THEY GRABBED A CLIPBOARD … It looks like a lot of Coloradans took the advice of a certain soon-to-be-former president.

In his farewell address, delivered just over a week before leaving office, President Barack Obama said an oft-quoted line – “If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself” – that might have launched a thousand candidacies, including quite a few here in Colorado.

Just look at the congressional lineups. As of this writing, across the state, only U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, the Republican incumbent in the 3rd Congressional District, and Peter Yu, the Republican running in the 2nd Congressional District, have a clear shot to the ballot. Every other slot has a contested primary.

At last count, an unprecedented 36 major-party candidates are running in Colorado’s seven congressional districts, and an astonishing 17 of them are petitioning onto the primary ballot. That’s not even counting the four Democrats who were running in the 7th Congressional District – state Sens. Andy Kerr and Dominick Moreno, state Rep. Brittany Pettersen and diplomat Dan Baer – before the incumbent, Democrat Ed Perlmutter, got back in the race last summer after a brief run for governor. Or another handful of candidates, some more serious than others, who ran for a while before dropping out.

It’ll be another two months before the June 26 primary ballot is set for good – congressional district assemblies will be wrapped up by the middle of April, and nominating petitions, due March 20, should be verified by then too – but voters will probably be facing primaries in nearly every congressional district on one or both tickets.

It takes 1,000 valid signatures from fellow party members within the district for a congressional candidate to make the Republican or Democratic primary ballot – no easy task, but a surmountable obstacle for candidates with any sort of campaign operation in place. Petitions are due to the secretary of state’s office by March 20. Candidates who go through assembly will be trying to get the support of at least 30 percent of the delegates at CD assemblies, which take place in March and early April. The delegate selection process starts at March 6 precinct caucuses.

Here’s what the major-party congressional candidate roster looks like at this point:

In the 1st CD, 11-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette is facing primary challengers David Sedbrook, Saira Rao and  Michelle Hudson Hale, with Rao petitioning. Republicans John Field, Jeremiah Vialpando and Casper Stockham, last cycle’s nominee, are running.

Incumbent five-term Democrat Jared Polis is running for governor, leaving the 2nd CD as the only open seat this time around. Yu, as noted above, so far has a clear shot to GOP nomination, but there’s a likely primary on the Democratic side, between former CU Regent Joe Neguse and two petitioning candidates, former Boulder County Democratic Party chair Mark Williams and Nederland Mayor Kristopher Larsen.

Tipton, serving his fourth term, could get a surprise challenger at assembly, as he has in recent cycles, but is unopposed for the nomination so far. On the Democratic side, former state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush is running, and will probably face a primary against Karl Hanlon, who is petitioning.

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican in his second term, has a petitioning primary challenger in the 4th CD with former Lone Tree Mayor Jim Gunning. It’s more crowded on the Democratic side, with Chase Kohne, Karen McCormick, Larry Germanson, Richard Weil and Len Sistek Jr. all running. Sistek is petitioning.

In the 5th CD, six-term U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn is accustomed to Republican primary challengers, and there’s no shortage of them this year, with state Sen. Owen Hill, El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn and former Texas state judge Bill Rhea all wanting his job. Every one of them is petitioning – and Glenn has turned his in – although one or two might go through assembly in addition or instead. It’s nearly as crowded on the Democratic side, with Betty Ann Field, Stephany Rose Spaulding and Lori Furstenberg all running, and every one of them petitioning.

Five-term Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman has a primary challenge from Roger Edwards in the 6th CD, while four Democrats are running for the swing seat: Jason Crow, Levi Tillemann, David Aarestad and Erik Stanger. Tillemann and Aarestad have both been gathering signatures but also say they’re keeping their options open and might only go through assembly.

And in the 7th CD, Perlmutter, serving his sixth term, has a primary challenger named TJ Grimes, who is also petitioning. A Republican has yet to emerge in that district.

IS THERE A VETERINARIAN IN THE HOUSE? … At the annual Italian feast thrown by the Jeffco Democrats last Sunday in Golden, Perlmutter told the fired-up crowd he was seeing the same kind of enthusiasm and urgency that’s led to so many candidates this cycle.

“I’m not sure that there’s been any time in my lifetime when this is more important,” he said, adding, “We’ve seen it in terms of the candidates that have shown up all across the United States and across Colorado. In fact, we’ve got an embarrassment of riches in many races.”

As an illustration of just how many people have been willing, as he put it, to step up, Perlmutter recalled a couple of phone conversations he had last year from potential Democratic candidates in the heavily Republican 4th Congressional District.

“You know, for years, we’ve wanted to get a veterinarian to run in that part of the state,” he said, recalling that longtime 4th CD Republican Wayne Allard, who went on to serve two terms as a U.S. senator, was a veterinarian.

So, Perlmutter said, a woman from Longmont – it turns out it’s Karen McCormick – calls and says she wants to run for Congress.

“I said, ‘Are you sure you want to run in the 4th Congressional District?’ Remember, I’m on the recruiting committee, so I’m not very good at it,” Perlmutter said to laughter from the crowd. “And she says, ‘Yeah, I want to run.'”

He said he reminded her Colorado is going to get an eighth congressional district after the 2020 Census and asks if she might want to run for mayor in the meantime.”She says, ‘No, I want to run. Now is the time.’ So I say, ‘What do you do?’ She says, ‘I own a small business.’ I say, ‘What kind of business?’ She says, ‘I’m a veterinarian.’ I say, ‘That is fantastic, we’ve been looking for you!'”

Then, two weeks later, Perlmutter gets another call from a man who lives in Castle Rock, which is also in the 4th CD – it’s Chase Kohne – and he wants to run there.

“I said, ‘Well, that’s a tough district, and, by the way, we already have somebody. Are you sure you want to do this? Why don’t you run for mayor of Castle Rock?” Perlmutter said. “He says, ‘No, now is the time. I feel the call to duty now.’ And he says, ‘and I’m a veteran.’ I said, ‘That’s fantastic!’ ‘And I’m a veterinarian.'”

The crowd ate it up.

Perlmutter concluded by pivoting to why he believes this election has drawn such participation. “I say this because people get it, whether it’s the fact this guy doesn’t want us to look into how the Russians interfered with the election or sends giant tax cuts to his friends and his wealthy donor friends,” he said, and then goes on to pile on the Trump administration without uttering Trump’s name.

FIRED UP, READY TO GO? … Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, a GOP candidate for governor, had some words of warning at the monthly meeting of the Foothills Republicans last week in Lakewood.

“It’s clear, in every statewide race that I’m watching, the Democrats are raising more money, and every one of their candidates is raising more money than the Republicans,” she said.

“A lot of folks have asked me what that’s about, and I have theories – and you might have theories that you might want to share – but the Democrats are fired up. And I am worried about whether we have the same ignition switch as the Democrats do. And I worry when I go to caucus trainings and central committee meetings, and I see about half the people there I saw when I ran for attorney general.”

Coffman added some words of encouragement before turning her attention to her own campaign for governor.

“This is not meant to be a lecture, because I don’t think this is the case in Jeffco, but I am concerned what I’m seeing around the state. Help us get your fellow Republicans involved and engaged and having that same level of commitment to win it, because we will need it in the fall. This is going to be a fight. We will not only be dealing with the issues on our campaigns but probably be asked about national politics at every turn,” she said.

(Coffman is exercising some hyperbole about the disparity in fundraising between Democratic and Republican campaigns, but so many candidates are self-funding, including some at eye-popping levels, that straight-across comparisons to measure enthusiasm are difficult. Among those running for governor, Democrats Mike Johnston and Cary Kennedy have raised the most through Dec. 31, followed by Republican Walker Stapleton, then Democrats Donna Lynne, Noel Ginsburg and Jared Polis, then Republicans Coffman and Tom Tancredo – who dropped out last month, citing poor fundraising – followed by Republicans Doug Robinson and Victor Mitchell. But Mitchell wrote himself a check for $3 million, Polis has poured about $1.4 million into his campaign, and Ginsburg, Robinson and Stapleton have all loaned or given their campaigns between $250,000 and $350,000, on top of their fundraising totals. In addition, Johnston and Ginsburg, for instance, have been in the race for a year or longer, while Stapleton just announced in September.)

SLOGAN WATCH … At the same Jeffco Dems’ dinner last Sunday where Perlmutter regaled the crowd with the tale of two veterinarians running for Wayne Allard’s old seat, former State Treasurer Cary Kennedy, one of five leading Democratic candidates for governor, gave a fiery speech laying out her priorities – health care, education and “keeping Colorado the state we love,” which covers protecting the environment and building the infrastructure needed to keep up with growth. As she neared her conclusion, she unveiled a phrase we might be hearing more on the campaign trail:

“I will stand up to President Trump and the Republicans,” Kennedy said. “I will fight them in the statehouse and fight them in the courthouse. We have a new line in this campaign – ‘What happens in Washington stays in Washington.’ We will lead here from the West and make Colorado a model the rest of the country can follow.”

And at the Foothills Republicans’ luncheon, Coffman introduced a new phrase of her own. While it might not appear on bumperstickers, it’s likely to be showing up in her stump speeches.

Noting that she’d attended a bipartisan forum for gubernatorial candidates that morning sponsored by the the Colorado Association of Realtors, she said four Democrats had been on the panel along with three Republicans.

“Jared Polis wasn’t there, but I didn’t really need him to be there to feel that I could say with certainty that the field of Democrats is what I like to call ‘five shades of socialism,'” Coffman said. “I don’t say that lightly, because that’s polarizing, right? That’s polarizing language. But I will tell you, for those that think and feel that Gov. Hickenlooper has been fairly centrist in the way he has governed, at least until the last two or three years, there’s no one in that crowd in the model of Gov. Hickenlooper. They are all very much to the left. And the options don’t look too good to me, frankly. You will have a clear choice whoever the Democrat nominee is.”

UPDATED to include a note on comparative fundraising totals among the gubernatorial candidates.