Entrepreneur Jared Polis hangs political hat on service

Multimillionaire notes support of schools, education

By John Aguilar, Daily Camera

Published July 22, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated July 22, 2008 at 1:13 a.m.

Text size  

• 2 Comments
• Email
• Print

Barry Gutierrez / The Rocky

Congressional candidate Jared Polis appears in a recent debate in Boulder with rivals Will Shafroth and Joan Fitz-Gerald.

Jared Polis

In a family photograph from 1987, a then-12-year-old Jared Polis, left, was pictured with his parents, Stephen Schutz and Susan Polis Schutz, and his siblings, Jorian, 5, and Jordanna, 8.

The pressed white shirt, the light blue tie, the pinstriped black slacks and the slip-on shoes - Jared Polis didn't look much different from the audience around him at a community center in Thornton on a recent evening.

He answered questions with little hesitation and attentively listened as folks shared their accounts of falling into foreclosure and staving off bankruptcy.

"As long as we tolerate and allow these predatory practices, they're not going to go away," Polis said, taking a slap at crooked mortgage brokers.

Another man brought up his battles with a credit card company.

"They basically make profits by finding ways to trick people into doing these things," Polis said.

With all the appeal to populism, no one in the room might have suspected that the Boulder native faces little chance of ever struggling with a mortgage payment himself, having earned a fortune on the Internet.

Polis netted nearly $300 million from the 1999 sale of online greeting card company Bluemountain .com and the 2006 sale of flower vendor Proflowers.com.

It's a level of wealth that couldn't help but become part of the fabric of the 2nd Congressional District race, especially after Polis began to pour huge amounts of his own money - now more than $3.5 million - into his campaign.

Opponent Joan Fitz-Gerald has questioned whether Polis is attempting to buy the election, while opponent Will Shafroth has called for a moratorium on self- funding by the candidates.

Polis - intense, fast-thinking and consumed by an almost nervous energy - is unruffled by the criticism.

He points out that Fitz-Gerald has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from political action committees, something he refuses to do. And neither of his opponents is exactly in dire financial straits, he said.

"Maybe my opponents think that the voters can be bought, but I certainly don't," Polis said.

He said that what his opponents won't talk about are the positive ways he's spent his money, such as starting a public charter high school that caters to immigrant students and another school that serves homeless youth.

Mike Hakimi, who founded American Information Systems in the mid-1990s with Polis, recalled the early days when Polis attended Princeton as a political science major and they were working to develop the company.

"We were forced to be creative to solve problems - we couldn't just fix the problems with money," Hakimi said. "Jared was particularly exceptional at bringing practical solutions to the table."

Polis brought his ideas to a new kind of table starting in 2000, when he was elected to the Colorado State Board of Education. The move has given Polis a critical social issue on which to hang his political hat.

In addition to serving on the board for six years and establishing schools throughout the Denver area, Polis got behind Amendment 23, which put into place regular increases in funding for Colorado's public schools.

Polly Baca, head of the Latin American Research and Service Agency, said Polis' work with Hispanics around education issues has given him special credibility with the community.

She has faith that Polis can be effective in Congress.

"All you have to do is look at his record as chair of the state Board of Education," Baca said. "He demonstrated his ability to reach beyond party boundaries."

But Edie Hudak, a fellow Democrat who served on the board with Polis, said he faced no shortage of resistance from several board members.

"He had difficulty on the state board some of the time working with the Republicans," she said.

"It may have been more (the Republicans) not working with him," Hudak said. "They resented him, perhaps because he was wealthy and young."

Polis, who served with the Army ROTC in his college days, traveled to Iraq last year, during which he decried the use of private "corporate mercenaries" to fight the war.

"As long as we're an occupying power, we lack the moral authority to pull people together around creating stability in Iraq," he said.

He wants Congress to cut off funding for the war.

He also says Americans are "getting a bad deal" on health care and advocates a universal single- payer federal program.

If elected, Polis would be Colorado's first openly gay representative. He's been with the same partner about five years, but doesn't talk about his sexual orientation much. Nor does he hide from it.

In an interview last year, he talked briefly about the personal journey he took figuring out who he was and what it meant.

"To have dealt with the closet and coming out in one's life is a character builder," he said.

Jared Polis

Residence: Boulder

Age: 33, born in Boulder

Occupation/background: Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist; former state Board of Education chairman

Family: partner, Marlon Reis

Education: Bachelor of arts in political science, Princeton University

Constituents' biggest concern: A strong desire to end the war in Iraq, the rising cost of food and gas, the need for universal health care and protecting our environment

Endorsements: Former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Denver; Josie Heath, former Boulder County commissioner and U.S. Senate candidate; Debbie Marquez, Colorado Democratic National Committeewoman

By the way: He maintains five beehives and gives the honey to friends and family at holidays. "I do it because it's fun and good for the environment," he says.

Favorite book: Don Quixote

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three things would you want with you? My computer with a universal wireless card so I could blog about my experiences; a solar panel for my computer; and a boat to get back home with

Money raised: $4.8 million, including $3.7 million of his own money

Touts: He's the only real progressive candidate for change and isn't taking PAC money, so he's beholden to no one

Critics say: Lacks real-life experience and sometimes fails to listen, including when critics told him his ethics measure, Amendment 41, was poorly worded

Web site: www.pol isforcon gress.com

• July 22, 2008

  2:24 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  lilymatha writes:

  Seems the group of GLBT is an important group. We should support GLBT more. They really live very hard, especially for those openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. I know many of them would like to choose some online service like the one BiLoves.

• July 22, 2008

  10:37 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  jbowen43 writes:

  The second congressional district has three really fine Democrats to choose from. They are lucky.

  The comment by lilymatha is weird. Really weird.

Featured

• Denver turns 150

  

  Read about the city's history, look at old photos and see a list of influential Denverites.

• Mount Crushmore

  

  Which four Broncos greats should be immortalized on Mount Crushmore? Vote here.

• Winter Escapes

  

  Your insider’s guide to the copious joys of the coolest season.

• Rocky Multimedia

  

  The news comes alive in our videos and slide shows. Catch up on what's happening today.

• Weekend plans?

  

  Figure out things to do this weekend with the help of our entertainment calendar.

• Bronco Dean's rant

  

  Listen to Bronco Dean's pregame rant on the Raiders.

• Season To Share

  

  The Post-News Season To Share campaign provides grants to area nonprofits.

• The Rocky @ 150 Years

  

  The Rocky was there when Colorado became a state in 1876. Read our coverage.

• A Dozen on Denver

  

  And the winner is... Robert Ziegler! See the whole fiction series by clicking here.