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July 22, 2006 10:35 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 34 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Only three weekends until the primary.

Comments

34 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread

  1. Herb Rubenstein’s ad is funny and makes a good point.
    Stop helping Rick O’Donnell and focus on the issues is a message that Ed and Peggy should both listen to.

    1. I just received Ed Perlmutter’s latest mail piece.
      В 
      Dottie Lamm is right.  Attacking someone because of their married last name is simply “despicable.”

  2. Just wanted to say that I met John Morse both yesterday and the day before, and wow!  I wrote him two $200 checks on the spot Thursday evening, and I plan to do whatever I can to help him out.  If he can get around to talk to enough people, he ought to be a great candidate for Senate district 11 against a very unpopular Ed Jones.

    (And before anyone accuses me of being John Morse’s campaign manager, remember that the last time I posted here, you all accused me of being in cahoots with Beauprez.  Am I really doing both?)

    1. but I think that is a very tough race.

      The better shot the Dems have is taking Lew Entz out.  Schwarz is raising money like there is no tomorrow and Lew isn’t.  I know the 527 money will be there for him, but he does have to have his own dough too. Plus he was dead wrong on Ref A and has a couple of very bad water votes.  When you get into the Valley and Delta County, partisan politics goes by the board when it comes to water.  You are either right on water or you are wrong, the people will vote against the candidate who is wrong on water regardless of party label.

      The sleeper and surprise race for the Dems will be Griego against Kester.

      No one is giving Griego much of a chance, but those same folks also didn’t believe that Wes McKinley could win.

      The problem with a lot of so-called ‘experts’ is that they are all in Denver and tend to see things in terms of Denver/suburban campaigns and candidates.  They constantly underestimate those from rural parts of the state, who don’t look like a ‘Denver’ candidate.  They also, really never understand the issues.

      1.   Entz hasn’t been raising money because he put his fate in the hands of Trail Head (a/k/a the Snake Head Foundation), and now it turns out that Trail Head needs to funnel all its $$$ into trying to save Both Ways’ butt in Nov. 
          If they play it wrong (and given their track record to date, they probably will), they’ll lose both the Guv race as well as Entz’ state Senate race.

        1. Lew has also never really had a tough campaign.  He ran from the valley for so many years and winning with Democratic votes because, he was ‘good old Lew’; he was right on water; he wasn’t a right wing wacko; and CEA liked him because he was good on their issues.  Basically, Lew did what he needed to do which was represent the Valley’s interests.

          That is not the case today.  His Senate district is radically different from what he has represented in the past – much of it is new to him; and as I noted above, he really stepped in it on some key water issues, plus he has fallen into the trap of taking marching orders from the R powerbrokers in Denver.

          Lew says he is up for a tough campaign but I don’t believe it.

          No money, a tough opponent (who did extremely well in SD5 counties, when she ran for Regent in the 3rd CD), and no history of working hard in campaigns.

          The best Lew can hope for now is that the Salazar brothers won’t endorse his opponent – which they won’t.  But that is the best he can hope for.

        2. The Country Club Elites are sweating over the possibility of losing all three banches in Colorado government.  BothWaysBob continues to stumble with increasingly bad votes and horrible campaigning. 

          Trailhead, slush-fund of Coors and Benson, has been on the attack but with little effectiveness.  The elitist are not going to be able to just throw money at the problem to fix it while Welker is still out there causing more damage for the GOP.  If allowing hurricane victims to suffer is a conservative value than that ideology has no moral beliefs and those who use it are full of rhetorical pandering with an agenda to cause more chaos than good.

          Ed Jones sold his district out the minute he stepped into office.  Not only does he have a very shady background, but the bills he has pushed are directly written by the Home Builders and Charter Schools (I believe he actually took a check to a committee hearing from the Charter to pay for a program, which is an a perfect example of his tenure in office of being bought and paid for by the special interests).

          1.   As Snake Head desperately tries to save Both Ways’ campaign for Guv, it’s going to pump all of its $$$ into the gubernatorial race.  At the same time, it’s going to starve marginal Republican legislative candidates (such as Lew Entz) who were counting on its largesse to get by.
              Meanwhile, as things look better for Bill Ritter the closer Nov. comes, the Dems will spread their resources around.  I predict that not only will the Dems hold both Houses of the legislature, but they’ll have a net gain of one Senate seat and a House seat or two.

        3. Can Entz survive a campaign if he did it himself instead of allowing Trailhead to run it?  I couldn’t imagine him walking door to door or making phone calls all day.  He’d rather allow a machine make the calls and radio/tv ads do all the talking for him.

          Entz is another Republican who has sold out his district to special interests.  His Ref A. stuff is good but I bet there is more out there since he has been in office going on 3 decades. 

      2. Hmm…

        – Ed Jones won in 2002 by less than 700 votes

        – Residents of the district hate Ed Jones (personal experience).  I’m involved in homeschooling groups — a rather powerful force in El Paso county that normally goes conservative — who are completely pissed of over how he lied about plans to fix homeschooling problems in SB06-073 this year (problems that were promptly fixed by Mike Merrifield in the House, thank goodness).

        – GOP leadership is afraid to associate with Ed Jones.  They are embarrassed by his actions.

        – Ed Jones still has his criminal history to deal with, though when I spoke to John Morse, he said he wouldn’t run a negative campaign.  Most people I know still remember all about it from the 2002 campaign, and there are other Democratic forces here whose restraint I very much doubt on the matter.

        – The Jones campaign has raised about $7500 so far and has only a couple thousand on hand.  The Morse campaign has raised nearly $40,000 so far and about $6000 on hand.  Except for one mailing (saying, basically, “You don’t know who John Morse is, so vote for me”), Jones hasn’t even started to campaign, and he’s still nearly broke!

        – According to the El Paso County GOP web site, Ed Jones doesn’t have a campaign web site, and hasn’t participated in any campaign events.

        Optimism?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps realism.

        (I’m not a Democrat, and although I wish you well in your endeavors, I don’t know or care much about a race in Valley and Delta counties.  I’ll just focus on making sure John Morse beats Ed Jones.)

        1. Let me be the first to point out that I should have said “shady, questionably legal history” rather than “criminal history”.  Charges were never pressed against Ed Jones for the whole cocaine thing.  What Jones has been convicted of (driving without insurance, and driving with expired license tags) falls short of the word “criminal”, and tax evasion is considered a civil matter.

          1. Dont forget he was caught lying on his resumeclaiming several basic items such as a college degree when one didn’t exist.

            Didn’t someone else do that on a much larger scale?  Didn’t David Balmer lie on his resume claiming some ridiculous jobs such as clerking for a Supreme Court Justice or playing UNC basketball? I can’t remember the specifics but I remember hearing something about Balmer lying and then transplanting to Colorado from whatever rock he had previously been hiding under.

            Which leads into another question of what other lies or secrets are Balmer, Jones and numerous other Colorado Republicans hiding?

            1. Wasn’t Balmer the one who ran unsuccessfully for office in North Carolina and was trying to pretend it had never happened?  And just what would a Republican need to do in North Carolina to lose the election?  (I mean, if they elected Jesse Helms, they’ll elect anything…..)

  3. So many have died, and so much damage done….I am simply aghast that there is not an uproar of outrage!

    As Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution writes on his foreign-affairs blog, Mr. Bush isn’t pursuing diplomacy in his post-cowboy phase so much as “a foreign policy of empty gestures” consisting of “strong words here; a soothing telephone call and hasty meetings there.” The ambition is not to control events but “to kick the proverbial can down the road — far enough so the next president can deal with it.” There is no plan for victory in Iraq, only a wish and a prayer that the apocalypse won’t arrive before Mr. Bush retires to his ranch….

    1. Bush is lazy.  The response to lazy indifference is to vote his party out of office since the opportunity to vote Bush out of office is gone.
      The question is does his incompetence and indifference to the Consitution translate into actions which constitute “high crimes etc.” I don’t know.  That is why a Democratic Congress should investigate if Bush has subverted the Consitution by ignoring the law. There is nothing else so critical.  If bombs are falling and Congress has to conduct hearings from a bunker in Green Briar, that is what it will have to do. 

    1. Yes, but they only give half of the odds line.
      They say the Dems have 4-1 odds of holding the Senate, and that implies the Republicans take it the other 75% of the time.

      They should have said the Dems were 4-1 vs the Republicans at 6-1, to give an idea of the relative ranking.

      The ‘Big Line’ numbers are pretty meaningless across the board. Unless they really think that the Green Party is going to win the Treasurer’s race more than half the time.

      If you bet $1000 on every single one of the candidates at this point, and if no third party wins, you would spend $30k and the payout would be from $34k-$160k.

  4. It would be one thing if Peggy Lamm had just married into the Lamm family a couple years ago.

    But seeing as she’s had that last name for over 20 years, it’s just bottom of the barrel sexism to attack her for it.

  5. I’m surprised and curious why the interest in the financing of the anti-C & D campaign has fallen off, given the real possibility that Norquiest used Abramoff money to at least partially fund it. 

    At the very least, it would be an entertaining investigation and set of public queries to the involved parties.

    1. Unless Tancredo is shaking up his staff, I think that job has been filled.

      When Berrick Abramson came back to Colorado and told Bill Winter he wanted to help, Bill knew that the only spot that made sense for a pro like that was a seat at the top.
      Berrick is a great fit for the campaign. After Merlino, the campaign needed to break out of the box a bit and set a course that made better use of Bill’s strengths. But now that the course is set, and the fundraising is starting to raise his race to the next level, having an experienced hand running a sensible operation is a smart move.
      Abramson showed up at the right moment, and Bill was wise to strike at the target of opportunity when it presented itself.

  6. Following is John Hazlehurst’s coverage of a debate of 6 of the 7 candidates vying for the CD-5 slot. John Anderson was absent due to other business, but they actually allowed Fawcett to debate this time!

    Pay special attention to Lamborns assessment of the minimum wage. The Gazette, predictably, let him skate on this one…

    The magnificent seven, plus or minus

    John
    Hazlehurst
    July 21, 2006
    On Monday, the National Federation of Independent Business sponsored a congressional candidate forum at the Broadmoor Golf Club. Six of the seven candidates seeking to represent Congressional District 5 were present.

    Republican John Anderson was the only absentee, having been called away to Washington on business.

    Each candidate made brief opening and closing statements. In the interim, each gave a one-minute response to eight questions posed by a media panel, which included this reporter.

    The questions covered topics such as immigration, the minimum wage, transportation, the federal budget, health care, gasoline prices and taxation.

    The event attracted a relatively sparse crowd, mainly comprised of reporters, candidate staffers and the forum’s organizers. It had a perfunctory, ritualistic flavor — clearly, the candidates were sick of campaigning, sick of the issues and sick of each other.

    The candidates responded to questions with the fluency of long practice. After months of campaigning, it seemed clear that they had honed and fine-tuned their positions, and that they were used to expressing themselves in one-minute soundbites — the inevitable consequence of a seven-candidate field.

    Asked whether the 5th Congressional District receives a fair allocation of federal transportation funding, all candidates agreed that it does not.

    Jeff Crank pointed out that we only get about 80 percent of what we contribute in gas taxes, while other candidates decried the fact that states such as West Virginia get as much as 30 percent more than they contribute.

    Lionel Rivera asserted that Colorado Springs was a special case, given our substantial military presence, and noted that he has worked diligently as mayor to bring more federal dollars to Colorado Springs.

    Every candidate pledged to bring home the transportation bacon to Colorado Springs — even Doug Lamborn, who, on his Web site, calls for lowering the federal gas tax, which would drastically reduce transportation funding to every state.

    Questioned about their plans for curtailing runaway congressional spending, all the GOPsters did an abrupt about-face, variously proclaiming their support for a balanced budget amendment, a line-item veto and/or the abolition of entire departments of the federal government.

    Crank proudly articulated his detailed plan for abolishing the deficit — “Just go to my Web site!”

    We did, and found that Crank wants to “stop wasteful park[sic]-barrel spending” by “changing the rules of the House to allow members to stop wasteful spending.”

    Uh, Jeff, I think it’s already legal for Congress not to spend.

    Crank also calls for the “General Accountability Office” to audit all major government departments and agencies. Trouble is, there’s no such organization, making one wonder whether Crank has even read his own position paper.

    Hispania News publisher Bob Armendariz posed a two-word question: minimum wage?

    The five Republicans were uniformly opposed to minimum wage legislation of any kind, implying that the minimum wage is simply an irrelevant artifact of the New Deal.

    Lamborn was particularly dismissive, saying that the only workers who actually receive the minimum wage are “kids just entering the work force and minorities, immigrants …”

    This extraordinary statement went unchallenged by any of the other candidates, although, in a conversation after the forum, Rivera acknowledged that he had been surprised by Lamborn’s remarks.

    Democrat Jay Fawcett was invariably alone in his positions. He responded to most questions with pained, Delphic pronouncements, such as “I’m not [solving problems by] signing meaningless pledges.”

    He noted that Congress has given itself three raises since last raising the minimum wage, and remarked that the national perception of Colorado Springs as a city intolerant of diversity hurts us economically.

    In response, Crank pointed out that Fawcett’s Web site features a cartoon illustration of Fawcett punching Focus on the Family chief Dr. James Dobson in the nose — “tolerance has to go both ways,” Crank said.

    Later, in discussing the estate tax, Crank again attacked Fawcett, this time for citing Warren Buffett’s opposition to the elimination of the levy: “I’m certainly not going to rely on the opinion of a Nebraska billionaire!” Crank said.

    In their closing statements, the candidates stressed their particular competencies, seeking to distance themselves from the opposition. It wasn’t an easy task for the Republicans, given that all of them are well-credentialed conservatives.

    Duncan Bremer reminded the audience that, in effect, he was a conservative when conservative wasn’t cool, having had a story published in the National Review in 1964.

    Crank talked about his intimate knowledge of Washington, while Bentley Rayburn, a recently retired Air Force major general, spoke about the value of command experience at a very high level.

    Lamborn trotted out the conservative credentials that he’s acquired after 12 years in the state legislature, having been named the No. 1 legislative taxcutter five times by the Colorado Union of Taxpayers.

    And Rivera was delighted to share the then-fresh news that Colorado Springs had been ranked the No. 1 large city in America by Money magazine.

    In a conversation after the forum, Lamborn was engagingly frank. When a reporter opined that he and Crank saw themselves as the frontrunners among social conservatives, and were each seeking to marginalize the other in order to prevent Rivera from benefiting from the split, Lamborn smiled in assent.

    And asked whether he thought that Messrs. Anderson, Bremer and Rayburn might take moderate votes from Rivera, he said, with a visible twinkle in his eye: “Well, they’ve gone this far — they should definitely stay in the race.”

    Rivera was just as forthcoming. Reminded that he had triumphed in the 2003 mayoral campaign by positioning himself as the most conservative of four incumbent council members, he was asked whether he was now trying to paint himself as the moderate conservative among ideologues.

    “I’m just the same — I haven’t changed. It’s just a different race, with different candidates. But I must be doing all right — Crank says it’s between me and Jeff, and Lamborn says it’s between me and Doug — so I guess they must both see me as the frontrunner!”

    And the “Best City” designation? While not claiming all of the credit, Rivera noted with wry amusement that, had the city been rated last instead of first, he would have received a fair share of the blame.

    And although the NFIB had organized a smoothly professional event, not everyone was happy.

    After the forum, Duncan Bremer’s campaign manager complained that, although the other candidates had been given the courtesy of titles — Sheriff Anderson, Mayor Rivera, Gen. Rayburn, Sen. Lamborn — Bremer had not. “He should have been ‘former County Commissioner Bremer,’” the exasperated staffer complained.

    During the debate, however, moderator Wayne Heilman of the Gazette eschewed all titles, sticking to a simple “mister” — a decision that may have benefited Crank, the youngest candidate, and the only one without experience as an elected official.

    So did any of the Ponderous Pachyderms lunge from the pack, and leave the rest in the dust? Nope — but we can give out some awards, anyway.

    Best Dressed: Lionel Rivera. Perfectly folded handkerchief, French cuffs with gleaming gold cufflinks, a well-cut, expensive suit. Lionel, you’re almost too well-dressed to be a politician!

    Best Posture: Bentley Rayburn. Ramrod straight, wearing his gray suit as if it were a uniform. He is the very model of a modern major general (apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan).

    Best One-Liner: Jeff Crank, for his insouciant dismissal of Warren Buffett as a “Nebraska billionaire.”

    Best Political Family: Duncan Bremer, whose four sons are all Air Force officers. Joking aside, it’s impressive that Bremer’s sons have inherited his willingness to serve his country — a characteristic which, in fairness, all of the candidates share.

    Best Excuse for Ditching the Forum: John Anderson, whose campaign manager read a statement claiming that Anderson was in Washington consulting the government about critical homeland security issues.

    Best Political Accomplishment: Doug Lamborn, who pointed out that he’d sponsored successful legislation reducing the state income tax by more than $1 billion — although he did neglect to note that the Taxpayers Bill of Rights would have required that the money be refunded anyway.

    Best Triumph of Hope over Experience: Jay Fawcett, whose credentials would make him a shoo-in for Congress … in Denver.

    And finally, another reason that Colorado Springs is No. 1: These seven serious, well-qualified, experienced and thoughtful candidates, all of whom are profoundly decent men who want to serve their country to the best of their ability.

    No wonder I decided not to run.

    1. Crank will listen to plenty of other billionaires if he gets to DC, I’m sure. They won’t be the ones who actually care about the country as a whole, but they’ll have his ear.

  7. An estimated 60 Iraqi’s are dying each day, and over 100,000 have already been killed.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/23/AR2006072300778.html

    Let’s test everyone on our three year occupation.

    Let’s start with some easy questions.
    What is the national language in Iraq?
    What are each of the neighboring states?
    What are the main religions?
    How many have died (both sides) as a result of the U.S. Invasion?
    How many U.S. soldiers (or others in the country such as reports our contract workers) have been assasinated at the hands of terrorists?
    How many have been wounded?
    What is the name and title of the current leader of Iraq?
    What type of government has been established?
    What utilities are available to the Iraqi’s? (water, power, etc.)
    What luxuries are available? (I would even included education in this column.)

    For the tough questions:
    How much intelligence was cherry picked and for what real purpose?
    How long will the occupation continue and at what cost to our military?
    Will or have our actions in Iraq caused a greater conflict to erupt, which Newt Gingrich claims to be the beginning of WWIII (and our very own right-winger John Andrews claims is WWIV).

    Please hold back the personal attacks for asking questions. Answer bluntly but also with some intelligence.  We’ve been longering for this debate which has been thrown aside during our election year for wedge issues.

    1. What is the national language in Iraq?
      Iraqese

      What are each of the neighboring states?
      (6 of them)

      1)Federation of Want a Nuke
      2)The place where the 9/11 terrorists came from
      3)Another place where the 9/11 terrorists came from
      4)The bird country
      5)A country that Matt Damon visited for a movie
      6)A really small country with oil

      What are the main religions?

      Two, Islam and Capitalism

      How many have died (both sides) as a result of the U.S. Invasion?

      Too many
      I’m guessing 100,00

      How many U.S. soldiers (or others in the country such as reports our contract workers) have been assassinated at the hands of terrorists?

      I’m guessing 500

      How many have been wounded?

      Way too many

      What is the name and title of the current leader of Iraq?

      President Jalal Talabani (which, I thought I knew but didn’t)

      What type of government has been established?

      Islamic republic

      What utilities are available to the Iraqi’s? (water, power, etc.)

      limited amounts of all

      What luxuries are available? (I would even included education in this column.)

      lucrative government contracts
      a swell business in arms
      plenty of consulting
      defense industries are doing well, too

      1. Regarding the number of deaths in Iraq; http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ says the current number of direct civilian deaths that have been independently reported by two separate reliable media sources is approximately 40,000.  Given the general figure that in modern war there’s an 8:1 ratio of civilian to military deaths, that suggests about 5000 Iraqi direct military deaths as well.  There are also nearly 3000 direct non-Iraqi deaths.  So we’re at about 50,000.

        Unfortunately, the full effect of the war is much, much greater.  The Lancet made an attempt to discern the full effect in late 2004 by comparing birth and death rates before and after the US invasion.  They concluded that a very conservative estimate is that the invasion was responsible for 100,000 Iraqi deaths as of late 2004.  The article points out, though, that their strict and conservative observance of numerical methods caused them to completely throw out numbers from Fallujah, because it qualified as an “outlier.”  Basically, death numbers there were so far above the norm that the dumb statistical methods — not knowing that Fallujah was the location of the most significant urban fighting for some time several years ago — decided that they were too high to believe.  With numbers from Fallujah included, the result would have been closer to 200,000 deaths.

        Two notes.  First, the Lancet study was very well done, but was done nearly two years ago.  One can only guess how that number has changed since then.  I’d hazard a guess that 300,000 is closer to accurate now.  Second, the Lancet study differs from http://www.iraqbodycount.net for good reasons.  The two counted different things.  Lancet counted the total net impact of the war, while http://www.iraqbodycount.net considered only reported civilian Iraqi deaths directly due to U.S. military operations.  Thus, deaths due to destruction of the infrastructure leading to starvation, disease, etc. were included in the former but not the latter.  Conversely, the Lancet study considered net impact in a sense, while the web site considers gross impact; if indeed our actions there saved any lives versus the pre-invasion circumstances, they would have been subtracted from the net difference, whereas the “body count” web site only counts deaths and not lives saved.

        Sorry of that was more than you really wanted to know.

        1. Are there other numbers, studies that are reporting different. numbers?  I had seen the last NY Times number was above 100, from a report out of the UN.

          Why is it that we can accurately count the casualties and deaths in Israel and Lebanon, a conflict we are not physically in yet, but we are unable to publish accurate numbers with regard to a country that have occupied for over three years?

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