The best Congressman money can buy

Colorado Democrat Jared Polis, after spending over $5.2 million of his own greeting card fortune, won the primary for the second congressional district seat over State Senate Majority Leader Sen. Joan Fitzgerald, backed by Big Labor, and self-styled conservationist Will Shafroth.

Regardless of where you stand on gay rights, Polis probably sealed his political future at "Congressman from Boulder" and no more, as the Rocky Mountain News ran a front page, full page color picture of Polis at his victory rally, holding up the arm of his life partner, Marlon Reis, at the podium--in the traditional political style of man and wife.

This undoubtedly will consign Polis to the narrow dustbin of political lore occupied by Massachusetts Democratic Reps. Barney Frank and Garry Studds, and Arizona Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe. Representing liberal, University town districts like Polis will from the home of the University of Colorado, they kept getting re-elected by their ultra-liberal university constituents, but could go no further.

Polis replaces Rep. Mark Udall, who is running for the U.S. Senate, and faces a similar problem statewide, as a denizen of what locals call the Citizens Republic of Boulder. A far-left representative in his own right, Udall is joining presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in sprinting toward the center, at least until the election's over.

Polis can claim that he has already won statewide once, as he spent over $1 million of his own money to be elected to the State Board of Education, an unpaid post. The difference is, he hadn't come out of the closet yet, in that race.

There is a Republican sacrificial lamb, school teacher Scott Starin, running in November for the second district seat, but the Democratic registration and left-leaning independents out-number Republicans about 2-1.

And multi-billionaire Polis can unlimber the old wallet for whatever's necessary to dispatch him.