Mount Virtus

The Democrat Party’s intramural squabbles are intensifying, and Colorado is ground zero for the shakedown. The Denver Post reports this morning that the Teamsters’ James Hoffa, Jr., confronted Governor Bill Ritter yesterday with the threat that the party’s convention scheduled for Denver next year could “blow up” if Ritter doesn’t kowtow to the Big Labor agenda. Still a bit angry about the governor’s veto of House Bill 1072, don’t you think?

The response from Ritter’s office?

The governor has said he made the decision in order to advance a broader agenda. He declined an interview Monday on his encounter with Hoffa.

But his staff pointed to Ritter’s recent restoration of a voluntary payroll deduction for state workers that automatically covered union dues. That option had been suspended by former Republican Gov. Bill Owens.

An interesting way for the Post reporter to phrase the action, but the governor’s staff essentially admitted Ritter’s executive order was a peace offering to Big Labor: “Here, have access to the state’s payroll system.”

Meanwhile, the governor’s office has yet to speak out on the controversy [Update: I was mistaken to write this point - as the Colorado Springs Gazette reported today, Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien went a long way toward reassuring support for charter schools at a meeting yesterday.] generated by the revelation of deep-seated hatred and the viciously anti-charter school agenda of the state legislature’s two committee chairs. In today’s Rocky Mountain News, Senator Sue Windels (D-Arvada) pleads innocent for having been merely the recipient of the incendiary email.

As a result of the intense scrutiny, Windels also said she is going to let her anti-charter school bill (Senate Bill 61) go away and die. Why? In part because six senators from her own party have clearly stated they won’t support the legislation now that the sponsors’ motives have been exposed. One has to wonder how the growing numbers of pro-school choice Democrats feel about their party rewarding with power members who have a vicious hatred for their support of giving options to all parents - including many poor and minority students trapped in failing urban schools.

Governor Ritter is trapped in a brouhaha with Big Labor, with the peace offering of the state’s payroll system not enough to satisfy union appetities. What’s more, he has to be hoping the growing tensions within his party’s ranks in the state legislature over charter schools and school choice will just cool down and go away.

Leading Democrats in Colorado are busy trying to put out fires that threaten to damage the state and national coalition. Politically speaking, I can’t say I’m too distraught by the news.

But give them a chance to regroup, and the attacks on workers’ rights and school choice will resume full force.

The results are in from the unofficial Mount Virtus grassroots “Who Should Replace Wayne Allard?” straw poll. I kept the polls open a couple days longer than originally planned, but it did very little to change the final tally. So who was your first choice to be the Republican nominee for Colorado’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2008?

No surprises. While he lost some of his early commanding lead, former Congressman Bob Schaffer never trailed from start to finish - earning 54 of 120 votes cast (45%). While it’s still early to have to announce his candidacy, at the moment it looks like the field is clear for Schaffer to enter.

A crowd fought for the next four slots with about 10 percent of the vote each. Scott McInnis (who is officially OUT of the race) narrowly edged out Tom Tancredo, Bill Owens, and Marc Holtzman. Tancredo is already busy running for two offices, Owens has expressed no interest in throwing his hat into the ring, and Holtzman has been silent.

Ironically, all the remaining candidates who have expressed any interest in the open U.S. Senate seat finished in the bottom tier. Bob Beauprez, who has remained coy about whether or not he would get in the race, finished with 5%. Secretary of State Mike Coffman earned 4%. Dan Caplis, Bentley Rayburn, and Attorney General John Suthers shared the last 6 votes.

And now a brief diversion from politics & public policy:

Simply put, today is the best day on the American sports calendar. A lot of fans today are donning orange and blue to root the Florida Gators to success in an unprecedented feat: simultaneously winning back-to-back NCAA basketball titles while defeating the same school they beat to win the NCAA football title earlier in the year. Whoa! Yes, this game will be fun to watch for sure, and here’s hoping that Ohio State can make it a close contest.

But around this house today, sports fans don their blue and orange to celebrate Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. My beloved Detroit Tigers begin their American League pennant defense at home against the Toronto Blue Jays, with emerging pitching phenom Jeremy Bonderman on the mound.

Baseball fever has seized the land of my nativity with a newfound fervor, as a team coming off two long decades of futility shocked the sports world en route to last year’s Fall Classic. This year the AL Champion Tigers are back, virtually intact: with the proven powerful bat of Gary Sheffield added to the lineup to boost an offense that seemed to shy away last October against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Pitching? The Tigers are loaded - witness the fact that the loss of Kenny Rogers for half the season to a blood clot in his arm will slow Detroit down a bit but should be far from fatal. Almost every other team in the Majors would sell the farm to have the young talented combo of Bonderman - Justin Verlander - Nate Robertson - Joel Zumaya, with the amazing Andrew Miller groomed to join them soon.

Whatever the results on Opening Day, it signals the return of baseball season - the first Detroit has experienced with great hopes, expectation, and confidence in a long time. Less than 3 hours ’till Jeremy tosses out the first pitch: How sweet it is!