February 05, 2011 07:57 PM UTC

Defense Denver and the Romies

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• by: bullshit!

I’ve been paying more attention to this “Defense Denver” recall campaign against a member of the Denver Public Schools board mostly because of the angry and confrontational way they and their supporters have conducted themselves on this blog. I have no dog in this recall fight one way or the other, even though I am always sympathetic to those who want to defend our public schools. I don’t favor charter schools or vouchers, and I thought SB 191 was a terrible idea. Talk to me when we’re funding the schools properly. In short, you could call me persuadable.

I noted early on that a lot of the same voices from last years’ Democratic primary between Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff (on Romanoff’s side) seemed to be part of this recall campaign. Apparently some of the issues had been going on before that campaign, as I was informed of soon after my first comment, but that was the first time I ever became aware of the conflict. I’d guess that’s the case for a lot of people.

During the Romanoff campaign, I was personally put off of supporting Romanoff because of what I thought was contrived, over the top rage, and just overall unpleasant behavior, from Romanoff supporters. I saw this behavior both at campaign events and daily on this blog, and it really disgusted me. I objected to being told that my choice between two Democrats, neither of whom were very “progressive,” made me some kind of sellout or corporate whore or what the fuck ever. It was just a lot of angry meaningless bullshit.

But that’s how the Romanoff supporters played. If you disagreed with them, they got really very personally angry with you. As time went on, I began to realize that these were, in many cases, people who liked being angry. And they were angry by deliberate choice and design: Pat Caddell? Hello?

After Romanoff lost the primary, I know a lot of them were very upset. But over at Squarestate, they were posting NRSC commercials against Bennet! When I saw that last October, I knew that the diehard Romies were more than just upset.

They were off the deep end.

Now it’s February, and the same people who turned Colorado Pols into a daily ridiculous flamewar are at it again over this DPS recall. They seem to have misattributed a lengthy (and imo, excellent) post by a diarist, NOT the anonymous authors, which was promoted by another diarist, again NOT the anonymous authors of this blog, as a post by Colorado Pols themselves. They then proceeded to attack the authors of the blog as if they had written this post, never once stopping to notice that they look like complete idiots.

Even stranger, they are trying to drag an organization I respect, Progress Now, into their conspiracy theory, even though Progress Now is promoting their event with Diane Ravitch later this month. I got a wonderful email this week from them inviting me, hosted by Defense Denver and sponsored by Progress Now. I’m planning to attend.

Ladies and gentlemen, what the fuck?

I think the people promoting Defense Denver on the internets are waaaayyyy out of touch with reality. It looks to me like they are acting out their anger over Romanoff’s defeat with this recall of Nate Easley, and as tit-for-tat over the attempted recall of Andrea Merida. I don’t know much about Andrea Merida either, but I know what I think about this given what I do know.

And in the process you are alienating people who might otherwise support what you are doing. Maybe, if we could judge it on the merits. But as I see it, you guys have a chip on your shoulder that has little to do with Nate Easley. Your instantaneous name-calling at the first sign of being questioned is as ridiculous as it was when you did it for Romanoff. But above all, the compulsion to get revenge for losing last year’s primary is pathetic and transparent, and undermines everything. If the people running your operation have a brain among them, they will fire you all and replace you with people who can keep their eyes on the prize.

Being assholes to the people you need to convince didn’t work then, and I predict it won’t work now. Reading back through all these stupid, self destructive comments in the last week from supporters of Defense Denver, I felt the need to say so in long form.