CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
May 08, 2009 07:22 PM UTC
43 Comments
You nailed it, Pols. Those of us in the hinter-lands are more than ready to see the battle next fall between the punter and the quarterback.
Bill Ritter is an embarassment.
So that comparison isn’t really worthwhile. This opens the door more for McInnis than Penry, though McInnis has his own problems.
so don’t get your hopes up.
I don’t know if he had anything to do with torpedoing HB 1274, but if he did just so he wouldn’t have to have to make a decision without appointing a blue ribbon panel first, let me just tell any prospective Democrat who aspires to reside in the Governor’s Mansion that I’ll send you a check the day you announce your primary bid.
That won’t happen, of course, but it’s nice to dream.
Ritter suffers from this, and so does Bennet.
Take a position, own that position, and if pisses certain people off so be it. I can always understand how someone reached a certain conclusion on a controversial issue like the death penalty, or EFCA in Bennet’s case. It’s not the controversial stance I can’t take, it’s all the waffling.
We are in agreement! Thank God my tranqs were already racing to my overheated head!
Let me posit that the problem is even worse than described. I believe that the voters spoke loud and clear in the last election. The clear majority want progressive, creative, and comprehensive approaches to the myriad of problems we face. That requires leadership with a vision and an ability to communicate that vision. I don’t see Ritter filling that role.
Let me posit that the problem is even worse than described. I believe that the voters spoke loud and clear in the last election. The clear majority want progressive, creative, and comprehensive approaches to the myriad of problems we face. That requires leadership with a vision and an ability to communicate that vision. I don’t see Ritter filling that role.
I think he’s a good man who is in over his head. He seems extremely uncomfortable in a leadership role and frankly, I think this may not be the right job for him and I say that as someone that supported him in 2006 both with $$$ and volunteer time.
There are lots of us who bent over backwards to support him in spite of his anti-choice position, among others. We found him personally impressive and had high hopes. We never dreamed he’d be quite this underwhelming. Can we ask the President to find a nice appointment for him?
I mean that, I really think it’s sort of depressing because I truly believe he is a good man with high ethics but your adjective, “underwhelming” is a perfect summation of his leadership style.
Ritter’s complete irrelevance also carries over to Michael Bennet, another politico about whom we know nothing except that he seems to carry water for banks.
The Great Unanswered Question re Bennet and Ritter is: how did it come about? The other day someone asked whether Hickenlooper had ruled out running for governor; was Bennet a quid pro quo there?
The Great Tragedy (Great day, today, huh?) in Colorado is the utter feebleness of the state Democratic Party, whose behavior resembles those desktop bobble-heads. Zero Impact!
Colorado has changed since Olden Tymes. Outsiders have moved in, brought a buncha them modernistic liberal ideas with ’em in their suitcases. Prehistoric Monsters are dying off, quite literally, or moving en masse into a local branch of the Simple Minded Acres Rest Home [featuring weekly bus trips to the High Plains Bovine Flatulence Museum–no smoking, please!]. Environmental issues have put the state squarely in the middle of the Great Greening movement as well as the There’s- Shale- in- Them-Thar-Hills-Rush. The state likely will get still another representative in 2012 (actually I have no idea whether that’s true or not, but it’s damn important to count every single Hispanic resident next year!!!). But, by and large, the political establishment is living in yesteryear when Rugged Individualists in Cowboy Boots (another obsession of mine, as you can tell) ruled the range…and the legislature.
Democrats Awake! We need to find and field some strong, opinionated, passionate, articulate candidates to push the party’s agenda as articulated by the most amazing prezdent since FDR! Surely, none of those adjectives could be applied to His Eminence. Some on this site wrote recently that “it’s important to be nice.” Bullshit. It’s important to be effective. Where’d I just read Machiavelli’s line about being feared versus being loved?
COLORADO DEMOCRATS! Time to get with the program. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
And now for decaffination hour… Let the keyboard cool down. Perchance to dream of purple mountain majesties dotted with ski slopes above amber waves of grain subsidized by Great Uncle Samuel…
Ritter’s lack of leadership on the big issues will come back to bite him, particularly by party activists who weren’t too thrilled with his candidacy in the first place. It should be remembered Ritter is a pro-life Democrat who had to stroke activists into believing he was the real deal and won the nomination mainly by default. Then he won the governorship mainly by default due to the ineptitude and incompetence of his opponent. Ritter runs the risk of becoming “both ways Bill” (and we know how that stuck).
He couldn’t go along with the Pinnacol bills (unless somehow Pinnacol agreed to let itself be looted) because that would have solidified the business community against him. That being said, the Pinnacol caper was risky business from the onset, and probably legally indefensible had it passed. So he maneuvered to make sure the bills never reached his desk.
The death penalty losing by one vote is a different story. Ritter’s unequivocal support of 1274 most probably would have made a difference, but again he clearly never wanted to see that bill reach his desk. The coupling of the repeal with putting the money into a cold case fund was a clever, but disingenuous attempt to make it all things to all people. The “ambush” was arranged to exploit that weakness.
When Jack Kennedy was running for president, he was asked about civil rights, and he said it was a “moral issue” that this country had to address. The Pinnacol thing was a legal issue, but the death penalty is a moral issue to both sides of the debate. Leaders are supposed to lead, and any governor who will not lead on a moral issue like the death penalty is certainly not a profile in courage.
There are many times the above is a very useful way to approach an issue. I state my opinion last a lot of the time when discussing issues here so people do not feel pressured in a certain direction.
Now with that said, there is also a need for leaders to lead. And so where leadership is called for then yes, Ritter needs to be out in front leading.
David as the voice of reason moments, when everyone else is agreeing to an attractive but oversimplistic reality too quickly.
Actually, this statement is an expression of one of the things I have always liked about Ritter. Go figure.
Veiga, Groff, and….?
Jim Isgar has applied for a job with the USDA. I think he will find out this summer, in which case he will need to be replaced.
The criticism of Gov. Ritter is based on the death penalty bill and the foray into using Pinnocal’s funds to balance the budget. Based on these two instances an assumption is asserted that we don’t know where the Governor is at across the board on almost any issues.
Lets look at HB 1274, the union bill during his first legislative session. He tried to get the legislature to negotiate a compromise with the various vested interests and they refused and pushed a bill through that he had to veto.
Second, what about SB09-108, known as the FASTER bill which passed the legislature and was signed into law this year providing $250 million in additional funds for highways and bridges. That took real courage and when the bill was introduced in the House it was about eight votes short of a majority. It was Gov. Ritter, who quietly met with legilators and picked-up the votes needed to pass the bill. Most politicians would have run for cover and hidden behind the fact we are in a recession rather than support the FASTER bill. Gov. Ritter’s out front stand took real political courage and he risked a lot of political capital passing the FASTER bill.
Look at SB 228 which caused a lot of contention between those interests who support designated funds for transportation and those who wanted to amend Arveschoug/Bird for various reason. It was Gov. Ritter again who put together the coalition that eventually passed the compromise version of this bill which has long term impacts on our budget process. Again, he put himself on the line and risked a good deal of politcla capital to accomplish his goal of reforming the antiquated and arcane budget process.
Look at the ‘mill levy” freeze bill which was just upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court. It was extremely controversial and generated intense litigation. The easy thing to do would be to hide behind the recession and say, well we can’t do anything until sometime later, like after the next election. Instead, Gov. Ritter realized the plight of the education budget for K-12 and the significant impact on the state budget and instead of running for cover, he took the bull by the horns and solved the problem even though some citizens would pay higher property taxes, one of the most hated taxes. It took real courage to do that.
I’ve known Gov. Ritter for almost thirty years and have worked on everyone of his campaigns for district attorney and for governor. If there is any problem with his leadership it stems from the fact he isn’t a braggard. He doesn’t toot his own horn very well, he never has. His style isn’t to butt heads but to actually get something done and he has done that as governor.
And please don’t interpret my comments to mean every position has been correct but when we judge the courage politicians exhibit in their careers, we shoudl look at the entire mosiac. If we all do that, Governor Ritter has proven to be both courageous and competent.
It didn’t take any courage to support SB 228. The only people against it were the hardcore right-wingers – none of whom support Ritter anyway. It took courage for Republican Rep. Marostica to come out so strongly in favor of it, but this was a no-brainer for Ritter.
Also against the original SB 228 was almost the entire business community, especially the cement and asphalt industry and any other contractors involved with transportation. It took some very difficult negotiations by Gov. Ritter and others to come up with a compromise.
I agree with you, that business was against the first go-round, but most moved to neutral (except the Contractors, who supported the compromise) on the final version of 228.
The Governor did show a good deal of leadership in the last stages of those negotiations (most notably on the idea of a trigger for the transportation funding to kick in), but was noticeably absent for the first 3 months of the discussion.
His final contributions to the bill, though, were very good. I give him some credit for bringing everyone to the table and having his team come up with several good policy ideas. To say he “led” the negotiations, though, would be wrong. He facilitated the start of the final compromise talks.
However, as I recall, after the bill was pushed through the senate nothing much happened for one or two months because the various interests were negotiating a compromise which Gov. Ritter played a major part in.
As Marostica’s role on the JBC prevented him from really focusing on pushing 228 through the House.
There was a slight further delay after firsts when the SB 228 Coalition began talks with the Chamber/Contractors/etc.
Because after the Senate Dems went to the wall for something Ritter said he supported, he suddenly pulled his support and wouldn’t say a damned thing.
The whole legislature was a clusterf**k this session because of Ritter’s waffling back and forth on major issues like 228. Real leadership would have been to tell the pavement industry they just got FASTER, they’re getting 3 billion dollars in stimulus money, and we’ve already identified that the state needs to spend 1.5 billion dollars a year on transportation, so they’d probably get a re-run of Ref D in 2011 and they should cool their jets and start counting the money.
Instead we replaced a byzantine budget formula with a labyrinthine one to placate the highway (robbery) lobby. That’s leadership.
The delay happened when the transportation interests believed that SB 228 would gut any future funds for highways and bridges under the existing Arvescough/Bird statute. In other words, they truly believed that on the one hand an additional $250 million had been made available through SB09-108 but that SB 228 would take some of that money away. Their anxiety was based on their memories of the last budget crunch in 2002-03 when transportation funding was cut by 40%.
Also, simultaneously as SB09-228 was going through the legislative process, the state’s revenue projections continued to drop precipitously causing additional anxiety about how SB09-228 would impact the budget. That was another major reason for the delay after it passed the senate.
The session wasn’t a mess because of lack of leadership by Gov. Ritter. Quite the opposite. The session became messy because of the budget crisis which no one, Republican or Democrat, predicted would be this bad. The sharp decline in state revenues caused the legislature to make major changes in the budget over the course of the session due to that fact. It also made everyone involved consider new ways to maintain essential state programs.
Gov. Ritter made it clear throughout the session that he wanted to fund transportation, higher education and protect those who needed essential social services. In the end, he did that, while at the same time brokering a compromise on bills like SB09-228 which the Colorado Contractors Association characterized in a April 22, 2009 press release:
“While the Colorado Contractors Association (CCA) today formally adopted a neutral position regarding Colorado Senate Bill 228, it was quick to credit Governor Bill Ritter’s personal intervention for moving CCA from vigorously opposed position on the bill, to one of neutrality.
To limit negative impacts on the State’s transportation infrastructure funding, Governor Ritter asked that SB 228 be amended to dedicate 2% of General Fund revenues to transportation infrastructure for each of five years beginning in Fiscal 2012-2013 – if persoanl income growth during the previous fiscal year exceeds 5%.
In the same press release, Mr. Tony Milo, Executive Director of CCA, stated: “Our members were deeply concerned about SB 228 as introduced. The Governor intervened and took time to personally engage CCA and other business groups in multiple and sometimes heated give and take sessions. He was accessible, responsive and invested tremendous time and influence to improve the bill. As a result, SB 228 is orders of magnitude better today than it was three weeks ago.”
What all of the above quotes add up to is leadership, direct leadership on the part of Gov. Ritter. He rolled up his sleeves and got right in the middle of the debate. He didn’t hide behind staff or other people, he engaged personally and continuously in the negotiations to find a compromise, and he succeeded. Throughout the 2009 legislative session, in the most difficult budget year since the Great Depression, it was straight forward, personal leadership by a Governor who gets down into the details of policy and finds solutions wihtout attempting to grandstand. In difficult situations, we can trust Gov. Ritter’s leadership.
Remember?
They just never support Democrats, so the myth is that Democrats have to appease them to court their support.
Is there anything you don’t think the Governor has done an amazing job on? I know you’re a big fan, and apparently a good friend, of his, but there’s got to be some area you think he could improve on.
FASTER and New Energy Economy. Those are the two issues where he’s shown any strong leadership. He also made it clear that higher ed funding was not something that could be cut, which I definitely thought was the right move–and I gave him credit there on this blog.
But the fact that you would defend his obvious attempt to side-step an issue frankly surprises me. When you’re the candidate for Governor in the election in 2010, you don’t have the luxury of avoiding a declared position. It’s one of the few offices where that’s true actually.
No political leader, including Gov. Ritter, makes the right decisions all the time. But many of the decisions an executive branch leader makes or legislation that memebers of the general assembly vote on gets very little attention but has a great deal more impact than the debate on issues like the death penalty. For example SB09-67 was signed by Gov. Ritter yesterday during the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce State of the State luncheon. It will open up credit, especially to small businesses, and will have a major positive impact for economic growth but it has received little media attention compared to the death penalty issue. The Governor pushed for this bill because small business owners all over Colorado told him their number one concern is access to credit.
I realize SB09-67 does not raise the same moral issues as the death penalty but it certainly may impact far more people in a positive way.
My perspective on Bill Ritter comes from nearly thirty years of friendship and close observation of him as district attorney and now for three years as Governor. Today in this thread, many people have posted comments noting Gov. Ritter’s intelligence and the fact they like him. I agree, he is intelligent and a very decent person. More importantly and directly connected to those virtues and as a result of them, Governor Ritter above all can be trusted. Trusted in a personal sense and trusted to act on our behalf to preserve and enhance our way of life.
I appreciate Ritter’s style. I prefer a governor who lets the Leg take the lead. Especially in Colorado, a governor cannot guarantee passage of anything. On the budget, it seems to me he played a background role for much of it but he did (eventually) take a stand on Pinnacol. Not everyone agreed with his stand. I prefer his style over a governor who states a vision but doesn’t have the votes to get it done.
The big problem I see is that, with Romanoff gone, there is no one at the state level who will provide leadership and vision. If it was up to my magic wand, I would push some members of the Legislature to become more assertive and outspoken on issues. We have had two Republicans take strong positions in opposition to their party this last session. The governor should work with them, providing political cover as much as possible, and push some Dems to ally with them (or others) in order to get some important things done in the next session. I don’t see anyone on the Dems’ side right now who will go there. It will be bad for the state if it doesn’t happen. (And it will be bad for the State Democratic Party, IMHO.)
I’ve been trying to write a post about this very article and the larger issue it highlights. This analysis is spot on.
I think Penry has a great opportunity to run as the young, energetic, decisive leader and just crush Ritter. The election is a long way off obviously but the door is wide open.
Penry most definitely comes across as more decisive, young, and energetic. And yet, on policy positions, he is quite a bit more right-wing than Owens.
This is seeming like a no-win for progressives–much like it was with Ken Salazar in the Senate. I’m getting tired of the “burnt-toast-is-better-than-none” option.
The good news for Colorado lies in the fact that term limits apply to the Governor’s office, at least slightly limiting the damage that can be done via hesitancy and ineffectiveness (Ritter), or extremism (Penry).
But I have to say so far I am loving him as Interior Secretary. He seems like a totally different person. Actually happy in his job.
Now, as somebody else suggested, let’s get Ritter a job in the Obama Admin ASAP! I am sure he would do a fine job as say, Peace Corps Director. I am serious here: Ritter’s humanitarian tendencies from his years as a relief worker in Africa, and administrative experience from being DA, would make a great combo for this job; and, the Director does not have the capacity to veto progressive legislation.
…of Ridder for Peace Corps director. Hard to see him doing any harm; maybe he’d do some good. And a proclivity to keep his opinions to himself would be an advantage in that job.
Now… where do CO Dems come up with some viable replacements–for Ridder and for Baby-Face. Can we find even one, much less two?
I thought Baby-Face was the one you wanted to replace the one you’re calling Baby-Face.
A shame. For the moment, Baby Face is the one who was the son Loop-de-Loop never had and who was boosted up the ladder, step by step, fueled by Holy Cow! Water from the Chalice of Appointment. Plus, if you’re referring to whom I think you are, that would be A Fresh Face with Forward-looking Fresh Ideas (FFFI, pronounced Fi-Fi).
Sigh. Where in hell did I put the decaf! Time for a nap.
I was talking to someone at the DOI today and he said they had Greenpeace out front including 2 people in very realistic polar bear costumes.
And never held a “real job” in his life.
and has been been feeding at the public trough since he graduated college.
Name one thing he’s managed. Or one thing he’s done outside of politics, for that matter.
And give me one reason why he’s any more qualified than your next-door neighbor to be Governor.
At least your next-door neighbor has probably worked for a living.
He has no juice, and frankly he’s exactly the kind of ideologue voters reject without even thinking about it.
We elect human beings governor. That means they are imperfect. We also don’t see a lot of what goes on as there are a million discussions in private. And you have to judge decisions based on what was known at the time, not in hindsight.
Was Ritter perfect – absolutely not. Is Ritter the most inspiring politician ever – nope.
But I think he’s doing a real good job in a horrible environment.
Says Gov. Milquetoast:
Notice that Ritter doesn’t say that he will honestly consider both sides and be convinced by reasoned argument but only that he won’t disclose what he’s already decided. Any argument you make to this guy is still going to be meaningless–you just don’t get to know whether or not you’re engaged in an exercise in futility. Ritter’s phony “listening” ploy is merely a way of avoiding the consequences of intellectual honesty and disrespects everybody involved in the debate. Romer-Farber Stockholm Syndrome should be a prima facie disqualification for office.