Mount Virtus

Colorado’s mega-rich liberals Tim Gill and Pat Stryker have it in for conservative Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, who has represented northeastern Colorado since 2003. They have spent countless amounts of money trying to unseat her in the past two election cycles, and are committed to doing it again. This time they believe they have a winning candidate in Democrat Betsy Markey, someone to fulfill their obsession.

But this video clip of Betsy Markey trying to explain her position on the poorly-named Employee Free Choice Act shows that Tim Gill and Pat Stryker still have some work to do with their out-of-touch candidate:

As the Labor Pains blog points out, this is the same Betsy Markey who has sought to woo small businesses but struggles to explain why she supports Big Labor legislation that is unpopular, would needlessly harm business owners - and take away workers’ secret ballots.

It looks like Betsy Markey has just handed Marilyn Musgrave an easy talking point for part of a winning message, thus making a bigger bill for Tim Gill and Pat Stryker to pay if they want to overcome it and somehow find a way to win. It will be hard for Markey to paint her incumbent opponent as out of touch when she is so out of touch on the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Lefties might need to cut back their expectations for their 4th Congressional district darling.

Public confidence in the U.S. Congress has never registered lower than it does today under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid:

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.

The level of cynicism is stunning across the board (only 13% support from Democrats, 8% from Republicans, 3% from unaffiliated voters). Based on what Townhall columnist Jon Sanders pointed out last year when Congress’ approval rating was 14 percent, as many Americans believe that astrology is “very scientific” as believe that Congress is doing a good job. Twice as many (19%) believe that Elvis may still be alive. Which of the three groups clings to a wackier belief?

For a more serious analysis of the Rasmussen poll and what it indicates about voter sentiments and realities vs. perceptions, check out Rossputin’s take.

As a baseball sentimentalist and lifelong Detroit Tigers fans, this is painful to read:

A much bigger swath of Tiger Stadium is coming down today as efforts to save part of it keep amping up.

A ragged hole the size of a baseball diamond is now gashed into the north end of the stadium, near the corner of Trumbull and Fisher Freeway West service drive.

The historic stadium is a scene of massive back hoes and smoke from the crumbling cement and iron within the chain-link fence area where demolition is taking place. Beyond the hole, the blue and orange seats can be seen and the grass field itself still looks inviting and green.

It also looks like one more big swing from a wrecking ball is all it will take for the left field bleachers on the upper deck to pass into history.

On the other side of the fence along the freeway service drive, a growing number of grown men are clutching video cameras and walking around, shaking their heads as they document the moment.

Ah, the memories of a classic ballpark with a unique character and history all its own….

Today at the Schaffer v Udall blog, I gladly take the opportunity to quickly correct a small mistake while getting another chance to emphasize a major point:

As the National Republican Senatorial Committee documented well, it took Mark Udall two-and-a-half years after 9/11 to drop his co-sponsorship of the Department of Peace: March 17, 2004. Coincidentally, though, it came one week after he first announced he was running for U.S. Senate. Does anyone still want to argue credibly that he changed his position on the issue because of 9/11? Or is it much clearer now that the move is part of Boulder liberal Mark Udall’s careful calculation to remake his image as he runs for statewide office?

You can read the whole thing here.

Other recent highlights from the blog on Colorado’s U.S. Senate campaign:
- Thanking Mark Udall for the Gas Price Pain that Keeps Many Home This Fourth of July
- Greeley Parade Officials Boost Mark Udall, Leave Out Own Board Rep Bob Schaffer
- A reminder to submit your questions to 9News for the upcoming July 14 debate between Bob Schaffer and Mark Udall

Rocky Mountain Right has posted a video from last night’s Bill O’Reilly Show that demonstrates Colorado Governor Bill Ritter isn’t ready for primetime:

Bill Ritter recently was approached by a Fox News reporter asking a simple question about sex offender laws. Ritter proceeded to stammer, become visibly frustrated, and try to escape as soon as possible. Other Governors approached with the same question (Butch Otter of Idaho and Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming) performed far better and calmly responded.

The observation is correct: Bill Ritter sure doesn’t look ready for primetime in this video. But maybe there’s another explanation, or some sort of mitigating circumstances that haven’t been explored.

The stresses and frustrations could be mounting from his campaign scandals that have left legal defense fund victims in his wake. Or maybe Bill Ritter is getting nervous that the state supreme court has yet to come through with the “legal” fix on his unauthorized property tax increase.

In any case, Rocky Mountain Right certainly has a point:

If the Democrats are planning on showcasing a Western governor to the media during the convention they might want to see what Brian Schweitzer is doing instead and abandon any plans they might have to put Ritter in front of a camera.

Well-said. With each passing week, the Denver Post’s assessment that Bill Ritter may be the state’s first one-term governor in more than a generation makes more and more sense.

Hooray, a positive - and promising - development in Colorado’s center-right blogosphere has emerged. The conservative-leaning news site Face The State announces its “Blog Wrangler”.

The Wrangler features some of the latest posts on this page. It doesn’t update as quickly as the Rocky Mountain Alliance feed (see sidebar of any member’s page), but then again it’s more attractively laid out and covers a broader collection of blogs.

Face The State also has what looks like a comprehensive list of Colorado center-right bloggers - I’ll have to compare it to my own blogroll some time.

Several of us bloggers out here are glad to see Face The State take on this complementary role, even if we wished it had come sooner. (But “don’t look back.”) They tell me even more features are on their way.

There is an interesting contrast in two blog commentaries on the recent story of Vince Chowdhury, the Jefferson County Board of Education member and Democrat state house candidate who allegedly choked his daughter in a recent incident reported by The Columbine Courier. He denied the choking, but admitted to losing his temper and slapping her. In any case, Chowdhury was arrested for domestic violence.

Denise at Colorado Charter Schools makes the adamant point that Vince Chowdhury should resign from the school board:

Elected officials responsible for making decisions on behalf of children must adhere to high moral standards. They act on behalf of tens of thousands of children every day. Our children are too precious to have someone with Chowdhury’s character representing them.

Denise had nothing to say about whether Vince Chowdhury should stay in the state house race, which makes sense. The issue is the prerogative of Democratic party officials, and by extension their new media arms.

Speaking of which, ColoradoPols echoes the plea of state Democratic party officials that Vince Chowdhury should step down from his legislative campaign (there’s another Democrat candidate to step in and take his place), but are silent on whether he should quit the school board. The question of his elected position on the school board, though (unlike his status as a candidate) represents a broader public trust. The Jefferson County citizens whom Chowdhury represents have the obligation to speak - especially those with two major platforms like Democrat county commissioner candidate and ColoradoPols proprietor Jason Bane.

I have yet to see any reports confirming that Vince Chowdhury will either step down from the school board or drop out of the state house race. But I agree with Denise and ColoradoPols’ combined assessment: He should withdraw on both fronts. It would be nice to hear Jason Bane say the same.

Just found the different emphasis of the two blogs quite interesting.

Liberal Denver Post editorialist Bob Ewegen wants readers to believe he is really concerned about the plight of the Republican Party, so he sends us this warning:

…[U]nions are enjoying something of a revival in Colorado, especially in the public sector, and they are a vital source of political volunteers and campaign funds.

That’s why spitting in labor’s face in the name of “right to work” may well awaken the sleeping giant of the Colorado union movement in 2008 just as it did a half-century ago — with similar woeful results to the GOP.

Bob Ewegen is cloaking his antipathy for workplace freedom in the garb of concern for the Grand Old Party’s political welfare. While it’s unclear how well Amendment 47 will fare at the ballot box (probably better than 1958), you can still color me skeptical.

Why? When last we found Ewegen tackling the topic of Right to Work, he misused statistics (also here) to make a weak case against emancipating workers from mandatory fees for union services.

Now, apparently, a phony plea for compassion toward Republicans is at the bottom of Ewegen’s anti-Right to Work ammunition cache. Brer Rabbit was more convincing.

Interestingly, though, to make his case, Ewegen admits how the landscape of Colorado campaign laws is tilted in the direction of labor unions:

But — ominously for Republicans’ legislative hopes — campaign finance laws have also changed, in a way that reinforces the still sizable clout of organized labor.

Amendment 27, the 2002 Colorado campaign finance law written by Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, allows labor unions to contribute up to $4,000 to candidates to the legislature. Businesses and private citizens are limited to one-tenth as much as unions can contribute, no more than $400 per election season.

That’s because Amendment 27 allows “small donor committees” to give politicians 10 times as much as any other person or group if they get only $50 or less per contributor. Unions are well positioned to exploit that loophole because, for example, the Colorado Association of Public Employees/Service Employees International Union, can deduct $4 a month from a member’s $15 monthly dues for political purposes and count the resulting $48 a year as a “small donor” contribution from a member who may not even be aware that she made that particular “donation.”

What an admission! The funny thing is the unknowing political “donation” to a union that Ewegen acknowledges also may come from a worker who never chose to join or to give money to the union in the first place. Right-to-work would solve that problem.

Any group that has Big Labor’s sort of privilege and clout doesn’t need its favorite local columnist to be shedding crocodile tears on its behalf - or on behalf of the Republican Party.

Today marks 120 days until the November 4 general election - 120 days of obnoxious pandering by Presidential candidates, 120 days of campaign television and radio ads, 120 days for lovers of the Republic to hold their collective breath. Sigh.

Speaking of candidate pandering, Barack Obama’s recent whiplash-inducing rush away from his Leftist voting record and positions should give cause for concern. As one noted for his aptitude at quoting Scripture out of context, though, Barack Obama does have a ready-made passage he can abuse to justify his major switcheroos:

I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

Of course, it goes without saying that I Corinthians 9:22 doesn’t say anything of the sort that would justify Barack Obama’s waffling. But the thought that he “might save some” of us from ourselves fits right in with his messianic complex. And the way this campaign has unfolded so far, I wouldn’t be shocked if Obama did quote this passage some day soon on the trail.

Now back to summertime and the non-political life.

Happy Independence Day to all fine Americans - who shouldn’t be reading this blog, but should be enjoying the time with family and friends - picnics, fireworks, outdoor fun, the whole bit. And hopefully celebrating the “true reason” for the holiday.

In that spirit, here are some suggestions. You could listen to Jon Caldara reading the full text of the Declaration of Independence, or read a fine brief essay published last year by the Independence Institute from Don Beezley.

If you only have less than 2 minutes, here’s a new YouTube from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation commemorating the Fourth of July:

Happy Independence Day!

Update: An astute observer has corrected a factual mistake. James Madison wrote “much of” - not “most of” - the Federalist. Alexander Hamilton wrote more, though Madison wrote many of the key essays that frame the meaning of Union. My faux pas.

The following is adapted and expanded from an email listserv essay I wrote recently, inspired initially in response to the following phrase someone had written: “The American Republic created by the founding fathers was destroyed by the civil war….” Here is my argument why libertarians should think long and hard before embracing a defense of the Confederate cause:

Quite simply, the noble libertarian impulse to champion resistance to government encroachment on people’s freedoms has led many astray to assail the Union’s cause during the Civil War and to embrace the validity of the Confederate cause.

This is not to imply in the contemporary spirit of relativist debate that holding this reflexive position necessarily makes one a racist or slavery apologist. But the line of argument that has been used takes the misguided tack of placing all blame on the eventual victors of the Civil War, while giving short shrift to the question of the war’s causation. Understanding who is responsible for the war and the political context of the era shrouds the ability to cast easy reflexive judgments against Lincoln that can be used to draw a straight line of rising statist oppression from then until now.
Read the rest of this entry »

Greg Kolomitz, once upon a time the campaign manager for Gov. Bill Ritter, is now embroiled in a bitter legal showdown with his former boss over campaign violations totaling $300,000 (or more). Interestingly, Kolomitz’s laptop computer (containing relevant, important records) disappeared under mysterious circumstances just as the story went public.

Now the Denver Post reports that Greg Kolomitz now is raising money to defend himself legally against alleged “false accusations,” apparently made by Bill Ritter:

The e-mail plea never mentions Ritter by name, but leaves no doubt about who the family thinks is responsible for the “false” accusations that led to an ongoing investigation of Kolomitz.

“We have found ourselves in a legal battle with someone whom we believed to be our friend. Someone who Greg (and I to a lesser extent) gave our lives to — in a political battle — to elect as governor of our wonderful state, Colorado,” wrote Carla Lucero Kolomitz, in an e-mail circulated to the couple’s friends.

This certainly isn’t a first (Just ask Cory Voorhis): Candidate and Governor Bill Ritter has been leaving a trail of legal defense fund victims in his wake.

It was 145 years ago today that one of the more heroic and decisive - if also perhaps too well-known - actions in our nation’s Civil War took place. If you’ve seen the movie Gettysburg, then you know just what I’m talking about: The daring and desperate charge by the 20th Maine volunteer infantry regiment from its position on the far left flank of the Union line.

Led by Colonel (and future Governor) Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the 20th Maine swung down Little Round Top in the late afternoon of July 2 and captured numerous members of a Confederate raiding force that threatened a critical breakthrough in its own desperate Pennsylvania invasion. Chamberlain and the 20th Maine’s successful counter-charge played a pivotal role in setting the stage for General Robert E. Lee to dare the ill-fated Pickett’s Charge the following day.

Huzzah to Colonel Chamberlain and his 358 men, 131 of whom were killed or wounded atop Little Round Top that day. And to other lesser known regiments who paid an especially brutal price in the three-day fight at Gettsyburg, especially the 24th Michigan and 1st Minnesota.

Fort Collins blogger Andrew Boucher caught my attention by reprinting this snippet of an observation from the learned political guru Michael Barone:

Jefferson County, Colo. Suburbs west of Denver. The inner Denver suburbs have been trending Democratic in recent years, and I expect Jefferson County will trend more that way this year. It voted 63 percent to 36 percent for Obama over Hillary Clinton in the caucus this year, but only 14,000 participated—far fewer than the 271,000 that voted in the 2004 general election. My impression is that this county, like many inner suburbs, is becoming more downscale; the big population growth of young affluent families is to the south, in Douglas County. One problem for Barack Obama is that he may not do well with an expanding Hispanic population.

It seems as though I live in one of five counties nationwide that may decide the Presidential election. There’s no doubt that Jefferson County (mostly the northern and eastern parts) have been trending Democratic during this decade. However, it will be interesting to see how well Barack Obama does among the area’s Hispanic population, and how that support will translate down ticket.

It was my privilege to spend time with Fred Barnes - executive editor of Weekly Standard and co-host of Fox News Beltway Boys - at yesterday evening’s Colorado Rockies game. Thanks to Tom Roche of Roche Constructors, Inc., for generously providing an extra seat in his guest suite (which included a nice spread of baseball-friendly food and fixings), and to my Independence Institute colleague Amy Oliver for inviting me along. It was the first time to Coors Field for Fred Barnes, an avid fan of baseball, most especially (and regrettably) of the Boston Red Sox.

Fred Barnes has been a guest of the Independence Institute in the Denver area for the past several days - centered around his keynote speaking appearance at Saturday’s ATF Party.

I had last seen Fred Barnes give a speech at my alma mater Hillsdale College in days long past. But I’d never had the privilege of sitting down and talking to him in-depth before. With Amy and others, we talked about education, state issues, national politics, international events, and of course, baseball.

Fred asked before the game what had been the cause of the Rockies’ 2008 woes. By the end of the game, he had seen it for himself: a 15-8 late-innings drubbing brought on by a bullpen collapse. With the numerous home runs and other extra-base hits, he also got to witness firsthand just how well the ball travels in Coors Field’s mile-high air. For many of us our first time watching Hall of Fame-bound pitcher Greg Maddux in person, we also all got to witness the aging veteran as the winning San Diego Padres’ only lowlight. Strange.

Yesterday evening was memorable for the way it brought together three of my favorite pastimes: baseball, politics, and food. And I confirmed that the real Fred Barnes is very much the Fred Barnes heard on radio and seen on TV.

Barack Obama has a new television ad that’s airing in 18 states, including here in Colorado. Marc Ambinder has the video and transcript:

OBAMA: I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message. Announcer: He worked his way through college and Harvard Law. Turned down big money offers, and helped lift neighborhoods stung by job loss. Fought for workers’ rights. He passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by eighty percent. Passed tax cuts for workers; health care for kids. As president, he’ll end tax breaks for companies that export jobs, reward those that create jobs in America. And never forget the dignity that comes from work.

Very cleverly worded to exaggerate Barack Obama’s role on each of the main points taken from his record as an Illinois state legislator. Of course, someone with only legislative experience couldn’t “pass” bills, unless he provided a decisive vote or decisive support in a close tally. The Washington Post makes it clear that Obama was just a legislative sponsor or co-sponsor for the “tax cuts for workers” (which passed 59-0) and the welfare roll back (which passed 56-1).

In the case of the 2000 Illinois earned income tax credit, Barack Obama signed on as a co-sponsor the day after the bill passed the state senate. The 1997 state law cutting Illinois’ welfare rolls was done to comply with the federal reform passed by President Clinton and a Republican Congress, and Obama dragged his feet in agreeing to the Illinois senate bill: “I am not a defender of the status quo with respect to welfare. Having said that, I probably would not have supported the federal legislation, because I think it had some problems.”

What about the health insurance program for kids? It’s indisputable that Barack Obama (aka Obamessiah) is responsible for expanding state-sponsored health insurance in Illinois. The bill, passed in 2003, cost the state of Illinois $26 million at a time it faced a very difficult $3.6 billion deficit.

The rest of the story of Barack Obama’s ad? Fiscal responsibility, and honesty, aren’t exactly his strong suits, especially when trying to bolster a very thin record of very limited accomplishments. Something for Coloradans to keep in mind as this ad assaults us on the airwaves in the coming days and weeks. Don’t worry, though … the Obamessiah has promised “hope” and “change”.

Monday morning, little time to write. As I get ready to head back for another week of work, I ironically find this posting for a job that probably isn’t in my future. Given my credentials, I doubt I would even get a phone call for an interview. Oh, well.

If you’re running a statewide ballot initiative campaign, these are the kind of numbers you want to see:

A national survey conducted jointly by the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post.com, and Quinnipiac University released Thursday shows that the majority of Colorado voters — Democrat and Republican alike — overwhelmingly support Amendment 46, also known as the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative. The proposed constitutional amendment would prohibit government from considering race or gender in education, government employment, or public contracting.

The poll, conducted last week, showed that 66 percent of all voters surveyed were supportive of the initiative’s language, with just 15 percent saying they were opposed. Democrats were much more likely to support the initiative than Republicans, with 71 percent of all registered Democrats surveyed supporting the initiative’s language, compared to 61 percent of all registered Republicans.

The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative is a winning issue for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it’s eminently fair, decent, and reasonable. (If this is the best argument against the Initiative, there is no wonder it’s polling so high.) The survey results are good news for Amendment 46.