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Gubernatorial candidate Dunafon a fan of knowing why

Stops in Durango on Western Slope tour
Dunafon

Unaffiliated gubernatorial candidate Mike Dunafon, 60, was in Durango on Friday on a tour of the Western Slope. He is currently the mayor of Glendale, an incorporated town in the Denver metro area.

Do you worry that your campaign will serve as a spoiler to Bob Beauprez’s or Gov. John Hickenlooper’s shots at winning?

“No, I plan to win by having the stars align, essentially. With 37 percent of voters registered as independents, I just need to give them a reason to get on board. I’ve got Democrats and Republicans on my side, too.

I’ve got the support of Christians, not the Colorado Springs Christian fundamentalists, but the faith-based independent churches that have come into being in the last 10 years, Millenials and hip-hoppers, people the pollsters can’t find and don’t expect to vote.

I’ve also reached out to Latinos, visiting the Peruvian fest and events like that, where I spoke in my kitchen Spanish, not with a translator.

You’ve been much in the news of late with the Snoop Dogg endorsement. You’ve said that unlike Beauprez and Hickenlooper, you support the legalization of marijuana. Is that true?

I try to learn the historical perspective of issues, in this case, where the war on hemp came from. It was William Randolph Hearst, Mellon, DuPont, Pulitzer who created it. Our first flag was made of hemp, and the Constitution was printed on it. The other candidates are ignoring the potential of hemp and are pandering to the fear. But we have the opportunity to be the Silicon Valley, the ground zero for hemp.

Young people think we have won the victory by making it legal to smoke marijuana, but I tell them it’s just the linchpin to talk about other freedoms. This is just one liberty, we’ve got to defend all liberties.

What’s your opinion of gay marriage?

I told the other mayors in the Metro Mayors Caucus that they need to get ahead of this. I had the honor of marrying two dear friends who had been together 28 years.

You differ from other candidates by being both for the Second Amendment and for abortion rights. Does that make it hard for people to understand your thinking?

As a man, I don’t have the right to take the civil liberty away from a woman over the one sole possession we have, our bodies. I also think using abortion as birth control is heinous.

Government has become a place of fomenting fights and then the fight becomes the debate instead of the issues. Many politicians agree with my stances privately, but party lines prevent them from saying it.

What do you think about the death penalty?

I would absolutely have signed the death warrant for Nathan Dunlap. To brutally murder your coworkers and brag about it? But I would also vote to abolish the death penalty. The state should be really careful when it comes to taking someone’s life.

What do you think about Gov. Hickenlooper’s water basin roundtables?

I didn’t know anything about water rights until I tried to buy one. It’s such an arcane area. A senior water right is the equivalent of a gold mine. This Agenda 21 and the navigable waterway stuff the Army Corps of Engineers is trying to do are wrong. But that’s why we should grow hemp; it’s a great resource in a state that’s arid at altitude.

As an unaffiliated candidate, how would you deal with a partisan General Assembly?

Democrats and Republicans are both ignoring the people who put them in office. Rural America is disgusted; they’re getting voted down by people who don’t have a clue. What I’d like to do is act as a referee and ask, ‘Do you understand what happened to this country under Prohibition? Do you understand the background of the war on hemp? Did you know that ISIS is probably the result of our paying $147 for a barrel of oil?’

I tell them ‘Do some research. You’ve got a smartphone, Google it.’ But they don’t. They just line up on opposite sides and point fingers, then we have to absorb the pain.

In addition to a stop at The Durango Herald, Dunafon was headed to Moe’s to play the new remix of Snoop Dogg’s version of his campaign song “The Trap” and meet with Fort Lewis College students before visiting with members of the Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council this morning on his way to Pagosa Springs and Alamosa.

abutler@durangoherald.com

Snoop Dogg's endorsement (PDF)



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