President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%↑
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd
(D) Adam Frisch
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
52%↑
48%↓
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
November 04, 2006 05:55 PM UTC
87 Comments
1) They will all get to spend more time with their families.
2) They all get to work for the private sector which they tells us is far superior to the public sector.
3) Nothing is their fault for the next 2 years (possibly the next 20 years).
4) They get to live in a competently run state.
5) Their children will have a better and brighter future.
So please don’t say things are bad for the Republicans. In so many ways they are very very good.
– dave
I’m going to share it, credit will be given!
Republicans will have a chance to:
1. Dump party hacks controlled by Jim Dobson and the Repulsive Republican Radicals.
2. Find candidates who believe in civil rights for all, including constituents who want to enter into same sex unions and marriages.
3. Nominate candidates who believe in small government for business and our personal lives.
4. Work for constituents, not the Denver Metro Chamber, the road building contractors, health insurers, health care providers nor the teachers’ unions.
5. Promise to legislate for the good of the state, not their families, friends or campagin contributors.
6. Prove that they are capable of holding jobs besides elective office.
7. Show that they have the courage to make the hard changes the state needs to thrive.
8. Rediscover their belief in small businesses, which they abandoned under Bill Owens and Mark HIlllman.
I’d spend some time discussing #3, but everything else sounds just like what libs/dems/progressives are after.
It’s origin is in the lack of program from the (D)s, and the extent of their hubris. The clock is running, you have two years. Given that one of the first things that Ken Gordon advocated after the passage of ‘C’ was an increase in legislator salaries, I think the (D)s face pretty long odds on success.
In terms of salary, State Senators make 30K a year. I know people in the Fast Food industry making more than that. In this case, I stand by that.
EVEN TEACHERS MAKE MORE THAN THAT! And we constantly talk about how underpaid they are.
If the legislature was making 90K a year I’d say it’s a bad issue. This is 30K. Do you really support having someone in power make that little money? You do know what that leads to, right?
(Hint: See Republicans.)
The problem with legislator salaries is there, but it’s the wrong time to solve it. First, do something about our political system that prevents average people from getting elected. Then worry about whether average people can afford to get elected.
Is there really anyone in the state legislature right now who needs the pay raise to get by? If so, then I’m all for giving it; but my suspicion is that legislators are overwhelmingly coming from well-off backgrounds and could probably live off savings for a couple years if they had to.
“Is there really anyone in the state legislature right now who needs the pay raise to get by?”
Exactly. Our legislature, due to the low salary, excludes the average working-age person supporting a family – the type of person who needs a pay raise. You end up with an over-representation of the individually wealthy, retirees and attorneys.
If you’ve got to earn a living, you can’t serve.
(And yes, I recognize that this is totally off-topic.)
How can we expect state legislators to devote their full time and attention to affairs of state when they have to worry about paying the bills? The low pay makes it so no one but the wealthy can afford to run for office. And as we have seen, when the wealthy are in public office, they only serve the wealthy. It is no wonder they become so beholden to special interests. It is time for real reform in this state, and that can begin by paying our elected officials a decent salary. They shouldn’t have to “live off savings for a couple of years.”
Another needed reform is to pay their staffers a decent wage, so they don’t have to be so dependent upon lobbyists for information. They need independent research staff who are more interested in serving the constituency than in serving the lobbyists who do them favors.
If you go to the lege as a citizen lobbyist, you quickly see the results of this. Your elected representatives (sometimes even the one you helped to elect), ignore the interests of their District in favor of professional lobbyists. You see them introduce lobbyist bills instead of the ones they indicated to you and voters that they would support or introduce.
So I say, pay them like professionals, and give them enough office budget to serve the interests of the people instead of special interests. We continue to “cheap out” on important matters like education and governance, and it shows. You get what yu pay for.
Maybe if we paid them enough, we would take more interest in whether or not they are performing as expected, because our personal stake would be higher.
I think you have a good point.
Even the NFL eventually decided referees should be professionals (I remember when being an NFL referee was just a weekend job usually filled by someone who had something to gain by being associated with the NFL – owners of sporting goods stores and so on).
Even FIFA decided referees should be professionals and started paying referees for the professional leagues a professional rate.
Sometimes, you get exactly what you pay for. The current system gave us Doug Lamborn.
… gave us Mark Foley, Nancy Pelosi (I gather from the Repubs that she is the Devil Personified), George Allen, Bob Ney, Dan Rostenkowski, Jim Wright, et al. Pay more for trash and you still end up with trash.
In Colorado the state senate isn’t a full time job, Most state senators and and state representives hold full time jobs in addition to their elected office (including Lawyers, teachers, professors, and even bartendters) many are also full time students. Colorado has citizen legislators by design, not career legislators.
Being a teacher is a full time job and then some if you figure in classroom instruction time, time creating lesson plans, lunchroom or recess supervision duty, grading homework, parent/teacher conferences, ect.
To make 30k plus in fast food you either have to have been in the business for a long time (ie career path) or serve a special niche (ie Hooters waitress). Minimum wage at 40 hours a week pays about 11k a year.
How many people have jobs where they can take several months off a year for their “part time” job? It seems like the only way you could have another job and be a legislator is if you have another source of income, or a “full time” job where it is not important for you to be there.
If you have read the news at all, you know that this is not a part-time job. They have committee meetings, some of them weekly, when the lege is out of session. They have to be out speaking to constituents and conducting other affairs of state all year long.
A legislator that treats it like a part-time job is one who is doing a piss-poor job.
But I was pointing out that most Colorado State legislators have additional employment and responcibilities and don’t rely on the 30k as their sole source of income. That dosen’t mean they can’t attend meetings or speak to constituents.
Basically, legislators need to take off a couple of hours from their job, such as from Jan 10 to May 12, to handle that “on their own time” citizen legislator gig. I don’t know how many jobs are available that can allow that – however you must since you insist that legislators don’t need to be concerned about being a legislator because they have a fulltime job.
It is time to get over the fantasy that Colorado is still a frontier territory where legislators ride the cows into town, drink and vote for a couple of days and head back to the ranch. Colorado is a modern state, with a modern population and modern cities. It is time for our state to stop pretending, it is time for us to step up to 2006 and beyond instead of sticking in some phony creation of 1884 and 1953 (depends on which anti-government, anti-Colorado, anti-realworld far-right radical is bloviating).
There is no shame in paying our legislators and support staff real wages. The shame is pretending that Denver is still a cow town not deserving of modern leadership.
I’m not saying it’s right or wrong I’m just telling you they way it is , as I understand it, and the reason it is that way.
If we paid out state legislators $90,000 a year and did not allow them to have outside employment while in office I don’t know what the results would be.
I do know of a former state senator and current state representive who works as a bartender.
You are not telling it like it is. Those teachers and other professionals you insist are still at their jobs: they don’t exist.
These people are teachers *at best* on sabbatical, and at worst who have quit their jobs to be legislators. When you sit in session for three months out of the year – all day, every weekday and some weekends – you are most emphatically *not* working your regular job any more, with the possible exception of your bartender friend who works a third shift job.
So you might want to figure out what your definition of “is” is before telling us about the way it “is”.
do you really mean to imply that no state legislators have jobs in addition to their legislative duties (except of course one bartender). For your wild assertion to be true the following would also have to be true:
Bob Hegedorns classes were cancelled at metro state for six months straight.
Ken Godron didn’t take any legal cases for six months straigh.
Shawn Mitchell and Terrance Carrol ditched law school for six months straight.
Please in the future check the facts before posting. Used to be just the righties made stuff up.
He’s been practicing law since the early to mid 90’s! Do you mean that he teaches law school as his day job when the legislature is not in session?
State legislators live just fine on their salaries, plus the extremely generous per diem they receive (which they never talk about when they start whining about their pay). They don’t need a pay raise. It appears there’s plenty of competition for the jobs (is anybody running unopposed this year?), and in the course of electing these folks every few years, we actually end up with a few who do a good job. If the rate of lawmaker pay were a good gauge of governance quality, our congressional representatives should be giving us service that’s about five times better than those at the State Capitol. Anybody think that’s happening?
I worked in Morgan Carroll’s office as a volunteer aide. I learned that each legislator is entitle to one aide, with a budget for the session that doesn’t even allow a full time position at $10/hr!
Also, the budget for paper clips, etc. is so low (I can’t remember) that legislators wind up buying many supplies out of their already low salaries.
This was all set up by several decades of Republican control. Remember, they are the ones who also ran the “office account” scam until repealed by the Dems. That allowed cockroaches, I mean lobbyists, to give big bucks for those paper clips.
Good government to Republicans means “How can my buddies and me get rich from it, and destroy it?”
Did you know that there are six Big Pharma lobbyists in Washington for every senator?
Who else wants a cut of the Ref C dough? I thought the idea behind government was to collect taxes to pay for public services and help for the needy while not squandering money on political staffs and so forth. The Legislature has a professional staff of bill drafters and policy analysts to help lawmakers work though real issues. Volunteers and interns can help with constituent mail. What Colorado doesn’t need is a mini-Congress with personal legislative staffers making far more money than they’re worth. Want to give the Republicans a campaign issue two years from now? Start blowing money on legislative staffers.
without a perfect point.
I think that it would be hard to argue that having ONE full time staffer is budget shattering. And at a pay rate where you might actually get someone who needs a job, not a retiree or minimally qualified person. Ten dollars an hour is a laugh.
There is no perfect solution, that’s what I mean by a sliding scale. If the legislature was all volunteer, all you would get would be rich men and women. If it is well paid full time like CA and Congress, it seems corruption kicks the door open.
But please don’t put the legislative staff onto the backs of the legislators. It’s part of running a state, just like the security staff or mowing the lawn.
I hate being held hostage by Democrats
🙁
If you had everything that you ever wanted that money could buy what would you want?
More money – this is the situation fort those who recieve the majority of Bush’s “tax cuts”*
now having everything that money can buy and only wanting more money how would you use “tax cut”* money.
Many use it to build overseas factories and offices where they can exploit workers beyond what the laws in the united states allow. This puts millions of americans out of work. some won’t apply for unemployment out of pride, they will never be counted as unemployed. Others will recive unemployment for 6 months then be dropped from the unemployment rolls and not be counted as unemployed. Still others will take whatever job or jobs are available for a fraction of their previous wage driving down wages (unfortunatly most of thoise jobs have been taken by illegal aliens who are paid below minimum wage under the table).
The Bushies like to claim that 6 million job s have been created during the lat three years add that to the zero jobs created during the firt three years of Bush’s residency in the white house for a total of 6 mil jobs created during his presidency. Also during his presidency 12-25 mil illegal alliens have come over the border. and the elegible workforce in the U.S. grows by 250,000 per month. So if these 6 mil new jobs are to be taken by the 30 mil to 43 mil persons added the the U.S. workforce we are still 24 mil to 37 mil jobs short. Or put another way if 1/2 to 1/4 of the illegal aliens who enterd the U.S. are legitimatyely employed there has been no job gains under Bush.
* the Bush tax cuts are tax cuts like a NO MONEY DOWN car is free. A real tax cut would be accompanied by spending cuts. Instead of spending cuts Bush increased spending which has incrased the national debt more than all previous presidents combined. This debt must be paid at some point with interest.
Reagan was a problem, not part of the solution.
Is the same as delayed taxes, but with a huge amount of interest added on.
Homeboy, just like RR raised taxes, you know, because he had to, so we all pay.
I’m going to guess, just based on statistics, that you make less than, say $100K/yr. Bush and the Congressional hypocrites throw you a few hundred dollars (and laugh uproariously) while they give themselves and the top 5% huge cuts.
Now, since George wants to play with his Tonka Toys in Iraq, we have to borrow billions of dollars a week for his little game.
Meanwhile, back in Realitytown, USA, funds are drying up for program after program. More people are at the food banks than ever before. Federal school funds are having to pay for NCLB and other programs hit the skids. Dying by a thousand cuts, locals (outside of TABOR-land) have to raise taxes at the city and state level.
Of course, we could just pick ’em out of the gutters in the morning before the presidential motorcade comes by….
In order to keep the right – left argument going any so- called anti republican comment is ment with the same old proverbial whine Liberal, Liberal, Liberal.
Not to worry the so-called left have their own tactics in this area as well.
It’s a great distraction from any accountability or tru discussion.
“Meant”, BTW
Yes, it’s over your head.
Now here’s your crayons go on and play.
when our armed services umbrella news service, The Military Times, will call for Rumsfeld to be fired. Of course, it will only be good news for the R’s if Bushy acts in the interest and with the will of the American people.
“Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.” – Kevin Tillman http://www.truthdig….
dKos seems to have a copy already, and it’s bruising not just to Rumsfeld, but also to the rest of the Bush Administration who’s been giving us false rosy feel-good images of Iraq all this time.
Okay, enough of that. What good news have Republicans really had lately? I guess the fact that GOP elected officials aren’t *all* behind bars by now is a good start. And that they managed to do their duty to party and President and passed an Unconstitutional repeal of habeas corpus and gave the President the sole power to rewrite the entry in Webster’s Dictionary on “torture” – that was certainly good for them.
Army Times: “Time for Rumsfeld to go” (posted in The Ross Report)
If the Republicans get slaughtered in this election cycle, it will be good for their party and the country. And no, I don’t mean because Democrats will be in charge (although I don’t mind that). What I do mean is this: The GOP will have to take a good long look at the extremist wing of their party that brought about this loss. They will have to question whether they want to continue to appease them… or move towards the middle. The GOP will either continue to appease the extreme faction of their party (and then continue to lose to moderate Dems) or they will put up moderates and start winning things. Either way, the state and country will be better off not having extremists in charge.
They will need to lose bad in 2008 and 2010 and then it will start happening.
The “moderate” Republicans are the ones losing seats. People don’t want mediocrity. They want to have a real voice. They want people who will stand with the majority of people. The moral majority.
As for raises? I say we provide every legislator the opportunity to earn raises based upon every over funded inefficient government program they can cut. Maybe they can all split 10-20 percent of every dollar they save the taxpayer.
Then you would really see an efficient, lean government.
Moderate is not the same thing as mediocre… as I’m sure you are well aware. Moderates do not take rash decisions that go against the public interest. For example… an extreme leftist would require redistribution of the wealth among the masses and would require the rich give up their money. An extreme righty would try to dominate the public and the world through fear and military might while telling people how to think and what to believe. Americans want neither. The founding fathers wanted neither. Moderation is the key to an enlightened republic that is based on democratic principles. Extremists on all sides are a threat to our nation.
Follow the Middle Path.
Oh… I thought you meant something else.
“An extreme righty would try to dominate the public and the world through fear and military might while telling people how to think and what to believe.”
I don’t know anybody like that in the Republican party. When you said extreme right I thought you meant people who believe in God or go to church. I thought you were talking about people who believe abortion is wrong.
Sorry if I got confused.
When you said they needed to be kicked out of the party I didn’t realize you were from a different country. Thanks for clarifying.
I am with you though. If I find anyone in MY Republican party that wants to use fear and military might to tell people how to think – I will be right along with you fighting them too.
God Bless America!
If you really think that there are NO extremists in the GOP, then you are either one of them or fooling yourself. I will be the first to admite there are extremists in the Democratic party, they are just not currently in control of the party. All parties have extremists.
.
What in your opinion would make someone, a Democrat, an extremist ?
I agree they are there, and I believe that they exert a great deal of influence over Assemblies and the nominating process.
But it looks to me like many of the Dems who post here would meet my definition of extremist, so I’m a little surprised to see an acknowledgment that they exist.
I expect to hear bad news/good news on both sides and if it is a bad year for R candidates due to public sentiment, so be it. The problem I see is that this blog tends to hammer the bad news for R’s into the ground with more multiple threads of the same topic, and tends to be more negative in the description of each bad news item where R’s are concerned. To add insult to injury, the predominately left leaning bloggers get multiple pieces of the same pie by getting to post the same anti-right rhetoric on numerous threads of the same topic, creating a dog pile effect. I realize Co Pols can’t control who blogs here, but we seem to have lost a number of regular R posters and I can’t help but think they got tired of the dog pile and left.
Good news for R’s? Ask me on Wednesday. Based on what I read in here, it should be a short post.
BTW, was the Goering quote under the Weekend Open Thread randomly selected out of a book of quotable quotes, or were the fair and balanced folks at Colorado Pols trying to make a point of some kind?
Lauren, I’m a Dem, as you know, but I really miss the old R’s who used to post here. I enjoy reading everyone’s comments, but 90% are lefties so it gets redundant quickly.
Hopefully this is reflective of election time and it will mellow out after the session gets going again.
God, I hope so.
I know you’re a D, but I consider you to be a Pub leaning D:)
Just sitting quietly on the side lines waiting for the slaughter.
I’ve noticed that there are fewer R’s around than there used to be. But I don’t think it is Colorado Pol’s fault. I just think it is a very unpleasant year for Republicans. If there had been political blogs in 1994, I doubt a lot of us Dems would have wanted to spend a lot of time there. What fun is it to rehash the bad news so far and brace yourself for the next scandal? Much more pleasant to hang out on a Broncos blog or a fly fishing blog . . .
Eegads! I’d rather get beat up in here than go to a Broncos or fly fishing blog! Now that’s painful!
OK, I’m off to read Chapter 27 of the Ted Haggert scandal. What else can be said about a gay bashing preacher caught using meth and receiving deep tissue massages from a gay escort that hasn’t already been said?
Is Kevin Spacey too old to play Rev. Ted. He’s got some experience having played Jim Bakker in “Fall From Grace.”
Go back to highschool. It’s great when you’re voted “most popular,” or elected homecoming king or queen. It’s fun to read about yourself in the high school year book, the school newspaper.
But, watch what happens to a kid who gets in a fight out back of the school, loses it badly, with two real “shiners” as evidence of the drubbing–and you’ve got a kid that doesn’t want to go to school until those shiners subside.
Right now, the Republicans are getting tne snot beat out of them on the political playground, and it’s no longer so much fun to show up at “school” on this blog or others. Once they get their confidence back, they’ll return.
Does something about that quote make you uncomfotable, LB?
I’d like you to say it.
Didn’t mean to put you on the spot, Lauren, I’d just like to know why you think that Goering quote demonstrates ‘bias’ on the part of the Pols.
Here’s the quote again:
“Naturally the common people don’t want war…but after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship…all you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
Again, this quote is attributed to Hermann Goering, German High Commander, presumably sometime just before World War II. Though you might imagine it coming from somebody more…contemporary?
Is that the problem here, Lauren?
I post on another website that has many subforums to discuss everything under the sun. I mostly hang out in the Debate and Discussion subforum, but recently it appears that the main forum has become increasingly political. The guy who started the website recently reminded people that there was a subforum for all things political (D&D), and requested that people continue the discussions there. It turns out that many people are fearful to post in there because of the dogpiles that occur. How is this relevant?
It is relevant because when a big story breaks there are many facets to it. And on this site every new ColoPols diary moves the next one down. So it is hard to refresh a diary that is at the bottom of the page with 80 posts and generate new interest without starting a new diary.
And then there is the dog pile effect. Which also happens a lot in D&D, but that occurs when somebody starts posting about how they refuse to believe any evidence and offer none of their own to back up their conjectures. Or when they start throwing around logical fallacies as if they were candy on halloween. I am sure that most have left because they dont want to hear about how things are going badly for their party. Or they dont want to defend it.
It is surely not Colorado pols fault that things are going badly. And lets not forget the Kerry threads that were posted recently. The same reason why Colopols became popular in the first place is the same reason why it is popular now. It is a place to discuss politics with commentary from insiders and lay people alike. Wait till after the election. Then we can back into the policy debates.
Multiple threads are necessary to keep the flow going and the interest up, and new news on the same story does require new threads. Also, since most posters in here are left leaning, interest and posting would occur more on bad news for Republican threads. I don’t recall many threads on the Kerry gaffe, but maybe I was sleeping through it.
As a partisan, I am perfectly willing to admit to seeing phantom bias where it doesn’t exist, some of the time. I don’t think I’m completely off here though. Everyday, choices are made as to content, emphasis, captions, and descriptions of events. I would guess you would think Fox News is biased, not because their news commentators wear “Vote Republican” tee shirts, but based on the same types of choices they make in describing events and in which stories they choose to emphasize, etc.
I too was attracted to this site for the same reasons you described, but the past few months it feels more like Daily Kos in here, and I think this has alienated some posters.
Thank you, but I am sure that you are just refraining from taking my argument apart to not embarass me.
I’ll be honest with you, I dont have a tv. In fact, if, when I am home, I am watching tv, I will probably be catching up with HBO shows onDemand at my girlfriends (Yes, I am a bum).
I hate Fox News, for some of the obvious reasons, but also for reasons that I hate all 24 hr news networks. They all have one bias in common and that is crappy sensationalist headlines. The only news sources that I like, on tv, are PBS, BBC, and Deutsche World when it is on. Oh, and CNN international, which is worlds away from regular CNN. Fox leans to the right. It is plain as day and anybody who denies it is dellusional. CNN couldnt find its ass with two hands and three witnesses let alone a newstory, and contrary to popular opinion it is not liberal. You are probably thinking, I am an idiot and I dont know what I am talking about, look at Lou Dobbs (aka Tancredo Jr.). Maybe it was in its heyday, but not anymore.
It may feel like Kos in here, which I have actually never read, but seriously this is a blog about colorado politics. I think some people forget that, myself included. I often start diaries about national and international stuff which never seems to take hold, but I dont mind, because this is about the big C O. In part, I think that there is a national tide against republicans this year. If the inverse were true, I would be in your shoes wondering where all my liberal buddies have run off to (speaking of which, what happened to Aristotle?). I digress. My point is this: You have to admit that this year, there have been a lot less gaffes on the dem side than the republican side. Pols have also being very adament about chastising those that have failed on the dem side too (e.g., Bill Winter and on occasion AP).
This is also a site to talk about strategy, and to rub e-shoulders with the movers and shakers, which I am not, but would like to be. When strategy hits a snag like BWB and the cold case files or the widow in Africa, people want to talk. When the ICE agent hit, that is big news, seems devoid of legs now though. What I am trying to say is that it has been a bad year for repubs. Dems, in general, are keeping their eyes on the prize and not screwing up. Two years from now who knows. Hopefully, we will still be here arguing the merits of the presidential campaigns.
Give it a week, maybe two, and the people who left will return. The people who won will have cooled off and dried out, and the people who lost will have scars, but now open wounds. More importantly, you and I and others will be arguing about policy and procedure.
I could have any wish that I could. And I would get that wish during the next legislative session, I would ask for only ONE wish:
THAT ALL LEGISLATORS BE REQUIRED TO ATTEND COMMITTEE MEETINGS. UNDER THE CURRENT SYSTEM, LEGISLATORS GO TO HOMEROOM, AND THEN SKIP OUT TO CAMPAIGN THE REST OF THE DAY OR MEET WITH LOBBYISTS. ATTENDANCE SHOULD BE TAKEN AT THE COMMITTEE HEARINGS. THAT WAY, WHEN A LEGISLATOR SAYS THAT THEY REPRESENTED US AND WERE PRESENT FOR VOTES 80% OF THE TIME IT WOULD BE ALL VOTES.
First Reading…Second Reading…and Final passage.
PAY FOR PERFORMANCE. IF THEY DON’T DO THE WORK, THEY DON’T GET PAID. IF THEY DON’T SHOW UP FOR WORK, THEY DON’T GET PAID.
There needs to be greater accountability in Denver. It begins with the legislative body. 90% of the dance is showing up.
With the Dems in control, many of the Repubs skipped class and never did their homework. That is not my version of legislating or governing.
Let’s just say, “CONTESTANTS MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN.”
You actually expect lawmakers to work for their paychecks? I think we should throw per diem in there as well. If you don’t show up, your per diem (read “free money”) gets reduced proportionately, along with your salary. Hmmm … maybe we should start a petition for November 2008.
There were very few absences, and the chairman/women always said what the reason was. Things like illness, parents dying.
Not very good, I guess.
trouncing me, a Dem write-in candidate, and the Dem on the ballot, Jay somebody or other. That’s good for the Republicans.
But even if Jay should win, that will also be good for the Republicans. It will lead them to reassess how they select candidates, and how to better hear the voice of the moderate voter, who wasn’t heard this primary season.
They are in a Win-Win situation.
By the way, I think a Lamborn squeaker victory is also good for the Donkeys. If that happens, party identification will mushroom. Dems will be formidable in 2008.
The Club for Growth and the Christian Coalition of Colorado, Pat Toomey and Mark Hotaling, have shaved probably a good permanent 5 to 10% from the Republican ranks in the 5th CD. I don’t know if they’ll all land in the Democrat column but a significant portion will with the balance being unaffiliated but far more prone to vote Democrat in the future.
In the case of The Club for Growth, its libertarian motivations are killing off Republicans, taking districts such as Idaho’s 1st CD, Colorado’s 5th, Michigan’s 7th, and undermining the Republican party in the process.
The best friend to the Democrat party right now on the national stage is the Club for Growth. Locally, their lying campaign against Jay Fawcett may end up costing Jay in the short run, but the fact is that in the long run the Club for Growth has empowered Democrats in the 5th CD who are quite thankful and appreciative of the gift. That has a bearing on not just future congressional races but the “down ticket” offices where Democrats will now have a much better chance than before to take seats formerly not within reach.
But, add to the debacle of the Club for Growth the very “Un”Christian campaigning by the Christian Coalition of Colorado, and the end result is a synergistic effect that has proven quite costly to Republicans, to the benefit of Democrats for years to come.
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I’m hoping this will get the more centrist Republicans to take back their party from the folks who have control now. I could end up drifting back into such a party.
And if that doesn’t happen, then more folks who hold core Republican values could follow me to the Democratic Party, so long as there’s room.
The attractive alternative might be a 3rd party. Maybe the time is ripe.
The Republicans in the 5th CD have been in one gene pool only for so long, they’ve inbred like ancient royalty, producing offspring such as Doub Lamborn. It’s alright by me for each to trade some genes with the other.
We all have our own partisan interests be a part of the exchange of genes is the exchange of ideas. No party has a monopoly on what’s best, no party what either party’s leadership has to say about that.
Froma Harris on pag 3E has a good story about how under Dean’s leadership, the party is doing just that. From the gun control nuts of the 70’s to Brian ?????, hunting guv of Montana, the party is opening. Add Ritter as an anti-abortion candidate.
Perhaps this election, or 08, will be the similar wake up to the Repubs. Their big tent collapsed, if it ever was up.
I hope both parties become more diverse. (Gawd, I hate that word, too PC.)
Great news for the Republicans.
Mike Kopp was given a free pass by the Press.
In 2002 and 2004 Angie Paccione’s legal filing for bankruptcy was covered extensively.
Mike Kopp talked his way out of any press coverage of his illegal kiting of checks and his conviction for it.
Kopp bounced dozens of checks and refused to make them good. Kopp Kopped a plea to one count.
Kopp proceeded to lie to both newspapers about his lack of a criminal record.
Sure it was a long time ago but the press has been merciless towards Angie but given this bum a free pass
Does he know someone on the staff or do his campaign operatives, Lee & Fairbank, handle this for him?
It is quite clear what the good news will be for the Republican party coming out of this election…..a return to the core values of the party and a loss of influence by the radical right wing nutcases that have been calling the shots. Hopefully the term “Neo Con” will be just a painful and embarassing memory in a few years.
The Republicans will be able to look at the leaders who led them down the path to defeat. The majority will be able to understand that they need to elect real conservatives who will stand on the party platform. Republicans feel demoralized only because “leaders” like Owens have abandoned sound fiscal policy (ie Ref C and D).
Owens has turned the immigration debate over to the Democrats and called their half hearted attempts “strong reform.”
Gullickson, Philp (and other lowly staffers like them) under the direction of Coors, Benson and Owens have mocked the very people who comprise the base in the Republican Party. They and their ilk will be rejected and ridden out of town on a rail.
The Good News for the Republicans is that conservative Republicans (the real kind not the ones that just mouth the words) are winning seats all over Colorado. The so called “Moderates” are losing throughout Colorado to Democrats with a clear message.
After these “moderates” have taken their marbles and gone home in defeat the real grassroots of Conservative Republicans can pick up the pieces and build the future for a strong Republic.
Can you name some of the races that the conservative republicans are winning in Colorado? Now, how about the ones the moderates are losing?
Anyone else care to take a crack at this telling statistic?
Extremely conservative republicans come from safe Republican districts. Of course more of them win; that’s why we call them safe districts. That’s not because people want more conservative reps; it’s because people in those safe districts vote Republican.
The story of this election is that seats in supposedly safe Republican districts (Lamborn, for instance?) are suddenly up for grabs. Whether the candidates there win or lose, that doesn’t bode well for the ultra-conservative cause. It would be a serious mistake for Republicans to look at this election and say “Oh, all our moderates lost; we should be more right wing!” If the Republican party wants to control anything, they need at least a few unsafe districts, and they aren’t going to get them by coming out as the party for conservative radicals.
It will be interesting to see how many of our “principled conservatives” stay that way when they find themselves in the minority party with little opportunty to propose and advance a parochial agendas. It’s easy to be a principled conservative when you’re in the majority — much harder task when you realize you are elected to govern all citizens and not just your narrow constituency — and as a minority voice you might find yourself forced to compromise to the left of where you would like to be. It’s funny to me how my right wing friends consider any move off from their principles as “selling out” as opposed to looking at their position as a way to soften the pendulum going to far the other way. They play an important role in the legislative process — most of them haven’t figured that out yet – IMHO
On the Congressional level we have – “I don’t need the conservative vote” O’Donnell who appears to be losing in a landslide. I suppose you could argue that Tancredo, Musgrave and Lamborn are leftest Republicans because it appears they are going to win, but I don’t think anyone will believe you (that they are lefties).
Tipton started out running as a moderate – but suddenly realized that his base was not impressed. So, he swung to the “right” – too little too late. He should have secured his base then went for the middle ground.
We will recap the entire General Assembly after the election. I think you will see I am correct in my analysis.
Katie Atkins be damned!
The only reason the press goes to her for quotes is they are looking for someone to bash their own party. Unwittingly, she obliges.
You are speaking as if Doug Lamborn could run in CD-7 and pull off a win where O’Donnell is trailing. If you really believe that, I am just speechless. He wouldn’t stand a chance, but it would be funny to watch. O’Donnell, on the other hand, could move over to CD-5 next election and pick up a congressional seat rather easily if he makes it through the Republican primary.
Lamborn and Musgrave are WAY underperforming the voter registration in their districts. They are poor choices for model Republicans. Defending their seats has pulled money away from less “safe” districts where Republicans were supposed to be able to put up a fight. They have both been an unmitigated disaster for the Republican party. Tancredo got lucky, but looked vulnerable early on. Whether these candidates win or lose is immaterial. On a good day, a trained monkey should able to win as a Republican in at least CD-5 and CD-6. The point is they should have won BIG. It should never have been a contest. These are some of the safest Republican districts in the country. They aren’t supposed to be tough races.
So have fun bragging about how Lamborn and Tancredo are showing Republicans how to win. Maybe then you can beat up a third grader, and tell us how this proves you’re better than Muhammad Ali, because he lost some fights.
I have a sneaking suspicion this race – and races nationally – will be a lot closer than the “rout” everyone’s currently predicting.
Not even taking into account the Diebold factor…
I think Ritter will have short coattails and most of the downticket races will go GOP. And Tancredo and Lamborn – both ultra-conservative neanderthals – will cruise to victories.
And nationally, the Dems will barely win the House and the GOP will barely retain the Senate.
I say this as a moderate Democrat.
But I’ll try to keep it brief. In no particular order:
1) I agree that the Club for Growth made a big mistake in CO-5, but it is a mistake on your part to confuse the Club with Focus on the Family or any other religion-focues organization. While the Club may happen to back social conservatives, it is not because they are social conservatives. The Club only backs people because of their positions on taxes, regulation, fiscal policy, and other things directly related to economic growth. For the record, I strongly urged the Club to stay out of that race because I thought Jeff Crank was as good as Lamborn on those issues, and generally a better candidate than Lamborn.
2) I think the masters of this site do display a liberal bias, such as your continued misreprsentations of polling data. And your numbers and descriptions in the left-hand column of election “lines”. I also think that the readers have a distinctly liberal bias, but I don’t mind reader bias. I mind webmaster bias from people who claim not to be biased. I am biased on my site (http://www.rossputin…), but I don’t claim not to be!
3) While anything can happen, I would be quite surprised if Musgrave or Lamborn loses. I also think there’s a chance, even if somewhat less than 50/50 of O’Donnell winning his race. (I very much hope Rick wins. He is a far better candidate.) As far as moderates versus conservatives leading in GOP races, I think this gets to a more fundamental question: Because candidates in the general elections are chosen in primaries, and because it tends to be the most “motivated” voters who vote in primaries, and because it tends to be the most partisan voters who are motivated, we often end up with Democrats who are unpalatably liberal and Republicans who are unpalatably conservative for the majority of voters. Then we just have to pick the lesser of two evils.
4) I believe that we’re going to end up with two years of Democrat control of the legislature and the governor here in Colorado and that we will see a barrage of new spending, new taxes, sops to unions, and other travesties of government that will usher in a wave of disgust with the Democrats and a return of at least some part of state government to the GOP in two years.
The only point that I am going to take issue with is #2. Where do they continually misrepresent polling data? If you are going to say that not putting up Zogby Interactive polls in favor of other more reputable polls, then all I can do is sit back, shake my head and move on. The Zogby Interactive polls have been repeatedly debunked by people on this site. If that is not enough for you, which it may not be – it certainly wouldnt be for me in some cases, look at the methodology. Using a non-random sample of 40 people will not get you representative results. I dont know how many times these can be repeated. It simply does not fly.
On the “lines,” that is more for fun than anything. Since I can not view them I have no real idea what they say, but really, do you think they make any difference on how people vote?
My point was not that the Zogby Interactive poll was the most reliable thing. I certainly conceded that point. My point was that the guys who run this site basically said there was NO poll that showed Beauprez ahead.
Just like they argued that there was NO poll that showed Beauprez behind in his prior campaigns, when there were polls that showed him behind. I would agree with an argument that they were not very reliable polls since they were paid for by the other candidate.
But just because you might question the methodology or reliability of a poll does not mean it’s OK to say that it doesn’t exist. The guys who run this site should have been honest and said “There is a poll that shows Beauprez ahead, but for such and such a reason we believe it is not reliable.”
For all intents and purposes there is no poll that shows BWB ahead. You could sit on the FoF campus and ask every person who walked by who they are going to vote for and you would have a poll showing that, most likely, BWB is going to win. Should that be represented? I say no, for obvious reasons.
If you want to argue semantics that is fine, but a gross misrepresentation being shown as scientifically formulated fact is not something I want corroding this forum. The same goes for internals. From what I have heard, and I have no formal experience with this as I have never worked on a campaign, internals represent want you want them to represent. Internals are also not part of the public sphere of knowledge unless they are leaked for obvious reasons. If they are, they are easily discounted because of their subjective nature.
“But just because you might question the methodology or reliability of a poll does not mean it’s OK to say that it doesn’t exist. The guys who run this site should have been honest and said “There is a poll that shows Beauprez ahead, but for such and such a reason we believe it is not reliable.”
Ridiculous. Why should they have to represent every fringe, unreliable poll or opinion that is out there? You obviously took it upon yourself to post the Zogby poll and post it in another thread stating that you have no reason to believe that it is not as accurate as any other. If I were running the show here I wouldnt mention the zogby poll at all for fear that I may lose some credibility. To be completely honest with you, I take every poll that I read with a grain of salt. There is only one polling group that I trust implicitly and that is the pew research center. Everything else leans one way or the other.
In short, I find that if I have to caveat something to make my point, my point is probably weak.
Being fair to Colorado Pols, they said there is no poll showing Beauprez gaining on Ritter. That is true. Zogby Interactive has consistently showed Beauprez ahead, and whatever movement is seen has been consistently within the margin of error.
4 to the extent that new taxes are a TABOR issue. I would expect the democrats will be smart enough not to increase tax revenues by attempting to pass new taxes outside of the Referendum C authority – if they do, they deserve to be voted out. Same would be with spending – or at least, they had better come back and ask voters if that is what they want. I don’t have a problem with spending as long as I am given a chance to vote on it.
Maybe the Republicans will get a little relief from that awful responsibility of proving that government doesn’t work. Or that they are just incredibly incompetent and need something to blame it on. Either way, we will be better off for it.
Government, like just about everything, only works if you believe in it and strive to make it better.
The good news for Republicans is Tancredo will continue to lead the movement for secure borders. He will keep the GOP’s 2008 presidential primary on track and the leading candidates a bit more honest.
The bad news is that Musgrave and Lamborn will continue to be the poster couple for bigoted, divisive and dumb Republicans.
Perhaps the best news for Republicans will be abandonment of politics by evangelicals.
They’ve seen the Repulsive Republican Radicals promise all kinds of hateful legilsation and then not deliver. And now they are being demonized, appropriately, as haters and hypocrits.
Their shallow, self-interested and egocentric religious leaders?Jim Dobson, Ted Haggard, Pat Robertson?have made such fools of themselves that they must be costing all evangelical leaders a lot of their credibility among their followers.
“If they lie to us about their personal fortunes and personal lives, are lying to us about God’s wishes, too?”
Really good news for Republicans would be the realization by religious leaders that politics is not a fun hobby and political activism can ruin their causes and, most important, their careers.
If you had asked for good news for Social Conservatives instead of Democrats you would have a lot different response. Since the Dems have allowed the most non Liberal “Democrat” in recent history to represent the party by selecting Bill Ritter for Governor your question becomes contradictory. Ritter is against choice, did more to set back civil liberties of innocent citizens by refusing to even consider charges against even the most outrageous police abuses in our states history and is set to open fire on even minor pot offenses the news is great for social conservatives.