President (To Win Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%↑
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Hurd
(D) Adam Frisch
52%↑
48%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
52%↑
48%↓
State Senate Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
April 18, 2008 05:18 PM UTC
28 Comments
Governor Ritter is doing the best he can to reconcile demands of competing powerful groups in this state, which is hardly “blue” in spite of the strides Dems (mainly moderate Dems) have made.
Would you rather we have a Republican Governor next time out, David? Dems have won the majority in the congressional delegation, the state legislature and put a Governor far more friendly to progressive concerns than any Republican in the Governor’s mansion by not making the ideal the enemy of the better. And it isn’t as if labor has been employing brilliant strategies for its own success in recent history. Labor bears some responsibility for present weakness, too.
Ritter is much better for us than any electable alternative at this point. On the plus side, when most voters see him attacked from the right AND the left, they conclude that he is probably about right for Colorado. That’s why he still has strong approval ratings, strong enough that he will probably come out of this unfortunate campaign fund snafu OK and positioned to be re-elected next time.
But he’d better get organized and get his fund-raising moving again under competent management. And we’d better hope he succeeds because the alternative is, no doubt, a Republican Governor instead.
You say that having a Republican governor would be or was a bad thing.
In your twisted liberal mind maybe but not for the other half of the people of this state.
Uh, yes.
I meant Dems. Pretty obvious that’s what I am. And I wasn’t aware that believing a Dem Governor is better for my state makes me a “Commie”. Also, I haven’t even heard that quaint insult in ages. You must be getting on in years.
Name calling? And calling us Commies as well? Communism is dead, we won. And I do mean we. It’s time to wake up and realize that a mixed economy with some regulation does not polute your precious bodily fluids nor does it mean that we Democrats have been infiltrated by Stalinist sleeper agents.
But if you want to keep hiding out in a bunker next to Calvin Webber’s thinking Democrats are secretly the red horde dispatched on a mission by some communist conspiracy, that is your right. But it makes you look rather ridiculous.
But that is typical of democrats, I mean liberals, I mean progressives, I mean….
Duh! What do you think he was saying?
In your twisted fascist mind you still think half of the state agrees with you!
For those interested I respond to David’s hyperbolic column here,
http://steampoweredopinions.bl…
Not an easy task, that.
am a public employee who is voting against Colorado WINS and for Right to Work.
the right to work and average wages are lower in every single state that has so far past alleged right to work laws. It’s more like the right to cede power and earn less.
I am not a public employee though, so I appreciate your desire to support RTW for all Coloradans.
Having experience with closed shop dues has brought me to realize that an extra $500-1000 per year goes a long way to getting better or more housing (ie a new bed for the kid), healthcare (ie an inhaler for the kid), education (ie a CC class), transportation (ie a newer used car).
Union skulls respond with the pre-approved labor hall dogma, I await a new or unique argument against.
So you “lost” $1000 a year to paying dues. Now, just where the hell do you think your probably higher than average wages, good benefits, and health care came from? The generosity of your employer? Are you such an ideological strait jacketed moron that you can’t see that it was the UNION that made it so that you got MUCH more in return for your money?
Even in companies w/o unions, the latter often set the standard for a community so that the open shops have to compete.
Just because you don’t agree with Libertad is no reason to throw insults.
How would you like someone telling you that you are a fuckin moron just because you stated your opinion?
Since your repeated insults of Democrats are all over this blog. Didn’t you just call us Cavewomen?
I can only hope this is your darkside showing through and not the real you. Back to topic.
Read the post I was replying to wise guy.
David called Republicans several names, including neanderthals. I was simply asking if we are considered cave men, what are democrats?
You don’t like being called names but your side is the very first to throw them out, …..every time.
Oh, and I have thrown insults “all over this blog”? Name one besides responding to Davey.
As you would know if you were around longer than one day.
We were all newbies once, so I’m not knocking that. But to just make a personal judgement call on your first day…wow.
And it doesn’t make me wrong. OK, if not a mathematical moron, how about hypocrite? You know, willing to take the bennies while bitching about the cost of the dues?
no need to call you a moron, what he says is true. The benefits the union has brought you far outweigh the amount in dues. You would be worse off in any “right to work” state because you would be earning less with fewer benefits. That’s the simple truth. Workers in right to work states are worse off than workers in states without that “right” period.
The union movement changed us from a country with a small wealthy class and the majority just getting by to a country with the broadest most powerful middle class on the planet, the engine of the economy that came to be the envy of the world and the greatest asset for social and political stability a democratic republic can have.
Starting with Reagan, the contemporary war on unions and lavishing of special tax payer subsidized privileges and benefits on corporations and the corporate elite has shrunk that once powerful middle class.
This has been accelerated under Bush to the point that all but a tiny minority of Americans are worse off economically and in terms of access to education and health care than they were at the start of the Bush administration by any number of objective measures.
Without strong unions, those few who hold the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth, hold all the cards. The biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people, much bigger than the hoax that led us to invade a secular country to fight Islamic extremist terrorists who were never there, started with Reagan’s convincing Main Street Americans that welfare queens and unions were the source of their problems while corporate fat cats were on their side. Too many never stopped to ask themselves if that made any sense.
For instance, it’s easy to blame the woes of our auto industry on selfish unions and that’s what we’ve been spoon fed since Reagan but, while unions aren’t blameless and their leadership hasn’t always been pure as the driven snow, our biggest disadvantage vis a vis our competition is that all the other industrialized countries we compete with have universal healthcare while we don’t.
Reagan’s “Morning in America” has turned out to be the dawning of an era of lost ground for all but a privileged few. The “right to work” is another hoax that will never benefit a single worker. You don’t have to be a “Commie” to see this. You just need to look at the world in a practical light rather than through the prism of easy sound bite slogans aimed at pushing emotional buttons.
One specific point on the failure of the US auto industry.
The real failure of the US auto industry has nothing to do with wages or healthcare benefits, but rather the automakers failure to field a quality low end product.
The decline in marketshare has everything to do with the automakers failure to field a desireable product for first time buyers (other than truck buyers).
The Unions have no control over this at all.
When I was living in CA in the 80’s I went to work there for a company out the Chicago area. They were huge in their field once upon a time, and the auto industry was their bread and butter.
I spent a month there for training and was constantly amazed at the culture I observed. They still thought faux woodgrain was cool, along with chrome. Those are just the tip of what I remember.
Now, I’m not wanting to slander Midwesterners, some of the finest folks in regards work ethic in my experience. It’s just that the decision makers came from this backward looking culture (at least in cars) and then wondered why the world didn’t buy Detroit.
My job, my paycheck. Unions conspire with corporations to ‘manage’ their workers. Unions work well with large multi nationals that get fat government subsidies and no-bid contracts. These conspiring groups are typically found in less productive and innovative monopoly-oligopoly industries.
Maybe unions should offer their business partners and shackled workers an angle to lower healthcare costs and outsource savings plans – provide something of value – take costs out of the value chain and enable economic growth.
Maybe then they’d have leverage to mandate association or dues fees; and meets your freeloader/free market premise.
Second point. Even this moron understands that state workers have the Right to Work. Has the Governor thus provided higher than average wages, good benefits, and health care; whiile fragging the worker and poor union at the end of the day?
Shouldn’t all Coloradans have the Right to Work ……. just like state workers?
I argue choice, freedom and liberty.
This moron awaits you next position.
losing ground every year, joining the ranks of those who live in “right to work states” and as a direct result make less money fine. If it makes sense to you to give up thousands in wages and benefits so you can call all of a much lesser amount “mine”, whatever floats your boat.
Those of us with good sense and healthy self interest aren’t going to go along. “Right to work” is one of the tools that are being used to keep the middle class standard of living going down while a tiny minority sees its standard of living sky-rocketing.
You, my liberty loving friend, are being hoodwinked. Show me one “right to work” state where workers are not worse off than workers in states without that bright shiny sound-bite “right”. I won’t hold my breath.
is exactly what we have here in Colorado with the oil and gas industry.
Front line employees in work for less states make an average of $5,333 less than those in free bargaining states, their benefits are greatly decreased and their job security is generally non-existent. Unionized workers are simply better off and claims to the contrary disregard the facts.
The bottom line is the people who do the work deserve collective bargaining rights, ie, contractual power, the same as the investor class of the people who sign their paychecks.
The individual freedom argument used by work for less proponents is a sham. Federal law already protects the rights of non-members. Nobody has to engage in union activities that violate their religious or political beliefs. In a union shop however, the democratic principle of majority rule does require non-members to pay a fair share expense fee if they choose not to join the union.
Organized labor is a primary avenue to bridge economic inequality and the imbalance of opportunity between average people and Wall street. The labor haters should stop pretending to care about workers by branding labor unions as the enemy. Anybody who takes a non-political look at the facts knows who is truly on the side of employees and that is the unions who set the standards for labor protections.
Wages are probably much higher in MI, MN, PA, CA, WA.. then RTW’s NE, WY, ID, TX, OK, MS, AL.. I’ll have to do some research.
However, from having lived in some of both I can tell you that the RTW states have a lower cost of living, have had more manufacturing job growth, and very very likely have lower unemployment. When comparing diverse areas/nations most folks use measures GDP growth, invested capital, or other macro indicators that show trends. Using wages would obviously show that NY state is the model we should all aspire too – Not.
The ‘Detroit Solution’ has one of the most wonderus home defaults situations anywhere (where regular people live versus Miami Beach highrises or retirement golf communities in Vegas). Detroit now likely have a very low cost of home ownership. Problem is no one qualifies to purchase the $30-90k homes – they are jobless. Note, those homes in Denver would probably fetch 2-3x.
Net lets use economic data that more acurately depicts the economic health of the citizens and growth of jobs, output, etc.
Why then did the Guv provide this ‘right’? To stir up some fire, I’ll suggest its b/c he is catholic and … you know that place loves illegals but hates abortionists … they are driven by membership and saving the soul through JC, the HS and the Almightly.
By keeping a grand in my pocket every year my kids can get a better education and go on the become Bill Gates, George Soros, or Buffett.
How much do you think an extra 500 to a grand means to someone making $20-40k. I’ll tell you. Its the difference in keeping the house, upgrading healthcare plans, investing, keeping the economy going or investing in themselves.
Oh, if you think $20-40k is middle class in Colorado think again. Its barely above the living wage.
So we should take on GMs costs as a nation. How is that fair to others. Its not, it is a subsidy to GM.
Follow the money – unions = monopolies = corporate with unions = industrial complex power over all.
If unions competed, maybe they’d be more effective. Oh yeah that competition thing is a dirty word in unionized jobs. Monopoly = lowest common denominator approach.
I am with the Guv – Right to Work!
This moron awaits your next position.
I’m not the one who called you a moron.
As for answering your points, one more time, keeping a grand in your pocket is pointless if you do so by making several grand less, having higher health care expenses,etc.
Lower cost of living generally goes with depressed economic conditions so things cost less but you also earn much less. No advantage there.
Universal health care wouldn’t just help GM. If you think you aren’t already subsidizing other people’s health care, wrong again.
We are all subsidizing the world’s least efficient most expensive health care system already, a system in which uninsured go to the emergency room at our expense and under insured often avoid seeking treatment and engaging in wishful thinking until they are seriously ill, making everyone’s share of the expense of our health care system much higher than anywhere else in the modern industrialized world.
You may think we ought to let people who can’t pay die in the street but we mainly don’t. They eventually get some level of expensive yet inadequate health care and we all pay for it, like it or not. That ship has sailed.
Our health care is also already rationed by the private health insurance industry and anyone can lose all coverage if they have a serious condition, change jobs, lose their insurance and are then never able to get covered again because of the pre-existing condition.
Bye now. This thread is getting too old to check back on and I’m sure I can supply your entirely predictable response myself. You don’t want to pay nobody nothing, you don’t want nobody’s hand in your pocket, yadyadayada.