Light at end of FasTracks tunnel?

Nope, it's really the headlight on an oncoming train. RTD admits it won't be able to finish FasTracks without a tax increase, otherwise the last rail won't be laid down until it's time to start replacing what's working now. Sad details were in the Rocky on Tuesday.

"The Regional Transportation District says it would need a 0.2- to 0.3-cent hike in the metro sales tax - half again or more of the original FasTracks sales tax increase - to build what was promised to voters in 2004.

"Absent other new revenue from federal, state, regional or private sources, meeting the original 2017 completion date and building out all 10 corridors to their planned end points would require the extra tax on top of the 0.4-cent hike voters approved four years ago."

So this white elephant that I see whizzing by me - mostly empty - every morning as I drive down I-25 is looking so swinish there isn't enough lipstick in the front range for RTD to make it look better. I could take the thing into work, except that I'd either have to drive to the station or take two buses on the way in and a call-for shuttle once I got down here.

When Amendment I came up last year, I calculated that this little property tax increase - the one they asked about, as opposed to the one they didn't - was going to cost me three months of my retirement. Looks like we're about to be up to a full half-year. Which is good, because I can spend the extra time riding the Light Rail from station to station.

Colorado GOP asked for it

"I'd hate to have us responsible for putting Obie in the big house," wrote Ken Davenport in reaction to a top analyst's prediction that Colorado may become the Florida of 2008. My reply to Ken was that I think the forecast by Stuart Rothenberg is spot on. If McCain wins the entire south, the entire midwest except the five upper states that Obama will probably take (MN, IA, MI, IL, WI), and the entire west except the coast (which Obama has in the bag) and except Colorado and NM, that will get McCain to 265 electoral votes. 270 are needed to win. McCain has to hold on to Florida, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, and Nevada, plus take either Colorado or New Mexico to win. He will probably lose NM, leaving Colorado as the swing state. Think back over all the chicanery, all the back-stabbing by "moderates" against normal, healthy, courageous people just like Sarah Palin, all the missed opportunity, all the perfidious leadership, all the adultery, all the lying, all the other general moral confusion, and all the spinelessness and lack of any kind of consistent conviction or character by Republicans in Colorado over the last 10 years - all of it done because they thought nobody was watching, nobody could hold them accountable because they were rich and influential and famous, it would help their short-term political prospects and not really harm anything, they told themselves, even as it turned the political complexion of Colorado's legislature, governor's mansion, and congressional delegation exactly upside-down in terms of party composition and virtually destroyed GOP spirit and cohesion throughout the state. Now the White House and the political fortunes of the nation and, by extension, the world could ride on the ability of the Colorado GOP to hold the state for the GOP presidential candidate.

This is what Reagan meant when he said that character is built by a thousand little decisions made every day when nobody is watching and nobody is holding you accountable. The future fortunes of political parties and nations, to say nothing of families and individuals and eventually the entire world, ride on the choices of individual men and women, especially those holding government power, to know and do what is right in the present, even when nobody's watching and even when everybody is watching and it's not popular.

Powers helped save ALEC

Colorado has lost one of our toughest old Reaganauts. Ray Powers of Colorado Springs, who died Friday at 79, was the last in an unbroken string of Republican Senate Presidents from 1975 to 2001. Profiles ran this weekend in the Rocky and the Post. Sen. Powers was just taking over the gavel from Tom Norton when I arrived as a Senate freshman in 1999. Ray was a steady hand as a leader, consensus-builder, and legislative point man for newly-inaugurated Gov. Bill Owens. We didn't always agree on the issues, but he was unfailingly kind, fair, and helpful to me. I've never known a finer gentleman in politics.

Three memories of Sen. Powers stand out to me. First, his loyalty and skill in helping pass the Owens agenda. For the first time in a quarter-century, we had a GOP chief executive to propose conservative reforms and sign them into law when steered through the state House and Senate. Ray's fidelity to the Reagan worldview was critical in pushing through Gov. Owens' early successes on tax cuts, school accountability, and transportation, given that liberal Republican Russ George was Speaker of the House. Had the even more liberal Sen. Dottie Wham won her bid for President against Ray in November 1998, much of that might not have occurred.

Second, I was personally grateful for Powers' advice and backing when we narrowly passed the Defense of Marriage Act during the 2000 session. This statutory protection for traditional marriage (since superseded by a voter-approved constitutional amendment to the same effect) started as a Senate bill sponsored by Marilyn Musgrave, was killed in our chamber, then amended onto a different bill of mine in the House and sent back to us for concurrence. Though Ray was less zealous for pro-life and pro-family positions than I am, he stood strong with me while we steered DOMA through the shoals of antagonistic Democrats led by Ed Perlmutter and unconvinced Republicans such as Elsie Lacy. That's leadership; that's integrity.

And for context on both of the above points, I should point out that the 20-15 numerical majority our GOP caucus enjoyed during President Powers' tenure was functionally no greater than the bare minimum of 18 at any time -- and sometimes his "easy" vote count stopped at 14, with baling wire (familiar to Ray as a dairyman) necessary to pass the bill from there. To start with, Wham of Denver and Dave Wattenberg of Walden were mavericks with a McCain-style indifference to voting with their party.

Lacy of Aurora and the late Bryan Sullivant of Breckenridge, who came over from the House after Tony Grampsas' death a month into the 1999 session, weren't easy to corral either. Norma Anderson of Lakewood was constantly playing games across the aisle, and Ken Chlouber of Leadville, though a faithful team player, tended to shy from labor and social issues. On a bad day that left Ray and Majority Leader Tom Blickensderfer six down in the caucus and four down for a working majority. So their winning pattern was that much more impressive.

My final enduring memory of Ray Powers, and his greatest contribution as a conservative not just for Colorado but nationally, dates from the mid-1990s before he became Senate President. Ray was serving as board chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which came on the scene in 1976 as a membership organization for legislators in the 50 states who shared Ronald Reagan's limited-government beliefs. ALEC had thrived for two decades as a vital counterforce in state capitals against the liberal-leaning, Denver-based National Conference of State Legislators.

But during Sen. Powers' chairmanship, mismanagement by the CEO drove the organization to the edge of bankruptcy. He stepped in as acting CEO despite severe health challenges he happened to be facing just then, stabilized the situation, obtained emergency funding, and recruited new management. ALEC wouldn't be here today, playing the hugely constructive role it does on issues from energy to health care, taxes to tort reform, if it hadn't been for Ray Powers' heroic leadership in its turnaround a dozen years ago.

It's not the kind of thing they erect statues for, but some of us on the right will never forget. At least there's an important thoroughfare on the east side of Colorado Springs, Powers Boulevard, named for him -- and I'll never drive it without a little prayer of gratitude for the man's quiet strength and undaunted courage.

Vegans for McCain

The campaign grows ever more bizarre. Today the segmented electorate and micro-targeting reached a new extreme. The latest exotic demographic is McCain voters who use no animal products, have no sense of humor, and listen to NPR. It started Saturday morning when Scott Simon of "Weekend Edition" asked me for a Republican's take on what DNC delegates should see and do. I recommended something broiled at the Buckhorn, especially for those vegetarians who don't get out much; something cold from New Belgium Brewery; a visit to the Mint where Obama's deficit dollars will be created; and a trip up one of our Fourteeners. Here's the audio.

No sooner had this hit the airwaves than the following angry email, unsigned, hit my inbox:

I am a McCain supporter. However, your comments on vegetarian tofu-eating liberals today on PBS were stupid and unnecessary. I am a proud vegan as is my wife, daughter, son, and their spouses. We are all for McCain. But your stupidity may make me rethink this. Maybe I am more liberal than I think I am, and maybe all my family members should ponder our positions.

Horrors! What if his is the one family in the one state whose votes, if indeed I've alienated them forever, will tip the electoral college to Obama-Biden? Must placate, must conciliate, must use conflict-resolution skills, not a moment to lose. So I quickly replied this way, under the subject line, "Soybean Curd Forever:"

Dear Friend: Can't you take a joke? I eat tofu myself sometimes. Did I insult vegans? That was not intended. My grandfather never ate meat in his life. He's one of my greatest heroes, and would have smiled, I'm sure, at the teasing about our Buckhorn Exchange steakhouse in Denver. Please tell me your name and where you're writing from. And consider that if Obama becomes President, many of the freedoms we both cherish -- including choosing what we eat -- will be in jeopardy. So don't let one guy's kidding on the radio run you off a sensible vote for McCain.

It was my best effort in haste, friendly and folksy yet firm, but as always the ideal rejoinder to a vegan came to me only later. I should have told him: "Don't have a non-cow, man." Anyway, no reply from the offended NPR listener as yet, so we may have lost him and all his herbivorous kin. Either this is a very dry put-on, or he's one peeved PETA member.

How will I live with myself if this costs Republicans the White House in November? My self-esteem is already down after realizing I misspoke on the air with Simon and spoke of driving up Pike's Peak or Long's Peak. Any flatland fool knows the summit auto road closest to Denver goes up Mount Evans, while Long's Peak is accessible only on foot.

First Bob Schaffer gets his mountains mixed up, now me. Hope it's not an omen. "Dark clouds gather; the pinnacle you will reach is not the one you imagined you would." Know any vegan astrologers I could consult about the horoscope for 11/4/08?

Another gold for Coffman

As my guy, the young phenom Wil Armstrong, lost soundly in Tuesday's GOP primary for the 6th congressional district, he and his disappointed supporters had the consolation of knowing they were beaten not by just any "career politician" -- an allowable but less than ideal bit of campaign shorthand -- but by this decade's Mr. Republican in Colorado, Mike Coffman. Coffman has won three times statewide, twice for Treasurer and once for Secretary of State, before prevailing this week over Armstrong's big money and VIP endorsements to step into retiring Congressman Tom Tancredo's shoes. Democrat Hank Eng will battle Mike in the fall campaign, but this is a very safe Republican district.

Despite occasional disagreements with Coffman, I admire his tough conservatism and superb military record. He will be a fine congressman for the south suburbs, and as far as election medal count from the 1980s to the present is concerned, it's fair to call him the Michael Phelps of GOP competitors in our state.

Congratulations on your latest gold, Major Coffman.