Color us red in 2012?

(Denver Post, Aug. 28) I wish Tom Tancredo was Governor of Colorado. I wish Scott McInnis was. Heck, I wish the ill-starred Dan Maes was governor. Any Republican, any conservative, rather than the limousine liberal Democrat we’re stuck with, John Hickenlooper. Whence these idle fantasies? Not heat stroke from recent egg-frying temperatures. Not oxygen deprivation from my annual 14er climb. No, it started when I found myself seated between Tancredo and McInnis at a GOP luncheon on Aug. 10, the anniversary of Scott’s shocking loss to Maes in last year’s gubernatorial primary. Tancredo, you remember, was so sure neither man could beat Hickenlooper that he demanded both quit – then bolted and ran as the American Constitution Party nominee. The final numbers in a campaign most of us would like to forget were Hick 51%, Tank 37%, and Maes 11%. Ouch.

Someone said this luncheon was the first time Scott and Tom, formerly congressional colleagues, had seen each other since then. Nothing untoward occurred, and the occasion went in the file drawer of funny coincidences. But that awful August flashback got me wondering whether our party has learned enough from its debacle in 2010 to count on carrying Colorado in 2012.

My daydream of reclaiming the governorship isn’t on tap next year – perhaps just as well, since the GOP has lost five straight contests since 2004 for that seat and for U.S. Senate. So coloring the state a Republican red again in 14 months would mean winning the Colorado House and Senate, keeping or improving our 4-3 edge in congressional seats, and above all, delivering nine electoral votes against President Barack Obama.

Can the Grand Old Party do that? Part of the answer will depend on organizational and fundraising efforts by young state chairman Ryan Call, elected last winter after veteran chairman Dick Wadhams stood down.[1] Part will depend on conservatives and moderates (like the two dozen ex-legislators from both camps at the luncheon) transcending our differences to unify in defeating Democrats.

On those fronts, prospects seem good. On others, however, work is needed. After Call’s luncheon speech, Tancredo queried him about efforts on the right to match CoDA, the Colorado Democracy Alliance of nonprofit groups outside formal party ranks that has given the left such an advantage here in every cycle from 2004 to 2010. Nobody claims that one is solved yet.

A few days later, in a column for World Net Daily, Tancredo asked another tough but fair question: Do Republicans here and elsewhere really want to be “the party of constitutional liberty – or merely the ‘other’ party, the party of slower drift into socialism instead of the passionate embrace of socialism offered by the Obama Democrats”?

The Colorado House under GOP control this year, Tom went on to say, missed its opportunities for “connecting state Democrats to Obama’s policies” by offering a “coherent alternative” that would “reverse course” on such issues as health care, regulation, and taxes.

Speaker Frank McNulty, nursing a 33-32 majority, would doubtless disagree. But there’s a case to be made that voters will need to see more evidence of a rising red tide in policy under the Gold Dome next January if they are to move the state out of the blue column next November.

Then there’s the Tea Party. Dan Maes, hapless novice that he was, turned the best phrase of 2010 in pleading to “introduce the institution to the revolution” and thus cement a Colorado conservative majority. Wrong messenger, right message.

Maes told me last week he sees Chairman Call and other Republicans making progress on allying with this potent new force for freedom and responsibility. Will it work? “The jury is out,” said Dan. On such an alliance, more than any other factor, the red-state hopes for 2012 will turn.

[1] The column as published in the Denver Post erroneously stated that Call's candidacy "moved... Wadhams to retire." In fact, however, Wadhams dropped his bid for another term prior to Call's entering the chairman's race. I regret the misstatement.

Hang onto your wallet

Coloradans had better brace to fend off the same bad idea as President Obama wants to impose nationally: higher taxes, warns John Andrews in the August round of Head On TV debates. No, replies Susan Barnes-Gelt, the idea is a good one and indeed doesn't go far enough. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over the Tea Party, the Obama record, debt and deficit issues, and the Denver mayor's wobbly start. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for August: 1. TAX INCREASE HEADS FOR 2011 BALLOT

John: Hang onto your wallets, Colorado. The same liberal Democrats who want Congress to raise federal taxes are coming at us this fall with a sneaky ballot issue to raise state taxes. A tax hike in this economy? No way. In Denver as in DC, the problem isn’t revenues, it’s spending.

Susan: Rollie Heath’s tax increase to fund K-12 and Higher ed is a good idea. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go far enough. Rather it solves funding problems in the short term, but not the long. It’s a band aid when a transplant is needed.

John: Fortunately TABOR makes politicians ask permission before taking our money in the belief they can spend it better than we can. Voters aren’t likely to give permission at a time when so many are out of work and businesses are hesitant to hire because we have too much government already.

Susan: We agree on the conclusion – Heath’s initiative is the wrong answer at the wrong time – but we’re far from agreement on the reasons Businesses are afraid to hire because government has failed to invest in infrastructure, education and people. Colorado’s budget needs a comprehensive restructuring. Until then – no more band aids.

2. TEA PARTY – HEROES OR VILLAINS?

John: At a scary time in our history, the best thing America has going for us is the Tea Party. Thank goodness for this grassroots movement of fed-up taxpayers finally demanding some fiscal responsibility from the Washington politicians. Biden calls them terrorists. McCain calls them hobbits. I call them heroes.

Susan: Zero tolerance for diversity, for critical thinking, for investing in education, infrastructure or people – that’s the tea partiers. IF they have so much disdain for government, why don’t they get real jobs – earn an honest living, pay taxes, social security and health care?

John: Like the patriots of 1773 who stood against King and Parliament, the Tea Party of today is an uprising of self-reliant citizens standing against Democrats and Republicans to take this country back. In smearing them, you discredit yourself. If we do avoid fiscal collapse, we’ve have the Tea Party to thank.

Susan: Pul EASE John! The Tea Party has been effective in persuading otherwise rational leaders that lack of investment in America, in jobs and people and not raising taxes for 1% of zillionaires is nuts. Debt is not the problem – Fear and ignorance are.

3. IS OBAMA A FAILED PRESIDENT?

John: Can it be only three years ago that Barack Obama was hailed as the second coming at the DNC in Denver? It seems three eons. The magic man who was going to heal the planet has turned out to be the worst president since Jimmy Carter. 2012 can’t come soon enough.

Susan: President Obama has presided over the toughest economy since the Great Depression. Yes, he owns it now. But the debt, deregulation and tax scams he inherited from George W Bush and the Republican Congress share the blame. After all, they inherited a surplus from Bill Clinton in 2000.

John: Lame excuses from the previous decade won’t help Obama win a second term. His weird idea of “leading from behind” is what most Americans consider not leading at all. Liberals are alienated and conservatives are motivated. The independent voters who elected him last time have had it. Bye bye, Barack.

Susan: Compared to whom? Mitt ‘ of course corporations are people’ Romney? Michelle ‘Jimmy Carter & Barack Obama were responsible for the swine flu” Bachmann? Rick ‘super pac riddled with conflicts, yet to be vetted’ Perry? I’m with the Let’s have a better tomorrow, tomorrow crowd. Obama wins.

4. HANCOCK’S FIRST WEEKS

Susan: Denver Mayor Michael Hancock has had a tough first weeks. Press honcho announced he’s focused on national press; Hizzoner’s backtracked on his stock show position – though he hasn’t articulated one.. And his mayoral staff? Inexperienced, overpaid and naïve. It can only get better . . .

John: Looking toward downtown from my home in Arapahoe County or my office in Jeffco, it seems the Mayor of Denver doesn’t have the stature the metro area is used to. Hickenlooper stood tall. Likewise Webb and Pena, agree with them or not, were leaders. But Michael Hancock? Not yet.

Susan: It didn’t help that the campaign was defined by negative attacks and the politics of personality. Hancock wins on narrative and charisma but his failure to articulate detailed plans and a coherent vision is a problem. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.

John: You should have listened to me, Susan. I said Bill Vidal should run. I said you should run. Or you should be Hancock’s chief of staff. Or Democrats and Republicans should fight it out for mayor so voters have a choice. Denver will survive this, though. It’ll be fine.

5. DEFICIT BATTLE

Susan: The problem is not the deficit. It’s a failure to invest in America – roads, bridges, highspeed rail, transit, education. With the jobless rate upwards of 10-percent, the country needs investment. Put people back to work and generate revenue and progress. DC’s luddite view panders to the lowest common denominator.

John: Bush tried a big stimulus and it failed. Obama tried a huge stimulus and it failed. Now you want more stimulus? Absolutely not. The deficit is our problem. Red ink in the trillions, a national debt bigger than the GDP, America’s credit rating downgraded. We need spending cuts and entitlement reforms.

Susan: Yeah and a double-digit unemployment rate, combined with a policy of not closing loopholes, addressing uncontrolled entitlements and refusing to tax the mega rich is certainly the road to a sustainable future. DC is pushing the problem down to states and cities. That’s a recipe for failure.

John: Recipe for failure is exactly what Obama is cooking up, Susan. The high unemployment is his doing. The refusal to reform entitlements is his doing. Tax increases won’t fix either of those. What we need is responsible citizens and responsible leaders. I actually wrote a book about it – Responsibility Reborn.

Responsibility movement grows

(Denver Post, July 24) Will Barack Obama go the way of Jimmy Carter, and lose reelection after demonstrating weak leadership in a troubled economy? One Coloradan with a keen nose for the political wind signaled last week that he thinks it might happen. Gov. John Hickenlooper told a reporter the president would “have a hard time” carrying our state right now, because “there’s such dissatisfaction over people who have been out of work” for months or even years. Though Hick’s warning wasn’t an outright prediction of Obama’s defeat, it’s significant because Colorado is widely considered a must-win if he is to hold the White House. If voters throw out the incumbent, it will be as much because of conclusions we the people have reached about ourselves, as because of anything we conclude about the Democratic president and his Republican challenger, whoever that may be.

We’ll have realized that “consent of the governed” is a responsibility for each of us, not just a mass wave swept along by partisan currents and media gales. Again in 2012, as in 1980 when Carter was ousted, Americans will have decided it’s grab the steering wheel or crash. The leadership reversal we could see next year would simply be the culmination of a citizenship resurgence that began a year or two ago.

The Tea Party movement, consciously echoing the determined citizens who resisted royal oppression and later wrote consent into the Declaration of Independence, is the most potent force for reassertion of America’s founding principles since the Reaganauts of the 1970s refused to believe our best days were behind us. Its emergence in 2009 answered my hope, expressed in several 2007 columns, for a responsibility movement to challenge both parties and reach beyond them.

The conscience our self-government has long lacked is awake again at last. A GOP president taking office in 2013, if such occurs, would find himself or herself equally under the skeptical Tea Party eye as the GOP Congress does now. The new political mandate is to do the right thing; not the easy or customary thing, but the right thing and nothing less. What a welcome change, and just in time to save ourselves – if we still can.

Doing the right thing by choice, and then owning the consequences of your choice: that’s personal responsibility. There’s no other antidote to the debt candy and the entitlement addiction gripping Democrats and Republicans alike. No other antidote to the fiscal deficits engulfing state and federal budgets. No other antidote to the moral deficit of throwaway marriages, negligent parenting, rigged school tests, hacked cell phones.

Deficits abound, but it’s ultimately the responsibility deficit that will sink us unless we get a grip. Its symptoms are everywhere – in dishonest pension promises, in Orwellian day-care regulations, in sanctimonious politicians with zippers down, in an Obamacare law that embeds big business and big labor with big government, waivers the connected, dehumanizes the patient, cooks the books, and calls it reform.

The American experiment asks a brilliant, daring question: How much success can freedom produce? The answer, for the first two centuries, was an astounding amount. But the 1960s and ‘70s revealed a serpent in the garden. We learned that freedom and success can be their own worst enemies. Responsibility has to temper and guide them. History’s drama turns on our continually forgetting and relearning that.

It was responsibility reborn in citizens’ hearts and minds, not mere electoral victories, that turned twilight in America after Vietnam, Watergate, assassinations, and stagflation into morning in America with booming growth, renewed confidence, and Cold War victory.

Another responsibility movement seems to be stirring today. It didn’t start in Washington; they never do. The Washington crowd will either catch on or catch hell. Time is short. History’s drama heightens.

Obamacare worse and worse

Conflicts of interest may discredit Colorado's newly formed health insurance exchange, worries Susan Barnes-Gelt in the July round of Head On TV debates. Look closer and you'll see the exchange concept itself is pure corporate statism, replies John Andrews, adding this is one more reason Obamacare must go. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over the 2012 presidential outlook, the Stock Show's move to Aurora, Mayor Hancock's early moves, and the Denver Police Department. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for July: 1. HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGE QUESTIONED

John: Obamacare requires every state to create a new bureaucratic monster called the health insurance exchange. Colorado House Republicans went along when they should have told the Feds to get lost. Now we learn the board of the exchange is big business in bed with big government, pure corporate statism. That helps no one.

Susan: Seems like policymakers all ‘round – the elected’s who appoint and the industry and business people appointed – need a tutorial on conflict of interest. Hickenlooper’s appointments to the Health Insurance Exchange Board are awful. The fox isn’t just guarding the hen house - he’s living in the master suite.

John: Susan, it’s worse than that. The health insurance exchange is a conflict of interest by definition. The board appointments by legislative leaders and the governor were all quite legal. But the exchange law itself rigs the marketplace and harms consumers. Massachusetts could warn us. Obamacare is fatally flawed. Out with it!

Susan: Massachusetts’s residents love their health care system – Mitt Romney got something right as governor. The current, unregulated system benefits health insurance companies – currently enjoying record profits. The current system works for insurance execs and shareholders. Hick needs to revisit his appointments.

2. PRESIDENTIAL RACE HEATS UP

Susan: The 2012 Presidential race is on. The R’s have a fundamental problem – finding a candidate who appeals to the drown-government-in-a-bathtub contingent, dominating the primary process and nominating someone who can appeal to moderates and independents in November. Despite the tough economy, I’m betting on Obama.

John: Your take on 2012 is backwards. The only drowning to we face is a rising tide of unemployment and foreclosures, with Uncle Sam awash in red ink and Barack Obama in over his head. Good luck on that reelection. Republican challengers Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty could all beat this president.

Susan: The majority of voters want solutions – not partisan bickering and negative attacks. Ronald Reagan beat incumbent Jimmy Carter because he had a positive message and uplifting vision. The current R frontrunners are negative, small minded dividers. Huntsman is the only viable option and he can’t win the nomination.

John: Obama has made the economy worse. He has made the deficit worse. His policies will worsen health care and worsen national security. He just can’t lead. Maybe one of his fellow Democrats will take him down next year. One of the strong Republicans, Gov. Romney, Gov. Perry, Gov. Pawlenty, Congressman Bachmann, definitely will.

3. STOCK SHOW MAY LEAVE DENVER

John: My first time at the National Western was 50 years ago, but I remember it like yesterday. For a lot of us, the Stock Show is Denver. But money talks, and now Aurora is talking loudest. It’s a tough test for in a down economy for Michael Hancock as Denver’s new mayor.

Susan: The National Western is the only urban stock show in the country. It needs 3 times the acreage it has. The issue is not will they move, but who pays? Denver should not pay for the stock show to Aurora unless we retain the revenue.

John: The larger issue is how the people’s hard-earned tax dollars should be used and where the coercive power of government should be allowed to reach. Massive subsidies to private businesses are on the table here, driven by the Gaylord fat cats. Aurora’s election for mayor may become a referendum on the deal.

Susan: There are no winners when politics trumps policy. The issue ought to be what’s best for the region and the stock show. Balkanized local government pits city against city – to neither’s benefit. There’s a win-win is this challenge. But I’m not sure rational thinking will prevail.

4. HANCOCK’S EARLY MOVES

Susan: Denver’s new mayor – Michael Hancock - has his hands full. A tough budget, belligerent police leadership and the threatened stock show exit. The weak economy and bloated transition process has made identifying the right appointees challenging. Janice Sinden, his first-rate chief of staff is a good start.

John: I like it that Mayor Hancock is not a showboat. The guy seems sensible, steady, and real. I like it that he appointed Sinden, a business-minded Republican. I liked his gutsy, decent campaign style. He didn’t pander to unions or hide his religious faith. Now we’ll see how he governs.

Susan: The quality of his appointments will reveal a lot. He needs to bring in smart people with fresh perspectives, not the usual retreads and campaign payoffs. He’s got to replace tired leadership at the urban renewal authority and other policy commissions if he wants to be effective.

John: Lots of people watching this don’t live in Denver. But wherever you live in Colorado, you’d like to hope that Denver is a city on the rise, not on the decline. The keys to that are dynamic free enterprise, excellent schools, and a proud civic spirit. That should be the Hancock agenda.

5. POLICE DISCIPLINE QUESTIONED

Susan: The majority of Denver cops are great. But one out of 17 have discipline problems serious enough to question their veracity in court. Combined with the costly rash of excessive force cases – the DPD needs systemic overhaul. A chief – new to the department is a start.

John: The whole reason for government is to see that streets are safe, neighborhoods are peaceful, citizens are secure in their persons and property. Law enforcement is tough, thankless work. The men and women who do it deserve our gratitude and the benefit of the doubt. I hope the new mayor knows that.

Susan: Public safety is the centerpiece of government. The police department’s mission is to protect and serve – not abuse and lie. Lack of transparency and accountability destroys public trust and that’s where Denver is now. The department and the city will be better off if the bad seeds are removed.

John: Perfection never happens in this world. Policing is no exception. The outgoing chief, Gerry Whitman, is a man of honor and deserves our salute. The former chief, Jim Collier, was right when he warned against demoralizing the force. Don’t do it. The manager of safety, Charles Garcia, doesn’t understand policing. He should go.

Ready for Some Watershed Thinking?

By John Andrews As conservatives, the only question is not how should we vote. How should we live? How should we treat people? How should we view America and its future? I've long believed that many of the answers are hiding in plain sight, up near the Continental Divide in my imaginary hometown of the heart, Backbone, Colorado. It was the dateline for over a hundred of my Denver Post columns in the past decade, and they're now collected in a new book, Backbone Colorado USA: Dispatches from the Divide.

You can nibble these brief, practical essays like popcorn, but get ready for a healthy jolt -- this is power food for hungry citizens. Or to change the metaphor: it's watershed thinking to help readers draw the line between the postmodern laziness that will sink America and the aroused civic courage we must summon up to save our country. Order your copy today, plus a couple of extras to give as gifts. And please let me know what you think of it.