August 01, 2008 08:47 AM UTC

Pols part of "the Left's Magnificent Machine"

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• by: NEWSMAN

(We prefer to think of ourselves as “anti-idiotarian” – promoted by Colorado Pols)

The Colorado Model: Cash

The left’s magnificent new machine!  

OPINION – Colorado Springs Gazette 07-31-2007

   The right could learn a lot from the left. This year will dramatically change politics in the United States. It’s the year old façades come crashing down. Regardless of who wins the presidency, or the majority of congressional seats, this election will change perceptions.

   Until now, Democrats have been the party of egalitarianism. The party has appeared as champion of the working class and the poor.

   Until now, Republicans have been the party of the country club elite. It has been the well-funded party of successful people who had earned or inherited wealth and desired to keep it. It wasn’t the party most characterized as fighting for average, working citizens.

   The oversimplified stereotypes were never fully accurate, but now they’re obviously upside down and inside out.

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Democrats want gourmet, expensive, organic food at their convention. No cheap grease. Big money in politics comes from the left, from benefactors such as billionaire George Soros. In Colorado, the so-called fab four – billionaire Pat Stryker, and multi-millionaires Tim Gill, Rutt Bridges, and Jared Polis – are using their fortunes in a philanthropic and successful effort to change the political landscape.

   They’re impassioned largely by a desire to defeat conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage and other rights for homosexuals. Gill and Polis are openly gay, as is Stryker’s brother Jon, who along with his sister contributes millions to promote homosexual rights and various Democratic causes. It’s new money, earned the old fashioned way by innovative entrepreneurs who know how to invent, manage, invest and succeed.

   Big money on the left is why Barack Obama was able to do what other politicians should do – he just said “no” to public funding of his campaign.

   Nowhere is the funding of politics by the big money left more apparent than in Colorado. In a cover story for the current Weekly Standard, author Fred Barnes explains what has become known nationally as “The Colorado Model” – a well-orchestrated plan by Democrats to spend heavily in red states and make them blue. Barnes explained a confidential memo written by a Democratic consultant in January that outlined plans for Democrats to spend $11.7 million this year to crush Colorado Republicans. The plan involved spending $5.1 million to defeat Republican Senate candidate Bob Schafier and $2.6 million to defeat Rep. Marilyn Musgrave. Both oppose same-sex marriage.

   But the bluing of Colorado involves more than throwing money at Democratic wins and Republican losses. In his article, Barnes explains seven “capacities” for a successful, large-scale political strategy: generate intellectual ammunition; pursue investigations of opponents; mobilize for elections; ffight opposing media bias; pursue strategic litigation; train new leaders; and sustain a presence in the new media. And Barnes, with the help of Independence Institute president Jon Caldara, explains how seven new liberal political organizations in Colorado cover all relevant bases. They are: ProgressNowAction.org, similar to the national MoveOn.org; Bighorn and Bell, a think tank; Colorado Media Matters, a local version of the national Media Matters; Colorado Ethics Watch; Colorado Independent; the Center for Progressive Leadership Colorado; ColoradoPols.com ; and SquareState.net.

   “That covers all seven capacities,” Barnes wrote.

   In the old days, it was called a political machine. Some circumstances can help an underdog take on the powers of even a finely tuned, well-oiled political machine. Take, for example, Colorado’s United States Senate Race. Conventional wisdom early on held the race wouldn’t be close. Democrat Mark Udall would win in a landslide against Republican Bob Shafier, who began taking on Goliath and with a bungled ad.

   A Washington Post/Quinnipiac University/Wall Street Journal poll in late July, however, showed that Shaffer had pulled forward to run neck-and-neck with Udall at 44 percent. By a solid margin, likely voters said they were more concerned with a candidate’s energy policy than anything else. Shaffer wants more oil. Udall wants wind and solar and hybrid cars – luxuries only the rich can afford for now.

   In other words, the just plain ordinary average working class people of Colorado may want to elect someone who favors fuel that will work for the homes and cars they already have. Comparing Shaffer and Udall, Shafier emerges the populist.

   Regardless, the Colorado Model is the example of how it should be done. It’s bright, shiny and new, and it’s something the right should covet. It’s not dissimilar from what drove conservative victories in the ’80s and ’90s, when the right had cohesive organizations, a clear ideology, a spirit of unity, and loads of cash. It’s ethical, it’s fair, and it’s the American political way.

   The right has a machine, but it predates fuel injection and badly needs servicing. Costly fuel may provide it a needed break, but an overhaul must begin soon if the right wants to compete long term.

http://daily.gazette.com/Repos…