U.S. Senate See Full Big Line

(D) J. Hickenlooper*

(R) Somebody

80%

20%

Governor See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse

(D) Phil Weiser

(D) Jena Griswold

60%

60%

40%↓

Att. General See Full Big Line

(D) M. Dougherty

(D) Alexis King

(D) Brian Mason

40%

40%

30%

Sec. of State See Full Big Line

(D) George Stern

(D) A. Gonzalez

(R) Sheri Davis

40%

40%

30%

State Treasurer See Full Big Line

(D) Brianna Titone

(R) Kevin Grantham

(D) Jerry DiTullio

60%

30%

20%

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

(R) Somebody

90%

2%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

(R) Somebody

90%

2%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Hurd*

(D) Somebody

80%

40%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert*

(D) Somebody

90%

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Crank*

(D) Somebody

80%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

(R) Somebody

90%

10%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) B. Pettersen*

(R) Somebody

90%

10%

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(R) Gabe Evans*

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(D) Joe Salazar

50%

40%

40%

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
August 31, 2009 03:52 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 43 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”

–Sun Tzu

Tweet
Share

Comments

43 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

  2. from the Washington Post

    At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master’s thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as “detrimental” to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.” He described as “illogical” a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

      2. But since Westword’s Michael Roberts can’t figure out that McInnis and Penry are running for governor, not US Senate, it somewhat blunts the impact of the cheeky ‘inside baseball’ commentary.  

  4. As I remember, all of McInnis’ past attempts at office had him going the petition route.

    By skipping the insiders meeting in Keystone is this really just following the petition strategy of raising $ and hiring canvassers?

    Would be the only good reason to piss on the party loyalist.  

    1. Those folks are all itching to teach him a lesson for throwing Bob Schaffer under the bus right before the election. And who can blame them? If I was McInnis, I would want to steer a wide berth too. But the fact remains until he figures out how to smack Penry around a bit, he’s going to continue to look like an over-the-hill pol who can’t get out of his own way.  

    2. I heard Duffy and Hesse are counting on using the federal PAC slush fund to pay canvassers to support their petition-on strategy.  

      Can this be legal?

      1. But they paid for a poll and consultants with the Fed PAC $.  

        And McInnis has not disclosed his own $ invested in the race, which was his answer for why the polling cost did not show up on the July Fed reports.  

  5. I do.  I think they are good for the the candidates,  the voters, and the party.

    The candidates benefit from extra press and name recognition, and from sharpening up their political skills.  I remember much hand wringing about Hillary and Obama, but IMO all that campaigning and debating made him a much better general election candidate.

    The voters get the obvious: picking the candidate they like better.  But also, we get a chance to shape up our eventual candidate.  Candidate have to worry about their bas and not just their contributers and the media.

    The party benefits from getting its members engaged with the political process.  There are always a few people who carry a grudge after a primary, but IME most primary voters are glad to have a chance to be heard and support the eventual candidate.  

          1. I’m all for promoting the wrong candidates on your side of the spectrum. As for my side, we’ll always be a little more small d messy than the GOP. But if you can supply us with some more Ross Perots, we’ll win even if we screw up a little.

    1. But he hasn’t been relevant to me in the 35+ years since I moved to Colorado.

      What does this have to do with Colorado Politics?

      Libertad is the only person here who can actually manage to go off-topic in an Open Thread.

    2. The United States Federal Government has collected profits of about $4 billion from eight of the nation’s largest banks that have repaid fully their loans from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in addition to the repayment of the principal on their loans.

      The government has collected about $1.4 billion in profit from Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), about $1.3 billion from Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and $414 million from American Express (NYSE:AXP).

      Other banks, including Northern Trust (NASDAQ:NTRS), Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK), State Street (NYSE:STT), US Bancorp (NYSE:USB) and BB&T (NYSE:BBT) have each paid their principal balances and between $100 and $334 million in profit to the US Government. There are also 14 small banks that have paid back their loans with interest to the tune of $35 million.

      The funds t hat have been returned under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was signed into law last October, have brought hope that the federal government may soon be able to get out of the banking business. Critics are still skeptical that taxpayers will ever see any profit under the program and suggest that it may take banks years to return the taxpayer funds.

      The annualized rate of return that the United States Government received on the money that was paid back was about 15%, but this figure does not include banks that have not paid back their loans in full or banks that have failed. Including funds lost from failed banks, that number would likely be much lower.

      The United States Government is still not out of the water when it comes to bailouts. There are still major potential liabilities from bailouts of insurance companies, such as AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the automotive industry. There are still also major potential losses for the Treasury Department for the billions of dollars it’s currently guaranteeing in toxic mortgages.

      http://www.americanbankingnews…

      (I thought I’d try and post the same way ‘tad posts…)

  8. actually now I don’t.

    Not exactly a confidence builder for the good ol’ USA:

    (CNN) – Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s first major speaking engagement after leaving office won’t be in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina.

    Instead, she’s apparently headed to Hong Kong.

    According to the Hong Kong-based brokerage firm CLSA, Palin will be the keynote speaker at their 16th annual investor’s conference in September. The conference of financial heavy-hitters brings together hundreds of CEOs, CIOs and fund managers from around the world. In agreeing to speak, Palin’s joining some esteemed company: past speakers at the conference have included Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Al Gore and Desmond Tutu.

    There is hope though.  Maybe she dosen’t know she needs a passport.

    http://politicalticker.blogs.c…

  9. It’s pretty obvious that with the banker bailouts and stimulus, and the general downturn in the economy that we as a nation have some work to do to get the United States back to its full potentional.

    The United States government has been much too dependent on debt to finance itself.  I don’t think this is much of a left or right issue, it’s just an American issue.  If we elect our representatives who then put together our budget then I think we can all be proud of what comes out of it.  Whether it be a reduction in government and incentives for private enterprise or a single payer system, the endgame is that it is an American choice and American politics.  I lean libertarian, but in a republic everyone has their input.

    But regardless of our situation, our opportunity lies in building a future where the only borrowing our government does is short term borrowing (3 to 6 months) for cash management purposes.  We can’t rely on a system where our taxes are barely making only the interest payments on our debt service.  We will be doomed as a nation if we continue down this path.

    We are the greatest nation on earth, and our government can help us and it can formulate its role in our lives through our choices, but let’s pay today for what we spend.  If the price tag over the next 10 years for health care is $1 trillion, then fine we need to do the math and tax every American what that costs.  Then let Americans decide whether the cost is worth the benefir.  But we need to close the door on borrowing to fund our pet projects.  

    1. It sounds good, but that always gets me thinking

      1) The devil is in the details, and

      2) What are the unintended consequences?

      For example, what you call “banker bailouts” may well have saved us from the “Great Depression that wasn’t.” Business cycles do occur. When business slips, what is the role of govt?  

      But I do like a pay-as-you-go system. And I’m willing to pay for it. But we’ll need to raise taxes to pay for the present level of services. Do you cut spending? If so, whose ox gets gored? And if you’re cutting spending, it’s got to include entitlements and/or defense. And if you raise taxes, whose taxes do you raise?  

      1. It’s what we supposedly elect our representatives to Washington to figure out.  But they don’t make the tough choices.  The Capitol is like a “good ole boys club.”  The Democrats don’t really despise the Republicans, or vice versa.  They all help each other out with making sure that each other’s projects get done.

        Again I don’t think that this has anything whatsoever to do with what type of role government should play in our lives.  But considering the tenure of the average politician in Congress, they have no incentive to make long term decisions with our nation’s finances.

        Here’s a thought, and it’s sure to generate a lot of boo’s I’m sure.  But currently our Fed is “independent” for the purposes of managing inflation.  Ok cool.  What if we were to create a similar entity to the Fed (seperate though), whose governing board was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and whose role was to decide the total amount of money that Congress can spend each year (war excluded).

        It has 0 say in how the money is spent, it can only through the use of economics and data and facts decide the total amount of spending.  And in some years it can decide that deficit spending is necesary for the economy’s sake. Man the politicians would HATE that, and if they hate it, then it must be good for America.

    2.  3-6 months is too short.

      I mean would you have thrown in the towel in WW2, mein freund, in the Spring of ’42?  Or called off the cold war before Gorbachev tore down that wall?  Or held off on the Iraq invasion or those Bush tax transfers (he didn’t really cut taxes cause we still gotta pay ’em)?

      Also, a strict balanced budget approach makes us weaker.

      But in general, I agree that fiscal responsibility calls for less deficit and debt.

      So what about the elected official who says “deficits don’t matter”?

      1. So long as it is a WW2 type of war or if Canada decides to invade the US, then yes by all means let’s defend the Republic and deficit spend to do so.  I don’t agree with either the Iraq war or the Vietnam wars in principle because niether was fought to defend America, so I couldn’t see how calling any conflict a war means we can deficit spend.

        The Cold War wasn’t a war, and we spent stupidly against a hollow “enemy” that never had anywhere near the productive capacity necesary to “beat” us in that non-war.  That said, nukes are real and they had and still have a bunch.  It’s a tricky topic to say the least, but I guess we needed a deterrent for national security purposes.  Currently we spend significantly more than the rest of the world combined in defense, and I have to say that’s wasteful (unless the endgame is a force majeure of the money supply backed up with the threat of “what are you gonna do about it?”)

        But how can you say that a balanced budget makes us weaker?  A balanced budget is one of the key ingredients in having a strong currency.  

        Bush tax cuts were a perfect example of a Republican strategy of deficit spending to pay for projects meant to garner votes.  Republicans like to cut taxes in order to turn out votes and stay in power.  Democrats like to create government programs that please voters.  There really isn’t anything wrong in theory with either of them.

        The nail in the coffin for both of them is that they require long term borrowing to achieve their goals.

        Pay-go is cute, but it does nothing to reduce the deficit.  The hope of both Republicans and Democrats is to create a system that “grows” (read “inflates”) and then are debts won’t be so bad in comparison.  But that “growth” requires more borrowing.  The reality is that our government is continually inclined to borrow more to keep the bubble going. Look at California law as an example of what I hope does not become a national trend.  In that state, spending less than inflation and population growth is considered a “cut” even if the amount is more than the previous year.

        The issue I have is that our elected representative suffer from the most dangerous form of moral hazard around.  Taxing people and creating meaningful cuts in government spending is a sure way to lose  your job, but tax cuts and and expansion of government spending means that you can go back to your constituents and show them ways that you made Washington “work” for them.  There isn’t a solution, because we continue to lose purchasing power, and the world’s desire to move away from petrol dollars and towards some other world currency means that we won’t be able to keep it up much longer.  

        1. Is as cute does.

          PayGo could be as good as Gramm-Rudman (which I’m guessing was before your time- try the Wiki entry). Except no one really cares.  Reagan and Cheney’s political assessment was right: deficit’s don’t matter. Not really.

          Too many other “important” things to vote on.

          Eg- candidate A is the better fiscal caution candidate. But is also pro choice. Toast.

          Candidate B is the better deficit hawk candidate in another district, but loves him some big pharma/health insurance donors and wants to hate health reform. toast.

          And so on.

          War is never an asterisk.  National security is never an exception, not an afterthought.   I know what you meant and I’m not trying to rip your head off, but war as an extension of national security concerns is HUGE.

          And why a strict balanced budget approach weakens us.

          WW2 is a great example cause we all agree (now) we had to fight that one.

          But at the time Viet Nam was also a seen as a necessary war of defending the US.  (read the Pentagon Papers- yes we were lied to, but their motives were security related)

          Likewsie the cold war- which must have been a war: I have a certificate on my wall honoring me as a cold war warrior or some such. So do my dad, my cousins, 1/2 my in-laws, and most of my friends.

          And here’s the point: we elect the Commander in Chief. He decides to take us in to war- without declaration. We go.

          You want to judge those decisions as a voter, fine.  But you want to not go, you gotta elect a new Commander in Chief.

          Your political purity is cute.

          But look what happened to the elected leaders who voted against the invasion of Iraq. Marginalized for years, in some cases right out of office. Until 2008 when the eventual winner made it cool to have opposed the invasion.

          BTW- purchasing power is the last thing we need right now.  We need a weak dollar so we can sell more stuff, not strong dollar so we can buy more stuff.  At least as long as the global oil market is still priced in dollars. We ever gotta start buying oil in ВЈ or € or any other currency, we can talk about strong dollar again.

    1. Ok, firstly though the 2-3% figure for Medicare administrative costs versus the 20% figure for private insurance companies does have a little bit to do with the fact that benefits are paid to elderly people.  The claims by the elderly that are more frequent and more costly in the aggregate than the claims filed by the pool of those insured by private insurance companies (many who are younger and have very few claims but pay premiums like clockwork cause it comes right out of their paycheck).

      I’ve done my very bestest to avoid attacking the public option on the basis that it is “socialism”.  I really don’t care.  My philosophy isn’t particularly in line with it, and I can’t say I wholeheartedly endorse it, but the word has been thrown out there just so much that it doesn’t really mean much to most people anymore.  A Democrat who argues to someone who doesn’t have health insurance that a public option will provide them with affordable healthcare that is managed more compasionately than any private insurance is going to win everytime against some talking points Republican who says NO NO NO that’s bad it’s socialism.

      I do agree that the public option may indeed seem affordable for a short period of time, but I have not heard anyone cogently explain how this is not another expensive entitlement program. Social Security and Medicare are fine programs with decent intentions, but once the growing supply of newborns starts to converge, the programs face insolvency.  

      This, along with Cap and Trade, I believe are just new programs that are “urgently” needed because the financial mess that DC has gotten themselves into mean that pretty soon we’re facing higher interest rates because the math just doesn’t make sense at the yields Treasury holders are getting now.  At a certain point, the “guaranteed”, “safe” return on investment doesn’t come close to covering the inflation that occurs when you fund a government based on borrowing.  

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

63 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!