Mount Virtus

I have kept silence on Harriet Miers, largely agnostic but increasingly skeptical as the weeks wore on. I was startled that the withdrawal of her nomination came so suddenly, and I can’t say I’m as disappointed as Mr. Hewitt is. One of his linchpin arguments in support of Miers has been that most of the party’s base in Red State America supported her - primarily the Beltway elites were leading the anti-Miers charge. Today he writes:

There is a deeply disturbed and disappointed group of GOP voters dismayed by the treatment of Miers. I don’t know how big it is –it isn’t small– and I don’t know which would have been the less bitter result, but there is no denying the political damage done to the GOP, and in the hands of competent propagandists of the left, this debacle could be costly indeed.

Despite dwelling too much in the concerns of what sort of Leftist propaganda attacks will emanate from a major political decision (they’ll make their attacks no matter what), Hugh’s assertion that a sizable number of the GOP base is upset and disheartened by the “attacks” on Miers and her subsequent withdrawal should be called into question.

GOPUSA’s The Loft surveyed 1,000 conservative Republican voters and found the following:

The overnight survey conducted by GOPUSA of over 1,000 primarily conservative Republicans shows that 72% believe Miss Miers did the right thing by withdrawing her nomination. Only 12% felt that the withdrawal was not the right thing to do, while 16% were not sure. The sentiment was stronger among men than women, but both groups strongly favored the Miers decision: Men — 75%; Women — 66%.

When asked what the primary reason was for opposition to the Miers nomination, 35% of the respondents indicated that opposition was due to an inability to demonstrate a judicial philosophy. 33% felt that opposition was due to Miss Miers being an unknown among conservative activists.

I was not able to find the survey’s specific data on questions asked, responses tallied, and methodology used. But numbers like these at least bear a closer look.

Incidentally, the largest number of survey respondents (46%) by far chose Janice Rogers Brown as their first choice as Bush’s judicial replacement, with Priscilla Owen, Michael Luttig, and Ted Olson back in the pack. Strangely, Mike McConnell’s name did not show up on the list.

State Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald has joined a growing list of prominent Colorado Democrats by announcing yesterday that she won’t pursue a run for the governor’s office. The eyes of all political insiders now turn to Speaker Andrew Romanoff.

Both Fitz-Gerald and Romanoff earlier announced their potential candidacies for the state’s top executive offices hinged on the passage of Referenda C and D. Now Fitz-Gerald has bailed out a week before the election. And the generally left-of-center audience of the Dead Governors’ blog is already rationalizing.

Let’s see… the outcry for weeks has been that the Colorado Democrats need a primary opponent for Bill Ritter, especially because of his pro-life views. When asked by the Denver Post after her announcement if she would support Ritter’s candidacy, Fitz-Gerald’s curt response was: “Not exactly.”

Questions to ponder, since all the reasons for the Senate President’s announcement are unclear:
- Would Fitz-Gerald be more likely to avoid the governors’ race if she thought C and D would pass or fail?
- What role does the dispute over whether she can run for re-election for her Senate seat have to play?
- Do you think someone may have advised her that she has a much better chance helping Democrats save the State Senate than winning the Governors’ office?
- If the Holtzman-Beauprez intraparty feud is so deadly to the Republican’s chances to keep the governors’ seat, why can’t the Democrats find a top-of-the-line candidate eager to uphold the pro-choice/abortion views of its base?

Inquiring realists have better answers than rationalizing Democrats.

Special thanks to Progress Now (you can make your own, too!) for facilitating this campaign message.

I haven’t blogged in a week, but here goes: I’m off to the reception to welcome new members (including myself and Joshua) to the Leadership Program of the Rockies. Since the event is at the Governors’ Mansion, I suppose Ref C & D will be topics non grata. Thanks for checking in! And stay patient… more posting is coming soon.

I just posted the following excerpted credo on education in a comment at the Dead Governors Web site. I was getting so much into it that I decided to paste my comment here:

…I beg someone to logically refute the following facts:

1. Colorado spends more per pupil in real dollars on K-12 education now than ever before. In fact, Colorado’s per-pupil spending was at an all-time high right BEFORE Amendment 23 was passed… and has reached an all-time high each year thereafter.
2. Colorado spends less than 58 percent of education dollars in the classroom. (Maybe it’s how we are spending the money, not how much….)
3. From 1992 to 2003, Colorado significantly improved its ranking on national test scores while its national ranking in per-pupil spending went down.
4. The reason Colorado’s ranking went down is because our per-pupil spending increases weren’t as big as the national average.

My goal for listing these surprising facts (of which there are many more) and the following discussion is to make some people read and think about a different point of view.

Maybe, just maybe, people who are opposed to unending spending increases for K-12 education care just as much as you about kids and schools. Maybe they believe in a sort of “tough love” that asks for school leaders to consider new, more effective ways of getting things done rather than just holding their hands out.

After all, public education’s central mission is to educate each child in the system to his or her fullest potential, not to provide jobs to adult teachers or administrators. Whose interests should we be looking out for first?

Maybe the teachers union isn’t evil, just misguided because many of its interests collide with what is best for students. Maybe educrats aren’t evil, just that the vast majority are so focused on protecting the status quo and their own interests that the only fault they can ever see is that there isn’t enough money - never enough. And maybe opposing their agenda from time to time doesn’t make you an enemy of education or someone who hates kids and/or teachers.

My proposal is to remold the public education system with constructive incentives that promote its central mission, maximizing the investments of taxpayers for the good of society. Education tax credits, charter schools, meaningful reforms of pay-for-performance and tenure, in tandem with streamlined and effective accountability measures - these point the way toward a better system. Continuing to feed the system with more & more money without promoting such reforms is not compassionate but naive.

Education funding and reform aren’t the only things to consider when voting for C & D - vote how you will - but those spreading the scare tactics about schools ought to be ashamed of themselves. Anyone interested in a constructive dialogue on this topic can comment here or send me an email.

Thank you for indulging me.

Updated and revised, 9:35 AM

Wow, this year’s ballot initiative campaign gets stranger and stranger. The pro-Ref C Dead Governors have declared that their beloved tax increase is winning by 1 to 9 points in the “polls.” Their source? I quote directly:

No, we aren’t going to tell you who did these polls, and no, we didn’t just make this up.

Trust them… right. Trust but verify. Let’s be intellectually honest for a moment and admit we don’t know exactly where public sentiment is on Ref C & D. If the pro-tax increase crowd had a credible survey showing momentum on their side, the results would be trumpeted on all the major news pages. Their silence speaks in abundance.

My gut tells me the election will be close and the ballot measures will lose. But I can only trust my gut so far, and I won’t mislead anyone by saying my inclinations are based in hard, empirical evidence. Besides, one must consider the old cliche: “The only poll that counts is the one on Election Day.”

Meanwhile, the folks at Mile High Delphi have run a statistical model suggesting that Ref C has a 28.6% (or 2-in-7) chance of winning and would lose 53-47 if ballots were cast today.

I have no way of knowing if their insights into the election results are more credible than the Dead Governors’ (if anyone out there is qualified and wants to critique the statistical analysis, please share), but at least their method and sources are transparent.

For the handful of faithful blog readers who have survived the extended lull, I’m back. Snowy outside, warm inside… means it’s time to post something, even if it’s just a link to a great Monday column by the Post’s David Harsanyi: “Referendum Supporters Betray GOP,” using the plainest evidence to demolish the absurd claims that Colorado’s fiscal health is somehow in crisis.

Three weeks until Coloradans cast their ballots and decide against the “forever tax increase.” With all the intraparty squabbles and dizzying number of tax measures to be decided, I can’t wait for Election Day to come. Hurry now!

Three cheers to Harsanyi for a great column to start off the week…