By Jody Hope Strogoff
THE COLORADO STATESMAN

The stories behind the stories can often be more revealing than the initial articles you read in newspapers or on line. We have two good examples of this in our own newspaper this week.

The first, an in-depth story by Leslie Jorgensen on recent developments in the Republican primary race in CD 5, provides an insightful look into the character of the two GOP challengers to incumbent Rep. Doug Lamborn. This story has been in the making for a long time, as it actually began several months ago with an arrangement between Maj. Gen. Bentley Rayburn and Jeff Crank to assess their chances in a mutually agreed upon poll. The winner was supposed to continue on as the sole candidate against Lamborn in the August primary, with the other agreeing to get out of the race. That way, Lamborn’s detractors could unite behind a single candidate, it was speculated, and assure a better chance of knocking off the unpopular incumbent after his freshman term.

We were privy to some of the initial behind the scenes negotiating between the campaigns of Crank and Rayburn late last year, but could only allude to their plans from a vantage point of off-the-record conversations at the time.

But in her story this week, contributing editor Jorgensen manages to sift through the conflicting claims of the two candidates and sort out what happened to torpedo their agreement. Along the way you’ll be afforded a glance into the characters of the two protagonists and see that in Bentley Rayburn’s case, an officer isn’t always a gentleman.

In another in-depth story by reporter Chris Bragg, our readers are treated to a behind the scenes look at some of the events that triggered the voting machine controversy in the Secretary of State’s office that began last year and has only recently been resolved. The brunt of the story was developed from e-mails obtained from Secretary of State Mike Coffman’s office in a Freedom of Information request.

The realm of journalism is clearly different now that e-mails of our elected officials are often discernible and can provide a key into a person’s inner thoughts and motives. Bragg’s story is an intriguing out-of-the-ordinary glimpse into the workings of a public office.

As long as we’re on the subject of our own newspaper, we’d like to welcome a large number of new subscribers, many of whom signed up for The Statesman shortly after the Republican and Democratic state conventions last month.

For those who are only now becoming familiar with our non-partisan publication, you’ll probably note that we’re a little different from most other newspapers. We’re a community newspaper only in that our readers belong to the political community.

We don’t cover sports, but we do keep track of the races — those for political office.

We cover politics throughout the year, not just when the elections make it exciting. And we strive to present a variety of points of views, not just those of one political persuasion.

Over the last few months The Colorado Statesman has covered the nomination of the Colorado Green Party’s candidate for U.S. Senate and the Libertarian Party’s national nominating convention at which they chose former Congressman Bob Barr as their presidential nominee. In May we published special issues about the Colorado Republican and Democratic state assemblies and conventions.

And later this summer, you’ll see special issues leading up to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, as well as follow-up issues as we track all the activities, especially in regard to Colorado’s state delegation.

There’s a lot on our plate and we’re glad you’ve joined us. We have some new developments coming up soon and we look forward to sharing them with you in the coming weeks.