Class warfare won't work

Obama's class warfare theme, learned from Alinsky and abetted by the Occupy Wall Street movement, won't save him in 2012, says John Andrews in the October round of Head On TV debates. Don't underestimate its Main Street appeal, replies Susan Barnes-Gelt. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over No Child Left Behind, the GOP presidential contenders, the PERA pension fund, and Aurora's lavish land development subsidies. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for October: 1. DESPERATE OBAMA TURNS TO CLASS WARFARE

John: Barack Obama learned his lesson well from radical agitator Saul Alinsky. If you’re losing an argument, change the subject, target a convenient enemy, and go on the attack. His economic mess and failed flirtation with socialism spell certain defeat in 2012. The solution? You guessed it – vicious class warfare.

Susan: “Occupy Wall Street’ is catching fire across the country. People of all ages, political persuasions and backgrounds are demonstrating against myopic greed and corruption. Obama’s populist rhetoric is a lot more resonant with the concerns of Main Street than the vapid rhetoric of the status quo.

John: Envy, resentment, divisiveness, scapegoating, and victim politics, all used as a smokescreen for the failures of Obama and his Democrats, won’t work, Susan. This poisonous stuff isn’t the American way. It demeans the Presidency. Obama should be ashamed. The Tea Party patriots, not the Occupier socialists, will win in 2012.

Susan: Oh please – you sound like a plutocrat. The tea partiers and the occupiers have more in common than you acknowledge: utter frustration with a corrupt system controlled by special interests and lobbyists. No transparency, no commitment to the future –education, vital infrastructure. Chaos reigns while the establishment dozes.

2. LATEST ON PRESIDENTIAL RACE

John: I love our American system of self-government. Incompetence can’t hide, and the people can’t be denied. Voters get a chance to clean house. Obama’s utter failure gives Republicans an opening. Palin and Christie stood aside. Cain and Perry are interesting but not dominant. The next president could be Mitt Romney.

Susan: You assume that Mitt – for universal health care; against universal health care; for Roe v. Wade; against choice; ant-school voucher; pro voucher Romney. Will the real Mitt please stand up? The value voters control the primaries and once they find him, maybe they’ll buy his multiple choice approach.

John: Forecasting the presidential race 7 days ahead, let alone 7 months when the Republican nominee emerges, is like forecasting Colorado weather. Good luck. But the awful economy, along with Obama’s weak leadership, makes any Republican formidable. Romney, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, Bachmann – I’ll take any of them over Obama.

Susan: And don’t forget Pallin, Paul and Huntsman. Oops – not Huntsman, the sole Republican contender who is reasonable, experienced and moderate – just like most of the country. No wonder the guy who might be electable is in single digits with the Republican base. Obama – 4 more years!

3. TREASURER SUES PERA

John: It seems like shaky pension plans are everywhere you look. The exception is pensions that aren’t. Unwise decisions and the recession are to blame. It’s not purposeful. But Colorado pension officials should cooperate with State Treasurer Walker Stapleton for a solution. I hope he wins his lawsuit for key information.

Susan: Amazing – you and I agree on this one. State Treasurer Walker Stapleton has every right to ask for all the information he needs to assess the health of the state pension fund. PERA’s forecasts are hopelessly optimistic. Colorado public employees and taxpayers will pay the bill for insolvency.

John: State employees not only get a sweet deal on their retirement, they also have ironclad job security and a much less competitive work environment than Joe and Jane Lunchpail out in the real economy. No wonder the PERA board is obsessed with secrecy. Government workers are soaking the taxpayers.

Susan: Don’t try to lump the PERA board and their secrecy in with hard working public employees. Unfortunately, more than a decade ago when fools believed a hot economy would never cool, reckless decisions inflated benefits and softened restrictions. Treasurer Stapleton must continue his scrutiny.

4. GAYLORD PUBLIC SUBSIDY

Susan: The $300+ million public subsidy to Tennessee-based Gaylord Entertainment from Aurora, to build a private convention center in is the richest in the history of Colorado. What’s the public purpose in a 1500-room private hotel/conference center? Tennessee-based Gaylord’s private facility should be built on their dime – not mine!

John: Amen, Susan. The massive giveaway to Gaylord is not responsible government, it’s crony capitalism – as bad as anything Obama did for GE or Solyndra. Thank goodness for elections. Aurora voters can cancel this obscenity by electing Jude Sandvall as mayor. The other candidates, unfortunately including Republicans, all support it.

Susan: Not one resident showed up at the public hearing September 26, when the city council unanimously approved this fat giveaway. Whoever Jude Sandvall is, he’s completely MIA in the debate. Shame on the citizens of Aurora for allowing Ed Tauer and his colleagues to make a deal behind closed doors.

John: You can call the Gaylord subsidy crony capitalism or corporate statism. It smells bad either way. Hard-working Aurora taxpayers don’t belong in the hotel business. Government at every level, federal, state, and local, is way out of bounds. I wrote the book “Responsibility Reborn” to rally Americans against this madness.

5. NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

Susan: The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, attempted to standardize public K-12 curriculum and force accountability. A decade later, this well-intentioned effort hasn’t demonstrated results – annual improvement in reading and critical thinking. The law needs reform. More and more states try to opt out of the program.

John: No Child Left Behind was one of the worst things that Bush and the Republican Congress ever did. Their first mistake was forgetting that schools are a state responsibility, none of Washington’s business. Their next mistake was letting Ted Kennedy write the bill. Waivers aren’t enough. Let’s repeal the whole thing.

Susan: Well John, you’re half right. NCLB must be repealed and recrafted. And yes, public education is a state mandate. On the other hand – every student from Maine to Mississippi from Oregon to Iowa, to must meet basic standards if America is going to compete in the ever-shrinking global economy.

John: Those basic standards in No Child Left Behind aren’t being met, which is why educators in Colorado are now trying to move the goalposts to legitimize mediocrity. The next president should abolish the Department of Education, take on the teacher unions, and push for educational excellence through the free market.

Democrats vs. democracy

(Denver Post, Sept. 25) Why are the Democrats so afraid of democracy? Do they worry that the will of the people won’t go their way? So it would seem. Several Colorado court cases illustrate the pattern. The Fenster suit to annul the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the Lobato suit to increase education spending, and the ACLU suit to block school choice in Douglas County, all ask unelected judges to substitute their wisdom for that of we the people. Dems are orchestrating each of them, token GOP support notwithstanding. Preferring litigation to legislation is not the only symptom of Democrats’ voter-phobia. The negative propaganda blitz is another. If you’re a liberal and you fear a conservative election wave, crank up the shrill charges and count on echoes from your media allies. Slime the opposition voters until they are delegitimized in public opinion and demoralized in their hearts.

America has never seen this tactic more desperately deployed than in the all-out attack on the Tea Party movement. Which makes sense from the left’s point of view, since the country has not experienced such a surge to the right since the rise of the conservative movement itself, 35 years ago under Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Off balance, the Democrats reached for a stopper: race.

A nonpartisan responsibility backlash from the heartland against the bipartisan irresponsibility of Washington, a citizens’ outcry to stop us going off the cliff fiscally and constitutionally – that and nothing more – this phenomenal new force in national politics had to be branded with bigotry when status-quo defenders realized other smears (terrorists, extremists, nihilists, saboteurs) weren’t scary enough.

It started last year – unsuccessfully – and just recently we in the Tea Party had Congressional Black Caucus stalwarts Maxine Waters calling us intimidators who could go to hell and Andre Carson likening us to a KKK lynch mob, while the Rev. Jesse Jackson tagged segregationists in the 1950s as “a tea party” no different from today’s.

On what evidence? None. The sum total of racist incidents ever documented at Tea Party rallies is one jerk with the N-word on a sign in Houston in 2009. Denver saw a bigger and better sample this July, when I held the gavel as hundreds of Tea Party activists from 25 states gathered for the Western Conservative Summit – and a less racist group you could not find.

They gave the presidential straw poll victory to Herman Cain over a dozen white candidates. Listening to Cain, a black businessman, speak against the mess in Washington, the Summit delegates saw character, competence, and charisma – not color.

Meanwhile in Colorado Springs, a young entrepreneur transplanted from Chicago, Derrick Wilburn, has founded the Rocky Mountain Black Tea Party. Its mission, one learns at www.RMBTP.org, is “bringing together persons of color to educate, inform, and encourage true diversity of political thought and expression.”

The group’s well-attended monthly meetings prove that “black and conservative are not mutually exclusive,” says the cheerfully counter-cultural Wilburn. He’s a registered independent who was, like so many Tea Party activists, apolitical until Obama’s leftward lurch alarmed the bejesus out of him two years ago.

Democratic scare-mongers like Reps. Carson and Waters could journey to the foot of Pike’s Peak and learn that the R we care about as Tea Partiers isn’t race, or even Republicans as such. It’s renewed responsibility – restraint in spending and recovery in the economy, so the United States does not become Greece.

We want to use our votes to make sure the land of opportunity isn’t driven into decline while our least-fortunate fellow citizens remain trapped at the bottom. You’d think Democrats, minorities in particular, would want that too. But if it threatened the incumbents’ power and privilege, maybe not. Their party sure has trouble living up to its name.

Hick '16? Zip, zero, zilch

John Hickenlooper needs to accomplish a thing or two as governor before floating his 2016 trial balloon for president, scoffs John Andrews in the September round of Head On TV debates. Why not, replies Susan Barnes-Gelt, since America loves quirky, and Hick is quirk personified. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over school board races, Proposition 103 to raise Colorado taxes, the GOP presidential contenders, and Denver's lucrative cowtown image. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for September: 1. HICKENLOOPER FOR PRESIDENT? John: Being Mayor of Denver must mess with your ego. Hancock was barely sworn in, and he launched a national celebrity PR campaign. Hickenlooper was barely sworn out, and he launched a whispering campaign for president. What a joke. His accomplishments as governor so far are zip, zero, zilch, nada. Cool it, Hick.

Susan: America loves quirky and Hick is quirk personified! Washington is so dysfunctional – on both sides of the aisle - that Hick’s aw shucks may have traction. As for accomplishments: Pailn? Bachman? Perry? Newt? Hmmmm – not sure qualifications count for much.

John: I know you have to defend your side, but I also know you think John Hickenlooper was a mediocre mayor. Now he’s a mediocre governor. What equips him for the White House? Does Obama run him for VP next year – the Hick Ticket? Then is he in line for next time – Hick Sixteen?

Susan; Hick was a mediocre Mayor because he’s not comfortable taking strong, controversial positions. His aversion to exercising power made him popular but ineffective. He is far more potent as a consensus driven bully puppeteer in the polarized world of partisan politics. Hick in 2016!

2. SCHOOL BOARD RACES

Susan: Our K-12 public education system is broken and needs a massive governance overhaul. Colorado school districts including Aurora and Cherry Creek can’t even field candidates. Others – like Denver and Douglas County – are engaged in ideological warfare – the unions versus the reformers. Time for change.

John: Citizens across Colorado – probably including YOU, watching us right now – will soon get mail-in ballots to elect a neighbor to the local school board. Please, please, get informed and get involved. Teachers are great, but teacher unions tend to put money ahead of kids. Bad show. The reformers deserve your vote.

Susan: What happens when there are NO good choices? Choosing the lesser of two bad options is hardly a vote for progress. Neither the reformers nor the traditionalists have a corner on truth. The system is broken and needs to be overhauled. Well intended citizen volunteers are ill-equipped to manage complexity.

John: Susan, Susan, get a grip. Public education isn’t hopeless, it just needs better leadership – and the school board races offer lots of good choices to provide that. But if the teacher unions keep electing their pawns, learning performance will never improve. Citizens have to step up.

3. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL FIELD NARROWS

Susan: The first Republican presidential primary debate suggests the field is down to two candidates: Texas Governor Rick Perry and hedge fund tycoon Mitt Romney. Though it’s way too early to predicts, if angry tea partiers control the primaries, it looks like Perry will prevail.

John: Not so fast. In September 2007, Republican polls showed Giuliani and Thompson far ahead, McCain far behind. Didn’t work out that way. The GOP nomination to replace Obama in 2012 won’t be settled for six months at least. Bachmann and Palin are still in it. And the economy makes Obama so vulnerable.

Susan: Dream on teenage queen. Short of Jeb Bush getting into the mix, the R’s will nominate Romney. Even the heavy tea drinkers suspect Perry’s stand on Social Security. Romney, the chameleon, will lose. Unless Michael Bloomberg runs as an independent.

John: The Bloomberg who botched the 9/11 commemoration is not headed for the White House. Neither is anyone named Bush, heaven help us. But no one named Obama is likely to live there after January 2013 either. This president has made everything worse – the economy, the deficit, our national security. Obama has to go.

4. STATE BUDGET – TAX OR DROWN

Susan: DU’s Center for Colorado’s Economic Future predicts that structural flaws in the state government combined with two recessions, mean the long-term fiscal stability of state government’s at stake. I know you think government ought to drown in a bathtub – but a bi-partisan group of leaders disagree.

John: Governments at every level are in danger of drowning themselves in debt. Colorado is no exception, and just like the federal government in Washington, our state has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Raising taxes right now would hurt job creation and postpone needed reforms. Vote no on Proposition 103!

Susan: We’re drowning alright – in our own excesses – waging two wars while we cut taxes, failing to keep up with China in infrastructure and educational investments, coddling Wall Street while we ignore Main Street. The deficit is mounting – leadership, vision, courage and vision.

John: As a free and open society with Judeo-Christian roots, I like our chances against communistic China, decadent Europe, or barbaric Islam. But we do have a responsibility deficit, and the result could be fiscal collapse. Feeding the beast with more taxes is not the answer. Vote no on 103!

5. STOCK SHOW TO AURORA?

John: Who will win the Stock Show tug of war between Denver and Aurora? Ranchers, farmers, and rural Americans everywhere must be laughing at the sight of politically correct, environmentally superior big-city folks scrambling after the National Western pot of gold. I guess being a cowtown is no embarrassment after all.

Susan: The Stock Show adds nearly $100 million to Denver’s general fund, and millions more to the coffers of downtown businesses, hotels, restaurants, bars and retailers. Meantime the National Western spends $1 million plus lobbying to move, rather than maintain its facilities. Bad judgment I’d say.

John: Mayor Hancock understandably hates to lose that revenue, hence his fight to keep it – so far consisting of one more committee. Woo hoo. But the bigger question for Hancock is the one I asked during his transition – can he streamline taxes and regulations to make Denver a magnet for economic growth?

Susan: Denver taxes are among the lowest in the region because the City has more commercial property and sales tax receipts than other jurisdictions. The development of the Gaylord Hotel with a $300+ million subsidy is a much greater threat to downtown’s economy than an already streamlined regulatory system.

Tattered Cover book signing, Oct. 4

Do you agree that Americans must revive responsibility or lose our liberty, as John Andrews warns in his new book Responsibility Reborn? Then join us when Centennial Institute's director, a former state senator and appointee of four US presidents, will outline a 10-point agenda for 2020 and sign copies of his book on Tuesday, Oct. 4, at 730pm at the Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch, 9315 Dorchester St. Admission is free but reservations are required. RSVP to Centennial@ccu.edu or 303.963.3424.

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.