ran for governor in 2016 and stopped here on the campaign trail. He was back last week. He told Summit County Democrats he\u2019s running for Senate. He has great ideas, worthy of your consideration. \u201cI\u2019m the only candidate who has ever worked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-804966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-19 20:05:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}