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January 02, 2012 04:45 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 58 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“The future will be better tomorrow.”

–Dan Quayle

Comments

58 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread

  1. Was talking to a friend (and fellow Polster — so he might pipe up with his perspective) yesterday about what to do in an election year where you have time and energy to make a difference, but feel burned out. My suggestion was to adopt just one candidate, who needs the help and who you can really, enthusiastically support, and ignore every other race if that’s what it takes to keep you motivated to put feet to the street and log call time for at least one person who really deserves the office they’re seeking (or seeking to remain in).

    Whatcha think? And if you like it, who would you recommend adopting? I’d put Brian Carroll up for adoption, following the recent chatter here about how much potential he has but how hard he’d need to work to really realize it when he’s starting without the massive personal network many first-time candidates have built over the years.

      1. I think working for local candidates; city, county and leg is superior. The more local the better. In a lousy economy land use and it’s development is critical. The leg is important to prevent restrictions from being applied by the state to local conditions except when necessary and the cities and counties are locally in control of land use and any positive development that can affect a local economy.

    1. If we’re talking about one of those people who is very conscious that some candidates simply can’t win–and wants to be able to make a difference without having to think about where to spend their time/money… that’s a question with no good answer. After all, how without thinking can a person decide which advice to follow?

      My tip would be to caution against taking a one-candidate approach. On the one hand, if you help a candidate whose message is more conservative or liberal than your own, because they’re better than the alternative–but then it turns out your choice was destined to win in a landslide, all your effort turns out to have been to support a message you don’t really support, and had no impact on the actual outcome. Alternately, I know a few people who took the one-candidate-only approach to supporting Betsy Markey in 2010… that can be a recipe for burn-out.

      One thing they could consider is finding one outside group they really value (I might pick CleanSlateNow.org or the Colorado Conservation Voters) which does electoral work–but does their on-the-ground work in an issue-focused way that also raises the profile of the issue and the stakes for candidates who don’t pay attention to it. So that can be a good home for someone looking to help without burning out. Plus then you know that a professional at least ostensibly did some serious thinking about which candidates are viable, as well as which races can help make the issue higher-profile, and made an honest effort to spend your time wisely. This has it’s own pitfalls–sometimes orgs are less interested in winning political victories or changing people’s minds than in raising their own profile or raising money–so this route too requires thinking.

      Another way to go would be to commit to a certain amount of time–say Monday nights, or something–and change where you spend it anytime you feel like it isn’t being spent well, because some campaigns put volunteers to work much more intelligently and efficiently than others.

  2. It’s not the Ann Selzer-gold standard of the Iowa caucuses, but PPP has some new numbers out tonight from a two-day tracking poll that show the race tightly bunched at the top, with Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum all within two points of one another.

    The numbers are:  Paul is at 20 percent,  Romney at 19 percent,  Santorum at 18 percent, Newt Gingrich at 14 percent, Rick Perry at 10 percent, and Michele Bachmann at 8 percent.

    Remember Huckabee? Now Paul or Santorum,  completely hopeless potential national candidates, could finish first? At what point do the talking heads stop treating the fringe that is Republican caucus goers in Iowa as a great big relevant deal?  

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/

      1. But these really far out there crazies never make it all the way. Unfortunately it’s still perfectly possible for more garden variety empty suit morons, like GW,  and slick, well rehearsed but demented old men, like Reagan for second term, to get by. Not to mention all kinds of 1984 style black is white, up is down, sound bite messaging.

        My point was that the Iowa GOTP caucus electorate is now so far out of the main stream, it may never again predict an actual presidential winner. About time for states like Iowa and New Hampshire, so irrelevant to the national demographics, to lose their anachronistic places.

        Even though the Dem electorate in Iowa isn’t so extreme, mainly because there isn’t any wing of the Democratic electorate that is that extreme, it’s even less demographically related to the Dem party as a whole. The premiere run up states need to change.  Iowa is more like a media event mainly for the entertainment of the media as it stands now.  

        1. Imagine the revenue local and statewide media (and other businesses) are enjoying, no doubt far beyond their usual income.  They and the politicos will work very hard to keep their money machine going.

          Not sure how we get Iowa out of first-in-time place, without moving the primaries and caucuses even earlier into the year PRIOR to the election.  The campaign for President goes on far too long already.  States like Colorado should dream up their own Presidential campaign media event — doesn’t have to be a statewide primary or caucuses — could be a chili cookoff or an athletic event for contenders . . .

    1. At the End of Paths Taken, that looked at life and parenting from a parent’s perspective.

      The final cut, “My Only Guarantee”, is a ballad sung from a mother to her child.  I couldn’t find anything linkable on the web — and I do recommend the entire album highly; it’s definitely worth a listen — but here’s the lyrics:

      Keep it coming

      I’ve got your back

      Do not fear

      When I’m on deck

      A bigger lie I’ve never told

      A bigger story yet to unfold

      My only guarantee: i will fuck you up

      Another day

      Of pure energy

      What wears most

      Is the constancy

      A bigger job I’ve never had

      A bigger burden I could not drag

      My only guarantee: I will fuck you up

      Strange how things

      Come about

      Will I ever know

      How things turn out

      A bigger wish I’ve never known

      A bigger question I’m trying to hone

      My only guarantee: I will fuck you up

  3. just watched him on C Span in Polk City, IA. Makes a good stump presentation, has all his talking points ready to go. I think of the current IA front runners he is the most threatening and not just because every letter in the word ‘anus’ is in his last name

  4. Thought-provoking column from Charles Krauthammer (not someone with whom I often agree with) on putting the role of politics into perspective with our civilization’s future:

    Modern satellite data, applied to the Drake Equation, suggest that the number (of advanced civilizations in the universe) should be very high. So why the silence? Carl Sagan (among others) thought that the answer is to be found, tragically, in the final variable: the high probability that advanced civilizations destroy themselves.

    Rather than despair, however, let’s put the most hopeful face on the cosmic silence and on humanity’s own short, already baleful history with its new Promethean powers: Intelligence is a capacity so godlike, so protean that it must be contained and disciplined. This is the work of politics – understood as the ordering of society and the regulation of power to permit human flourishing while simultaneously restraining the most Hobbesian human instincts.

    There could be no greater irony: For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics and other manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty – statecraft). Because if we don’t get politics right, everything else risks extinction.

    We grow justly weary of our politics. But we must remember this: Politics – in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations – is sovereign in human affairs. Everything ultimately rests upon it.

    So my wish for 2012 and beyond is that we redouble our efforts to encourage the best and brightest to become politicians, and that we elect them to serve in the long term best interests of our nation, not just for the here and now.

    1. Our nation isn’t going to bear any resemblance to the United States of America  that is “exceptional” (it already has lost a  legitimate claim to hat status) with indefinite detention, torture, third world banana republic economy of by and for the tiny elite and no access to affordable health care or education, much less prosperity, for the rest if we can’t do something political about it. We’re in the last stages of life support as anything resembling the land of the free we’re all supposed to feel so love it or leave it about.

      1. I am one of those that believes the fate of this nations’ middle class hangs on this election. If the “freemarket” corporate establishment succeeds in beating President Obama, the political game will be over and the anarchy begins.

          1. As a lame duck, I expect a bit more independence from the influence of K Street.

            What will really make a difference is a plethora of candidates supporting public election financing and refusing corporate, union, and PAC cash. If we, the voters, make it happen, it can happen. Otherwise…I’m thinking of emigrating.  

      2. But the thoughts in Krauthammer’s column that struck me as worthy of note were:

        … the regulation of power to permit human flourishing while simultaneously restraining the most Hobbesian human instincts.

        and:

        Because if we don’t get politics right, everything else risks extinction.

        So he and I agree on the importance of the role of government in restraining the baser actions of those with too much power, and the need for politicians to be the instruments of that restraint.

        While seemingly odd that a conservative would put it that way, I find that to be somewhat reassuring.  How to put that principle into effect obviously is where conservatives and progressives differ.  But having that conversation is the beginning of the exercise of statecraft, unlike the current phoney talking points-driven pandering to the GOTP going on in Iowa, etc.

        I believe 2012 will be the low point of the pendulum swing for the GOP.  Once they reach the absolute bottom this year, I hope we see them swing back toward a more moderate position, and exhibit a new willingness to compromise and partner with the Democrats in office to truly govern our nation.

        Watching the Cantor interview on 60 Minutes with the off-screen heckling from his PR guy “That’s not true” (re: Reagan’s willingness to compromise with Dems and raise taxes), I think that sort of denial of reality will blow back on Cantor and hasten his exit from influence.

        1. I believe 2012 will be the low point of the pendulum swing for the GOP.

          2012 Senate seats are gonna be hard won in Hawaii, Virginia, Mass, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mex, CT, Ohio and Wisconsin.  If Senate tips GOP & House stays red then the GOP not only has us in the ditch but is gunning the engine to boot.  There’s plenty more bottom for the righties.

          Regardless of the GOP candidate the electorate will begrudgingly get behind Obama when the GOP asks “are you better off now than before”?  We’re out of 1 war, economy is clawing & scraping itself back upwards (but not out of the ditch yet) and we definitely seem more stable than our EU partners.

          Once they reach the absolute bottom this year, I hope we see them swing back toward a more moderate position, and exhibit a new willingness to compromise and partner with the Democrats in office to truly govern our nation.

          Wow & I hope for a fuzzy rainbow unicorn with death ray laser eyes … wonder which will happen first.  

          GOP can’t & won’t compromise because that is the only slim sliver of cred they have with their hard right base.  These asses have signed so many TeaBag pledges that they piss themselves in fear of remotely seeming moderate.

          Watching the Cantor interview on 60 Minutes with the off-screen heckling from his PR guy “That’s not true” (re: Reagan’s willingness to compromise with Dems and raise taxes), I think that sort of denial of reality will blow back on Cantor and hasten his exit from influence.

          No Way.  Cantor won’t quit until he’s Speaker — his blade is sharp & his cabal is growing.  Boehner’s days are running out(just like the scotch in his hip flask) and he’d much rather be ponied up to a bar sucking on some lobbyist freebies than continuing to deal w/ all the crap.

          Boehner doesn’t have strength to deliver any $$s or support to GOP Reps in close races.  Cantor can & will. Cantor has made himself a player and has always managed to stay in every photo op smirking his smart-ass smile behind the orange man.  Cantor sees his star ascending & ’12 will be is year (until his hubris brings him down).  

          1. No doubt:

            2012 Senate seats are gonna be hard won in Hawaii, Virginia, Mass, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mex, CT, Ohio and Wisconsin.  If Senate tips GOP & House stays red then the GOP not only has us in the ditch but is gunning the engine to boot.

            And as that stark possibility sinks in to the electorate this year, finally acknowledged by a less lapdoggish media, I do believe however Pollyannaish of me, that November will show most of Cantor’s TP-cabal freshmen to the door.  If Cantor unseats Boehner in this year’s session, all the better to expose Cantor’s extreme agenda as the rancid sham that it is. The more the GOP caters to the hard-right base, the faster and deeper their fall.

            True, my optimism is based on events that won’t be confirmed until November, but we’ve all got the next ten months to put our beliefs into constructive action.  That’s really the point of my previous posts.

        2. Krauthammer favors.  Few righties have more ugly, poisonous views than he does. Nope, I’m never going to give him credit for anything that could possibly be construed in a positive light.  Can’t do it. He’s absolutely I-want-to-scrape-it-off-my-shoe-with-a-very-long-stick-then-burn-the-shoe-then-burn-the-stick repulsive in every way. Even his face, which in his case, makes for a good window into his horrible shriveled soul.  

      3. But I think we can turn it around. It’s going to take every single one of us, though, to get up off our butts and go out and get everybody else off their butts. Use those First Ammendment rights like we’ve never used them before. And then, after the election, keep at it. It turns out, Democracy is not a seasonal job.

        1. that working our butts off to elect Dems gets us anywhere, though.  I know… it’s even worse with Rs but pushing that boulder all the way up that steep hill from 2004 to 2008 certainly seems like a disproportionate amount of effort for not much in return.  

            1. I actually cried tears of joy over Obama’s 2008 victory in conjunction with the rest of the good news for Dems that year. Not that I’m not glad we won so big that year but in retrospect it does seem like more of an emotional response than subsequent developments have shown was warranted. Not to mention runny, smudged mascara isn’t kind to the appearance of women of a certain age. In 2012 I’ll have no trouble keepng any outcome in perspective and eye make up in place.

          1. First things first–Save the country: Neuter Citizens United, preserve and expand voter access, keep the mainstreet economy on an upward path and re-embracing Keynesian economics, protect Social Security Insurance, control healthcare costs for both individuals and the government, and strive for energy independence from foreign sources and from fossil fuels. These can only happen with Obama and the Dems, and damn well won’t happen under Repubs. Right?

            Meanwhile and thereafter–We shoot for longer-term goals, including transforming the Democratic Party or establishing a winning alternative, and taming our (currently) capitalist economic system.

            (Also meanwhile–We eat what our moms put on our plates, love one another and par-teeee.)

            1. The question is will re-electing Obama and even barely hanging on to the Senate too, result in getting closer to them?  Our leadership in the White House and Senate have not exactly been enthusuastic supporters of most of those golas.  Obama’s economic team is much more Wall Street than Main Street friendly to this day. Health care reform that was too little in the first place has pretty much run out of steam and most Dems don’t want to talk about it. The same tepid interest goes for pushing  a major change from dependence on fossil fuels.  I completely agree that it would be even worse with Rs in charge but it’s hard to get energized over the same old corporate controlled governement in a slightly less draconian guise.  Sorry.  I can’t help it.

              Here’s a piece of progressive heresy to consider   Just continuing along the way things are might not even be all that much preferable to descending into an all GOTP abyss so the public would have to wake up to the fact that it’s the GOTP and conservative and just plain cowardly Dems, not  liberals or progressives or socialists or secularist or unions or immigrants or the safety net for the poor and middle class, who are screwing them and need to be kicked out en masse.

              But don’t worry.  I’ll control the impulse and support my Dem candidates. Just venting. I’ll still make the effort to help hold the line against the Repugs until demographics have time to come to the rescue. Don’t want to be eating cat food any time soon.

  5. Townspeople:

    Oh, there’s nothing halfway

    About the Iowa way to treat you,

    When we treat you

    Which we may not do at all.

    There’s an Iowa kind of special

    Chip-on-the-shoulder attitude

    We’ve never been without

    That we recall.

    We can be cold

    As our falling thermometers in December

    If you ask about our weather in July.

    And we’re so by God stubborn

    We could stand touchin’ noses

    For a week at a time

    And never see eye-to-eye.

    But what the heck, you’re welcome,

    Join us at the picnic.

    You can eat your fill

    Of all the food you bring yourself.

    You really ought to give Iowa a try.

    Provided you are contrary. (…)

    But we’ll give you our shirt

    And a back to go with it

    If your crops should happen to die.

    Farmer:

    So, what the heck, you’re welcome,

    Glad to have you with us.

    Farmer and Wife:

    Even though we may not ever mention it again.

    Townspeople:

    You really ought to give Iowa

    Hawkeye Iowa!

    Dubuque, Des Moines,

    Davenport, Marshalltown,

    Mason City, Keokuk, Ames,

    Clear Lake!

    Ought to give Iowa a try!

  6. Right now, six people running for the job of the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, are trying desperately to convince voters that they don’t believe in science and won’t govern based on it.

  7. If my car is fully charged it should be able to make it down to Denver and back. Should. But it’s pushing the envelope and I could also find I have to pull off in Broomfield, find an electrical outlet, and sit for an hour as I get enough of a charge to get home.

    However, if down in Denver I can plug it into a 220v charger (standard connector for all electric vehicles), then even an hour means I get home with no problem. So people can drive to work, set the car to charge while they work, then drive home.

    This requires that parking lots have chargers. There are commercial units which are self-service and take a credit card. The question is how does the state overcome the chicken and egg problem and get parking lots to install these units so people then buy electric cars. Is there something the city government can trade parking lot owners if they’ll install one of these per 200 slots?

    The other biggie is charging stations along I-70 Aurora to Grand Junction and I-25 Pueblo to Fort Collins. In the case of these you want them in parking lots by fast food places, etc. so people can charge while eating. But to work well you need them about every 50 miles. And for these you need the 440v systems that can fully charge in 20 minutes. Is there something the state can trade to get local communities to install units?

    If the units get used they’ll be profitable. And eventually they will see heavy use. The big question is how do you get it started when the initial installs don’t pay for themselves at first?

    1. Since tax breaks for charging stations are unlikely for Colorado in the near term, only increased demand for them will hasten their supply.

      That means significantly higher gas (and diesel) prices, combined with greater sales of plug-in hybrids (which don’t have range limitations, but would benefit the owner’s pocket books by favoring electricity in lieu of gasoline for mobility).

      I got to see my first Tesla this past week driving back to LAX.  It was only a brief encounter, as the driver was busy whipping those electrons into a frenzy of speed.  My little rental Mazda3 was no match in keeping up.

      Speaking of Tesla, they have a new, electric-only sedan coming out to compete with Fisker.  Looks pretty good, and is competitive with the 5-series BMW.

      Just read in Car and Driver magazine that the new Bimmer turbo 4 will supply the on-board charging capabilities of the forthcoming Fisker Nina.  While the crocodile snout look may not appeal to most, it does have the Tesla beat on range.

      Fortunately, I’m not in the car-replacement market yet, so I’m happy to let the technology progress a few more years so I can pick the winner after the race is over.

      1. And as you said, there’s no money for them. Maybe they could create a public/private company (unlike Pinnacol, run for the benefit of the people of Colorado). It could install the chargers in a couple of places and use the income from those to install more.

        If I owned a strip mall in Idaho Springs, I would be thrilled to have charging stations in the parking lot – it would bring people needing to kill 20 minutes. And for a parking lot in downtown Denver that is partially empty most days – again happy to have this installed.

        I was hoping there was some regulation that could be relaxed for parking lots that installed the chargers where the relaxation was not a big deal and the savings made the chargers a good investment.

        1. Doing a quick Google search turned up several charging options.  The costs of a public charging station seems pretty high, and I have no information on what they would cost to use.

          But one company in Las Vegas seems to have come up with a pretty innovative approach for both public/private partnerships, as well as for individual owner use — and they are selling subscription plans like cell phone plans based on useage.

          http://www.ev-chargeamerica.co

          But I’m not entirely sure they are still in business, as the web site doesn’t appear to have been updated since 2009.  Guess the market has some sorting out remaining.

            1. Turns out the more conventional path for getting charging stations seeded around the state is via the power companies.

              So if Xcel doesn’t currently have a program to address this, we should start lobbying the PUC to include a request for this type of program the next time Xcel comes to them for a rate increase.

              Given the current low demand for these stations, it is a long process that might show some benefit around the time there is more actual demand.

              I know this doesn’t help your immediate issue, but it’s a start.

              Enjoy your new Leaf!

              1. Where any stations installed over the next year get free electricity for the next 3 years? So a parking lot company installs the charger and gets paid for its use – and keeps 100% of the income for 3 years.

                Xcel only has to give away a very small amount of power so no real hit to them. And you have individual business owners deciding where to place them.

                1. Bet you could find a scrap yard somewhere that has an old electric trolley.  Just take the folding boom and attach it to your Leaf.  Then you can charge it up on the side of any lonely road that has a near by power line!

                  Seriously, though, with the rate of innovation in battery and charging technology (cheaper, lighter, denser capacity, and mere minutes to charge), I fear any massive investments today would be quickly rendered obsolete.  

                  Thus is life on the bleeding edge.

                  1. That’s been the biggest limiting factor for laptops and handhelds from day 1. I think we’ll see improvement, but doubling over the next couple of years at best. So charging stations will be with us for some time.

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