(News release, Nov. 9) Principle in next year's legislature and victory in next year's elections -- not recriminations over this year's ballot issues -- must be top priority for Republicans now that the C & D debate is settled, according to a resolution passed Tuesday night by the Arapahoe County Republican Executive Committee.
A Republican's Dismay in a Democrat's Colorado
By Dave Crater crater@wilberforcecenter.org Another Colorado election is past, and the state GOP has taken another couple steps downward with the skinny victory of the state’s central tax-and-spend ballot measure, Referendum C, and the skinny loss of C’s sister D. D could easily have won as well. Dismaying to say the least.
The people spoke; now what?
(John Andrews one week after) The split verdict on Nov. 1 from the voters, yes on C for higher taxes, no on D for deeper debt, dealt a blow to TABOR. Yet our Taxpayer's Bill of Rights remains a vital protection to liberty and a political asset to be envied by Americans elsewhere. The glass is way more than half full. We made the spenders really sweat for once, made them beg. That's a lot. The valiant losing fight against Ref C can be for conservatives here, what the Miers fight was for conservatives nationally -- an important new beginning. Let's make it that. Let's come together, do some honest self-examination, then get going and get back on offense. For starters, we might explore five questions:
True-red conservatives rare in Rockies?
By Brian Ochsner baochsner@aol.com Salena Zito's piece today on Real Clear Politics is pretty accurate describing Republicans in Washington, D.C. If Colorado Republicans haven't yet gone this hog wild drinking the pork-flavored koolaid, some are certainly leaning in that direction. The Zito commentary shows three examples of principled, conservative leadership that Republicans around the country -- and in our state particularly -- should emulate. (Note: her advocacy of cloning is presumably tongue-in-cheek. In any case, mine is.)
Balkan sons of liberty soldier on
(John Andrews abroad ) This week I had a couple of vivid glimpses of what it must have been like to participate in American political life in the first decades after independence. One was experiential, the other literary. Both confirmed my "Claremont conservative" conviction that the principles of the American founding lose none of their truth across time, geography, or cultures. The International Republican Institute, funded by USAID and dedicated to advancing democracy around the world, had invited me to Macedonia and Serbia to share the perspective of a think-tank entrepreneur and former legislator with leaders of center-right parties there.
The acclaimed biography of Alexander Hamilton [link] by Ron Chernow went along in my suitcase. After each long day of meetings in Skopje or Belgrade, unwinding at the hotel, I traveled back with Hamilton to New York or Philadelphia in the 1780s and '90s -- where one finds some notable parallels to the Balkan drama of today.