Pro-union McClellan wrong for Arapahoe

The blunder of the decade in Colorado government was Bill Ritter’s edict to unionize all state employees. Why on earth would his fellow Democrat, Rebecca McClellan, consider the same idea for all county employees as she runs for Arapahoe County Commissioner? Maybe it has something to do with all the contributions she’s quietly taken from union organizations – some out of state – for several election cycles now. That, and McClellan’s glaring lack of business experience or business support. She simply has no context for understanding how to run a productive payroll or how to foster economic growth.

What a contrast with Mayor Nancy Sharpe – an experienced businesswoman, proven executive, and the only candidate talking about jobs. No wonder McClellan is full of phony indignation about Sharpe’s donations from developers. She has to distract voters from the unflattering matchup of pro-union liberal vs. pro-jobs conservative at a time when most of us in Arapahoe County are tired of the recession and looking for leaner government.

Mayor Sharpe has been endorsed by every member of the city council that serves with her – Democrats and Republicans alike. These are her colleagues who know her best, and they support her even across party lines. Four past county commissioners here in District 2 have also endorsed Nancy, as have the founders of the City of Centennial, the South Metro Denver Realtors Association, and the Home Builders Association.

That’s easy to understand, because her conservative credentials are strong. In the private sector, Sharpe oversaw multi-million dollar budgets and a hundred employees. As Mayor, she ELIMINATED ALL CITY DEBT, created a rainy day fund, and REDUCED SPENDING while maintaining service levels -- all without raising taxes. Few other elected leaders have comparable bragging rights these days.

McClellan, lacking much of a record and weak on the issues, has based her campaign on attacking Sharpe’s character and frightening the voters about transportation. That’s not credible because, after all, it was Nancy Sharpe who led the effort to secure $4 million for current improvements to I-25/Arapahoe to reduce congestion and help KEEP CARS OUT OF NEIGHBORHOODS. I’ve wasted too much time, as you probably have, in the slow crawl on Arapahoe Road, so it’s to see this work finally occurring.

Poor Rebecca is flailing. Her alarmist rhetoric, liberties with the truth, and melodramatic “emergency meetings” have community leaders shaking their heads. I’m concerned that her tactics could poison the whole issue and threaten any future improvements to the intersection – just around the corner from where I’ve lived since 1974.

That offends me, and it offends McClellan’s colleague in Centennial government, Mayor Pro Tem Ron Weidmann. “Don’t believe the personal attacks, misinformation, and mudslinging by Sharpe’s Democratic opponent about the redevelopment of I-25 and Arapahoe,” he warns. “It’s all created as a political tool to further her career.”

Jim Dyer, who is retiring as commissioner in District 2, told me that based on his firsthand knowledge of both contenders, “Nancy Sharpe is the candidate you can trust to bring real solutions and not play politics with the facts. She’s the one who secured those millions from T-REX for widening the Arapahoe interchange.”

So we have one candidate who brings real solutions and the other who simply cries wolf. In the faceoff between Sharpe the conciliator, conservative and pro-jobs, and McClellan the divisive pro-union liberal, I choose Steady Nancy.

Has GOP come undone?

(Denver Post, Oct. 10) “Not so fast,” warns the movie hero. He’ll make sure the cad or the con man doesn’t get away with it. One side in American politics has always been the party of “not so fast,” putting the brakes on expansive government power. Today that’s the Republican Party, and they serve the common good in doing it, even when unsuccessful. But I’m concerned that in the governor’s race this year, Colorado Republicans may be so unsuccessful that their restraining influence on political overreach is lost for a long time. Even the most fervent Democrats, if they remember the corruption of power, shouldn’t relish that prospect – though one can see why they’re keeping gleefully silent as Tom Tancredo and Dan Maes rip each other. Voting begins this week. The worry du jour last week was demotion of the GOP to minor-party status if Maes finishes under 10 percent. I don’t think he will, but he obviously won’t win either. In the likely outcome of Democrat John Hickenlooper winning, or the unlikely outcome of the freelancer Tancredo prevailing, the one certainty on Nov. 3 is a defeated, divided, and demoralized Republican establishment – which doesn’t augur well for constitutionalism.

What’s constitutionalism, and who cares? We all should. Our written constitution of self-government, in this state or the United States, is only as strong as the unwritten traditions of fair competition and civic virtue – habits of the heart, as they have been called – that sustain America as a caring community of free people. A jungle ethos of winning at any cost endangers all that. Let's not go there..

Too many on the right in Colorado, I’m sorry to say, already have. To be clear: While this party stalwart is firmly on record as supporting neither Maes nor Tancredo nor Hickenlooper, I have GOP friends in each man’s camp – and our friendship will survive the disagreement. The purpose here is to analyze attitudes, not to slam personalities. The slamming is what has to stop.

Reversing early assurances that he wouldn’t run an anti-Maes campaign, Tom has. On Dan’s side, a frothing anti-Tancredo screed is now online, slinging slurs like “chicken hawk.” It’s more bitter than a primary because there’s no intra-party comity to damp the invective. Tom says he’ll govern as a Republican if elected -- but it wasn’t long ago he emphatically disavowed the party label, and mocked Lincoln for good measure.

Political memories aren’t short. Even if Ken Buck wins, some congressional seats flip, and Democrats suffer legislative losses, a self-wounded GOP will be disadvantaged under the gold dome after this cannibalistic governor’s race. As tax pressures intensify and Obama girds for reelection, Colorado is going to need a party of “not so fast.” Who will it be? The American Constitution Party can’t mount a defense when liberals go on offense.

Whether Tancredo’s ambition succeeds this time, or fizzles as it did in the presidential primaries, many in my party will need to think long and hard about whether the end justifies the means. Maes’s undeniable weaknesses were but a relative excuse, not an absolute justification, for mass desertion of the Republican nominee. Somehow the McInnis disease, scorning party standard-bearers in 2006 and 2008, went epidemic in 2010.

Abandoning long-established institutions for “light and transient causes” violates conservative prudence, the Declaration of Independence warns. Many of the GOP’s finest, including four of Tom’s congressional colleagues, have gambled unconservatively this fall.

They used to say the Episcopal Church was the Republican regulars at prayer. The Tancredo movement seems like the regulars on a fling. Might all this, in hindsight, prove an overreaction? Have we destroyed the village to save it? “She’s come undone,” sang the Guess Who. I hope I’m wrong in applying that to our state’s Grand Old Party.

Jerry Brown slurs Whitman -- earns NOW's endorsement

The timing couldn't be more profound: just one day after California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown is caught on tape as a campaign aide calls Meg Whitman a "whore", the National Organization for Women announces -- you guessed it -- that it is supporting Jerry Brown for Governor. Proving that liberal orthodoxy trumps gender every time, NOW not only is endorsing a man over a woman in California, but it is apparently not concerned with Brown's acceptance of sexist, demeaning language being used against his opponent. In NOW's view, Whitman -- who is pro-life -- apparently doesn't warrant the kind of protection from mysogynist attacks that the group's charter is supposed to provide all women. But as it has proven time and time again, female conservatives are the wrong kind of women. Not that NOW can't be enraged by a politician's words -- just not those of Democrat politicians. Posted prominently on the NOW website, the group is vehemently denouncing Senator Jim DeMint's "dangerous comments" on gays and sexually active single women "being unfit to teach". According to NOW, DeMint's comments to a "conservative church group" make him a "sexist bigot" who is "ignorant, homophobic" and unfit to serve in the U.S. Congress. DeMint actually made these comments six years ago, and was only recently reflecting on the impact they had in the media in a speech he gave last week to the Greater Freedom Rally in Spartanburg, South Carolina. And he actually said that "gays and unmarried pregnant women" should not be public school teachers -- a statement that NOW extrapolated to mean "sexually active single women" -- as if every sexually active single woman gets pregnant. Leaving aside the wisdom of DeMint's views on these issues, is putting forward a value statement on public education really worse than calling a woman a "whore"?

For NOW -- which has never met a conservative woman it can support, a man who uses a sexist slur is still better than a self-made woman who embodies the very feminist values of hard work and female mobility that the group is supposed to stand for.

Shameful.

Life is never disposable

What sadness to learn that a Philippine woman gave birth to a baby on a flight from the Middle East and then left him in the trash on the plane. How could a mother do this? But wait! She said she was raped by her employer. Is it now OK to return the baby to the trash and let him die? Yet, isn't this the "choice" of those who advocate abortion? Their position is that it is cruel to force a woman to have a baby resulting from rape or incest.

When is the punishment of one person imposed on another person? Why is a baby in the womb killed because of someone else's sin of rape or incest? If the Filipino woman would have had an abortion before the flight, there would have been no story of a thrown-away baby.

Isn’t the real tragedy that our society approves of abortion while disapproves of babies in the trash? Vote for Amendment 62 as the baby in the womb is a person and not property to be disposed.

Flunking his midterms

As the election nears, "voters are giving President Obama his midterm report card, and his grade so far is F," says John Andrews in the October round of Head On TV debates. Maybe, rejoins Susan Barnes-Gelt, but people are almost as unhappy with Republicans as with Democrats. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over Colorado races for senator and governor, congressional matchups and this year's ballot issues, and the Denver mayor's animus toward autos. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for August: 1. OBAMA GETS HIS REPORT CARD

John: “Mr. President, is this my new reality?” Those polite words from a disappointed and recession-weary supporter on national television showed how far Barack Obama has fallen from the triumph of 2008. A black woman government employee, the very essence of his base, about to walk away. Obama faces a rough midterm.

Susan: Two years does not a presidency make. Recall Reagan and Clinton? Obama's supporters are frustrated-as are most Americans. Thanks to Republican economic policy, the hole is deeper than anyone expected. A one trick pony won't trump a full house.

John: Voters in this election are not only going to elect a Republican House and a more conservative Senate. They are giving President Obama his midterm report card, and his grade so far is F. It’s too bad, because America suffers when a president fails. If he wants to rebound, the socialism has to stop.

Susan: The only people voters like less than Democratic Congressionals are Republican house and senate members. Newt Gingrich’s vicious, hateful screed added to the small mindedness of the Republican leadership appeal to humanities basest instincts. American voters – left, right and center are better than that – much better.

2. GOVERNOR’S RACE

John: Colorado’s next governor, whoever it is, will take office with undesirable baggage. We need a governor with conservative principles, character, and competence. Democrat John Hickenlooper is liberal and slippery. Republican Dan Maes is impossible to trust. Tom Tancredo deserted the Republicans and became a political privateer. I can’t vote for any of them.

Susan: John you care too much about Colorado not to show up- and that's not voting translates to. That sage wise man, Woody Allen got it right when he said, "80-percent of success is showing up! On the other hand, I admire your integrity regarding the R’s.

John: Nothing personal against Maes, Tancredo, or Hickenlooper. They just don’t meet my standard for a chief executive who’s fit to lead Colorado. Our constitution gives most of the power to the legislature anyway. The key to reviving prosperity, and balancing the budget, is electing a Republican House and Senate.

Susan: Your points about legislative power are technically correct, but the gov controls the bully pulpit. Hickenlooper and Republican control of the Senate or Housep could be an opportunity – given Hickenlooper’s truly non-partisan nature and centrist values. I’d like to agree with your analysis John, but then we’d both be wrong!

3. SENATE RACE

John: The decency, toughness, and common sense of Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck seem to have scared the appointed Democratic senator, Michael Bennet, out of his wits. Rather than explain his own record as an Obama puppet, Bennet is spending millions on smear ads to demonize Buck. It won’t work.

Susan: Buck is just another politician. Now he's backpedaling hard to distance himself from his extremist statements. He wants government out of our pockets but in our bedrooms? He wants to privatize veteran's care? Who is this masked man?

John: Michael Bennet was okay as school superintendent, but he’s a weak senator. He should have stayed at DPS. I know Bennet and I know Buck. Buck gets my vote because he’s strong. We worked together on fighting illegal immigration and liberal judges. In Washington Buck will fight Obamacare and the big spenders.

Susan: Your reasons for preferring Buck are precisely why he won’t be Colorado’s junior Senator. Too conservative, too reactionary –pandering to the furthest right Republican wing. That and his antiquated patronizing view of women means he’s alienated too many centrists – male & female. He can’t win without ‘em.

4. COLORADO CONGRESSIONAL RACES

Susan: How about those congressional races? Betsy Markey may be the most vulnerable incumbent, running in the conservative 4th District. Yet most pundits rate the race as a toss-up because as a former businesswoman, Markey is smart and practical. I admire her because unlike most of these pandering incumbents, she's clear about her principles.

John: Principles, ha! Markey has zigzagged shamelessly on issues like cap and tax, the stimulus, and Obamacare. Pelosi may cut her off. Republican Cory Gardner wins the seat back. John Salazar in the 3rd district is another endangered Democrat. Scott Tipton likely defeats him. Democrat Ed Perlmutter of Golden isn’t safe either.

Susan: John Salazar and Ed Perlmutter will both prevail. Ryan Frazier hasn’t got the horsepower to beat Perlmutter and Salazar’s conservative record and strong roots in Southern Colorado will hold fast. Colorado’s Congressional Delegation will stay the same, Markey’s authenticity is sharp contrast to pandering politicos. She wins.

John: Congressional Democrats are like a ball team that can’t hit. Send’em to the showers. Put in Republicans to control spending and spur prosperity. Out with Markey, in with Gardner. Out with Salazar, in with Tipton. Replace Permutter with Frazier. Trade Polis for Bailey. Elect Fallon and dump DeGette. Clean house!

5. COLORADO BALLOT ISSUES

Susan: Doug Bruce's destroy Colorado campaign rides again! November's ballot has 3 issues: 60, 61 and 101 will decimate Colorado, driving business away, further overcrowding schools and reducing key state services-safety, Higher Ed, and public health. Voters should also say no to Amendment 62. Less government means no government in our bedrooms.

John: Ballot issues protect ordinary Coloradans against arrogant politicians. I’m sympathetic to 60, 61, and 101 as a reinforcement to TABOR, and a source of much-needed tax relief. 62 could save the lives of many unborn babies. 63 says no to Obamacare. But I wonder – do we have too much lawmaking by petition?

Susan: Not a single viable candidate supports 60,61 and 101- that speaks volumes. And yes, we do have too much lawmaking by petition. The social contract between the governing and the governed is the framework for a viable democracy. Whim-driven initiatives weaken that contract, making a farce of representative government.

John: Speaking of that, I’m voting no on Bender, Martinez, and Rice, the Supreme Court justices who gutted TABOR. I support 63 because I don’t want socialized medicine. I support 62 because I oppose killing babies in the womb. 60, 61, and 101 are mighty stringent, but as a taxpayer, I’m tempted.