The U.N. Bicycle Takeover
At the height of election season, hyperbole is par for the course. But Dan Maes, the Republican candidate for governor in Colorado, put other political exaggerators to shame with his claim about Democrat John Hickenlooper at a July 26 rally. "This is bigger than it looks like on the surface," Maes warned, as he told his supporters about a bicycle-promotion program that Hickenlooper had set up as mayor of Denver. "And it could threaten our personal freedoms," he added, airing his suspicions that the initiative was all "part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty." Though Maes later claimed that his comments were taken "out of context" and went on to win his party's nomination on Aug. 10, the wheels were already beginning to come off his campaign.