Jeffco Line Updated

5 thoughts on “Jeffco Line Updated”

1. I’m going to add my completion of your statement, without which it is not quite correct: “Few candidates have done less fundraising.” I don’t care about your odds and am not responding to your odds. I am only responding to the statement “Few candidates have done less.” In a context broader than the one to which you limit yourself, that is a dramatically inaccurate statement.

   What I’ve done a lot of is communicating with constituents, discussing public policy issues, learning about and analyzing public policy issues, and actually working on public policy issues (currently on braiding and blending funding streams for children and families in need, as well as lobbying Jeffco Schools to implement a robust school-community partnership). I manned booths the entire weekends at Jeffco Rodeo and Fair, and Summerset, with a political toss game and “good citizens maze” that I created for kids, talking with constituents, and have walked my district as much as I have been able to. I also founded and preside over a local community organization.

   Prior to and during all of that I’ve spent my life studying social institutional dynamics and public policy issues, with the ultimate end of affecting them for the better. I recently attended and graduated from law school for that express purpose. I dedicate a huge amount of time and energy to analyzing the issues that it would be incumbent upon me to vote on.

   I used my candidacy in what I considered the best way it could be used to advance the progressive agenda. That’s what I intended to do, and that’s what I did, with a great investment of time and effort. I did not run to engage in a ritual devoid of a realistic calculation of what I could accomplish and how best to accomplish it; I ran to have what effect I could have. And my choices were based on that calculation.

   I’ve attended numerous events in which I can talk with constituents, interest groups, and those who are involved in public policy formation, was on Mike Zinna’s television and radio political talk shows (exposure that few if any first time, long-shot state house candidates manage to get), on a Spanish language radio political talk show, had three feature spreads in The Columbine Courier (far more exposure than my incumbent opponent), and a few op-eds in the Denver Post. That’s called “earned media,” and, even in the narrow context that comprises the entirety of your universe, is not considered “nothing”.

   I’m not interested in another debate with you over why all of this is irrelevant, and only fund raising matters. Or why it’s irrelevant because all that matters is the odds of getting elected. Your reader can make those judgments for him- or herself. I’m simply filling in the facts that you choose to omit. There is no argument here: All of the facts I’ve reported are accurate, and my only purpose is to report them, and to make a case for their relevance to voters.

   Voters should vote for whom they consider most qualified to legislate, not whom they consider to have done the best job marketing himself, or who they think has the best chance of winning (between two candidates in the general election). I encourage the voters in my district to make their own decision based on an assessment of the relative talents and qualities of the candidates, and not have it made for them by the self-annointed gate-keepers of democracy.

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   1. This has nothing to do with how you have spent your life. This only about the 2010 election cycle, and it’s not just about fundraising. Please don’t try to “finish our sentence,” because we mean exactly what we wrote.

      All of these things you have done are nice. We wouldn’t argue otherwise. But running an effective and successful campaign isn’t rocket science. There are a handful of critical and important pieces to running an effective campaign (fundraising is just one of those pieces), and you chose not to do them. Not only did you choose not to do them, but you openly ADMIT that you chose not to do them.

      It is fundamentally true that you did less of the required work needed to win than most candidates in 2010. That is a fact. Sorry.

      We’re not interested in WHY you decided not to take the steps necessary to run a competitive race. We’re not going to write on The Jeffco Line, “Harvey didn’t really try to win, but he has very good philosophical arguments about why he didn’t try.” We’re not giving you credit just for doing things while you were a candidate. You could drive up and down I-25 all day, and you would have a busy day, but you wouldn’t have accomplished anything. We don’t confuse being busy with being effective.
      
       

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      1. Like I said, there was no argument, no disagreement with what you wrote or why you wrote it, or what you consider important. I didn’t dispute it, debate it, or contest it. Yo write that you’re “not interested in why….” I get that. But other’s might be interested in why. What you are and aren’t interested in isn’t particularly relevant to me, or to anyone else.

         What I did was to state clearly that I have done a lot of, for what purpose, a purpose directly related to running for office, though not limited to winning an election. That’s a truth, one I chose to publish. It has nothing to do with what you think, write, or consider important. As hard as it is for you to understand, you aren’t the issue here; informing others is. You provide selective information for a selective purpose, as is your right. And I supplemented that selective information with other information I consider relevant, which you chose, perfectly reasonably and justifiably, not to provide.

         You say “few candidates have done less,” and I say, “well, it depends on what kind of ‘doing’ you want to emphasize.” You said the sentence did not need to be finished, and then went ahead and finished in one particular way, focusing on one aspect of how little or much I’ve done to win the election, not how little or much I’ve done to serve the public interest. I finished your statement in a way which communicated another kind of “doing something,” one I consider more important, whether you agree or not. You want to emphasize what wins elections, and I want to emphasize what serves the public interest. I have no objection with your emphasis, and I don’t know why you should have any objection with mine.

         To you, politics is the competition to win elections. To me, politics is the effort to have a positive influence on the world. My post wasn’t a complaint about your preferred vision of what politics means (not because I don’t disagree, but because there’s no point in debating it further with you here), but rather the mere expression of an alternative point of view. Defending your perspective is irrelevant, because it was never the topic of discussion. Nor does is define the entire universe of what can be legitimately thought and discussed.

         You equate working on developiong a robust community-school partnership in Jefferson County, and working to create more effective delivery of services to children and families, and working to create a better understanding of some of the social and economic challenges that face us, “driving up and down I-25,” because, to you, if I prioritize serving the public interest, using my candidacy as a platform from which to do so, rather than marginally decreasing the overwhelming odds against me in an election I had almost no chance of winning regardless of how much money I raised, that is tantamount to “doing nothing.” To me, it is the most rational strategy to make some marginal improvement in the quality of our shared existence. And that, not the ritual of electoral politics, is the real goal.

         So your righteous indignation is misplaced. As I said in my first post, there is no argument here: All of the information I provided is accurate, and I provided it for no purpose other than to inform the electorate of something that they might not know, and to explain why I think how I chose to spend huge amounts of time and energy, as a candidate, is not only relevant, but respectable. It has nothing to do with you, other than to present a different point of view.

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      2. All of the things I listed that I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing during the 2010 election cycle, though two references (studying social institutional dynamics, and law school) began prior to the election cycle, the first one being the only think I mentioned that was intimately related to my candidacy.

         What I admit is that I didn’t emphasize fundraising, becuase I recognized early on that it would get less bang for the buck than other activities (for the purposes of the ultimate goal, as I have defined it). In my response, I pointed out, with specificity, how I’ve gotten more earned media than probably any candidate, of any party, in my district, ever, and how I’ve spent an enormous amount of time interacting with voters in various contexts.

         I made no philosophical arguments about why I “didn’t try.” I detailed the ways in which I have been highly committed to doing what I consider important to do as a candidate, staying focused on what I, and most people, consider important: Improving the quality of our lives.

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         1. “the first one being the only thing I mentioned that was not intimately related to my candidacy.”

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