McInnis's platform problem

(Denver Post, Dec. 6) All that is covered shall be revealed, promises the Good Book. It’s the perfect motto for America’s open society. Secrets are fools’ gold. Leaks will out. Thanks to a leaker at East Anglia University, we now know climate change isn’t cooking the planet after all. Climate alarmists are cooking the data. Meanwhile in Colorado, leakers are heating up the governor’s race. A week after the election, someone scooped Josh Penry’s plan to end his candidacy against Gov. Bill Ritter. A week later, someone else scooped Scott McInnis’s plan to unify Republicans around an issue contract. I’ve got this week’s leak. A confidential memo from inside the McInnis campaign showed up under my doormat. The authors call themselves the Skunk Works. The address line says, “Eyes Only: Mighty Mac,” and the subject reads: “The Carter Question and the Treaty of Fifth Avenue.” This is pure journalistic catnip, Pulitzer-quality stuff. Let me quote:

“Boss, to say you had a good November would be like saying Elway could pass a little. Last month was terrific. Overnight you’re the consensus nominee, endorsed by past and present GOP icons from Owens to Tancredo to Penry, and your Platform for Prosperity puts Republicans on offense with all three big issues – jobs, jobs, and jobs. Plus the platform’s tough stance on taxes, spending, illegal aliens, and crime erases your Washington taint as an ex-congressman.

“Ritter is now the one weighed down with Beltway baggage and on the defensive for his linkage to an Obama stimulus that didn’t stimulate. With total jobs in Colorado actually below 2006 levels, you can score big next fall with the old Jimmy Carter question on whether voters are better off than four years ago. Obviously not, so it’s time for Mac at quarterback.

“But since our job as Skunkers is to pipe in reality, not spin flattery, here’s the other side. With this new platform appearing to be written for you by powerful rivals, you’re in the awkward position of Nixon in 1960 when his issues were dictated by Rockefeller. Divisions over the so-called ‘Treaty of Fifth Avenue’ helped defeat the ticket. We need to change the 2010 story line, and fast.

“The potential winning message of the Platform for Prosperity is threatened by party grumbling and PR vulnerability. Pundits, both left and right, scoff that our agenda is too vague to attract swing voters. Many of the GOP faithful are saying we prefer insider manipulation instead of inclusiveness. Some worry that you won’t run hard on the platform, or fight for it if elected. What’s the McInnis response?

“To quiet the complaints on process, do three things. Hold grassroots platform hearings with Republicans across the state. Let assembly delegates choose your Lieutenant Governor, possibly Dan Maes. And gain endorsements from Bob Schaffer and Bob Beauprez at whatever cost, finally healing the breach from your ’06 and ’08 jabs at them.

“As for issues, Skunkers say go full throttle. Dramatize your platform with specifics. For job creation, pledge to zero out the corporate income tax. Colorado would boom! Roll out ballot issues to fortify TABOR and to let health insurers from any state write coverage here. Dare the legislature next spring to pass a top-10 list of prosperity bills. Call for voting down at least one member of our constitution-shredding Supreme Court, perhaps labor hack Michael Bender.

“Remember, Boss – McCain lost the presidency partly because millions of people feared his moderate mushiness would doom American conservatism if he won. If we don’t catch the wave of tea parties and townhalls, that could be your political obituary as well. But channel your inner Palin the next 300 days, and Ritter’s job is yours!”

GOP shapes 'Contract for Colorado'

State Republican leaders are said to be near agreement on a center-right campaign agenda for turning Colorado around in 2010. According to a Mike Rosen column yesterday and a Denver Post story today, the "Contract for Colorado" would include: • A commitment to limit taxes and state spending.

• Rescinding the Ritter executive order unionizing state employees.

• Requiring employers to participate in the federal e-verify program for new hires.

• Establishment of a state "rainy day" fund.

• Responsible development of renewable energy and Colorado's abundant oil and natural gas resources as well as nuclear energy.

• Appointing conservative judges to balance the court and reign in judicial activism.

• Expanding school choice through additional charter schools and education vouchers.

• Reversing property tax and auto registration taxes.

. Banning taxpayer funding for abortion agencies like Planned Parenthood, in pursuance of general statement of principle defending the sanctity of human life.

How strongly will Scott McInnis speak out for these goals in the campaign and fight for them if elected? What will his erstwhile rivals, Josh Penry and Tom Tancredo, do to McInnis to the contract? Will a broad alliance of GOP candidates for state House and Senate line up with the contract as well?

Important questions, all of them, and impossible to answer at this early date. But this is a step in the right direction. Stay tuned.

Maes: Institution meets revolution

Editor: The most provocative comment on current politics that I've seen from any GOP 2010 candidate is this one from Dan Maes, the Evergreen businessman and darkhorse rival for the gubernatorial nomination against heavyweights Scott McInnis and Josh Penry. Unhampered by playing the percentages as the "favorites" for Governor and Senator have to do (or think they have to), Maes in this mass email of mid-September thinks aloud about the meaning of 2009 grassroots upheavals for Republican-politics-as-usual. Congratulations on your candor and realism here, Dan. The race could get a lot more interesting before our nominees are chosen. Who Can Unify the Institution and the Revolution? By Dan Maes (dan@danmaes.com)

The harvest is ready and the workers are few. Who can get the job done?

The Democrats, liberals, progressives or whatever name they go by these days, have awakened the sleeping giant of the silent majority and a conservative revolution is upon us. In my now over 30,000 miles of campaign travel I have seen this revolution in the form of Tea Parties, new grass roots organizations like 9.12, I Caucus, ROAR America, Liberty on the Rocks, R Block Party, and others all around the state by names unique to their own region.

A clear message has been articulated and that is "Enough is Enough" of the recent and not so recent sins of our fathers in both parties. Generally speaking members of these groups want to be republicans but the sour taste of the sins is still wearing off. They want new and fresh faces in their candidates and anyone that has any similarity to a lawyer or "career politician" may as well pack their bags and go home if these folks have anything to say about it. They want common sense candidates and leadership that truly represents them and not party or special interests.

Now, enter the Republican party activists to the harvest field. Their mission is admirable and one that struggles with history that is hard to avoid. Candidates that have "carried the water" seem to get the nod whether they are really the best qualified or not. I can state first hand that state party chairman Dick Wadhams has, and continues to, made every effort to keep the candidate field open and fair. But can we as traditionalists, and a broken party of the past, break with it and move forward? We can and must!

Can we actually look to a candidate that meets the needs of both the party insitution and the conservative revolution? It will take some give and take on both sides but if it can be done it will lead to an overwhelming victory in 2010 at the state and national levels. If not, are we in for a long and ugly future of more taxes and fees, new energy job loss, and liberal agendas politically and socially?

So the question now becomes the challenge....which candidate(s) can beat Bill Ritter and all the other state and federal democrats by honoring and unifying the institution and the revolution? I am one of them.

Dan Maes Republican Candidate for Governor www.danmaes.com 303-670-2010

Edgar Obama & Charlie McRitter

It's amusing to be a Republican spectator at the feverish Democratic huddle that is Bill Ritter's email list. Day after day, some revved-up copywriter churns out breathless warnings about the sinister threat posed by my side to their side, the dynamic duo of our Governor and our President. Obama hero-worship may be waning in other quarters, but the Ritter campaign still seems to view it as their lifeline for 2010. Reading these bulletins is almost like (and here I date myself) the old ventriloquism act where Edgar "Barack" Bergen threw his voice into the cherubic cheeks of Charlie "Loyal Bill" McCarthy.

My purpose here isn't to debate the merits of what the Ritter campaign is asserting, but merely to marvel with admiration at the strident sycophancy they manage to sustain. Three recent examples...

One from 9/10 entitled "Failing Us All" said in part:

America's broken health care system is failing us all. As President Obama noted last night, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage every day. It could happen to anyone....Thousands of RitterforGovernor.com activists have already emailed their Members of Congress, urging them to rally behind President Obama. But with all the misinformation circulating out there, we must do more to confront the cynics and make our voices heard throughout Colorado.

Earlier this week, the 9/8 dispatch called "A Pep Talk for Colorado's Kids" lamented:

Unfortunately some cynics have decided to use this totally apolitical pep talk to students as an opportunity to gin up fear and anger against the President. With impressively straight faces, extremists like Glenn Beck alleged that the President is trying to "indoctrinate" American children with his political ideology. It's the same folks manufacturing the so-called "birther" controversy, the "death panel" controversy, and every outrageous claim in between. They are dedicated to undermining the President -- no matter what. So I was troubled that some schools here in Colorado gave in to the calls of a very radical fringe by deciding not to allow their students an opportunity to watch the President's important speech in class this morning.

Yup, I was troubled too, Governor. It's gotten even worse than you warned us it would two weeks ago, in an 8/27 message headlined "Trashing Colorado's Progress:"

Our political opponents are courting a radical fringe here in Colorado. One of Governor Ritter's challengers has fully embraced rabidly anti-government "tea parties" and suggested Colorado should reject federal recovery funding -- funding that has already created or saved thousands of jobs in Colorado. Meanwhile another challenger recently dismissed the significance of transitioning to a New Energy Economy in an interview with the Colorado Statesman. He even added that if elected he would throw Governor Ritter's ban on expanding the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site "in the trash," a fringe position which puts him at odds with many in his own party. All this begs the question: what other key accomplishments would our political opponents throw "in the trash" if elected?... One year ago Governor Ritter stood before tens of thousands of Coloradans at the Democratic National Convention... Shortly thereafter Barack Obama took the stage to accept our party's presidential nomination...

"Radical fringe," oooohhh. Doesn't it give you the shivers? But all this does raise (not "beg," thank you) the question: With Obama's poll numbers so low, why does Ritter cling doggedly to his dwindling coattails? Maybe because Ritter's own numbers are low as well. Misery loves company, and besides, what other hero-figure is there for a Democrat in trouble these days? Little Charlie McCarthy had to stay perched on Edgar Bergen's knee and keep mouthing whatever his big pal put forth. It was that or fold up in the vaudeville trunk and go silent altogether.

How Ritter got my vote

John's Denver Post column 7/19(Salida – Nov. 15, 2010) What a year it’s been. Who knew my fellow Republicans would be so unforgiving? Here I am, exiled from Denver’s red suburbs and hiding out in Ed Quillen’s attic, merely for having endorsed Gov. Bill Ritter in the recent election. Where’s the sin in that? It was an unusual move for unusual times. Since the fall of the economy and the rise of Obama, ours have been unusual indeed. Ritter “grew in office,” as they say, but he grew rightward and became that rarity, an irresistible Democrat. Smitten, I signed up. The family disowning me was harsh.

Our governor’s reinvention of himself began in late 2009. Democrats everywhere were getting panicky as the recession dragged on, prolonged by Obama’s clumsy mixture of taxes, regulations, bureaucracy, and bailouts. Republicans won the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey. Ritter’s poll numbers and fundraising were anemic. He fled the state, ostensibly for some golf at Hilton Head.

Then came the confessional press conference. Boy Scout Bill wasn’t vacationing in South Carolina after all. He had followed his heart to Chile. Stolen hours at the mansion with an old college econ book had nerved him for the secret weekend in Santiago, tutoring with Chicago-trained free marketeers. “My soul mate is Milton Friedman,” he gushed. The YouTube video got a million hits in 48 hours.

Statehouse reaction was mixed. Adam Schrager of 9News said Ritter’s rift with the White House made him the new Ralph Carr, a profile in courage. GOP chairman Dick Wadhams voiced suspicion, but admitted he’d prefer a Ritter roaming right to a Schwarzenegger lurching left. Speaker Terrance Carroll, an ordained minister, offered the governor pastoral counseling.

But as the 2010 session began, legislators had their hands full with what Ritter called his “New Democratic agenda on old Democratic principles.” He called for a zero corporate tax to attract jobs, a rollback of the unpopular 2009 vehicle fees, and a drilling-friendly rewrite of oil and gas rules. Dems should take their cue from the frugal Grover Cleveland, the tax-cutting JFK, and the deregulating Jimmy Carter, the governor said.

The ex-president was furious, however, when Ritter remarked on “Meet the Press” that Carter’s warning about “inordinate fear of communism” was off base. “My party’s much bigger problem, including the current president,” asserted Ritter, “has been inordinate fear of capitalism. I’m out to change that.” The Coloradan’s popularity shot up when the Georgian angrily counter-attacked.

“Our QB calls his own plays,” boasted a Ritter campaign ad after he rescinded the executive order for labor unions in state government, redirected money from Planned Parenthood to crisis pregnancy centers, and urged voters to toss four activist justices off the state Supreme Court. New York Mayor Robert Wagner, who once ran for another term on a reform platform against his own previous term, had nothing on our Bill.

Is it any wonder some of us Republicans decided this fearless troublemaker was worth reelecting, if only to bedevil Obama, Huey Long-style? Ritter was on a roll. He put Bill Owens and Hank Brown on an economic recovery board with Charlie Ergen and Norm Brownstein. He named Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien his school voucher czar and replaced her on the ticket with GOP Rep. Amy Stephens, whom he called “Sarah Palin South.”

Politically written off not long ago, the Democratic incumbent led as election day approached, bucking a national trend of revulsion against his party that looked to rival 1994. At the end, though, Ritter’s better-funded and more credibly conservative Republican challenger surged past him, and Colorado went red again.

Tough luck for our gamecock Guv, but no great heartbreak for me. This was one election where good ideas couldn’t lose. Can I come home now, honey?