Candidates in stark contrast

Obama's goals and record will make a stark contrast with those of Mitt Romney or whoever the GOP nominates, says John Andrews in the January round of Head On TV debates. Hardly, scoffs Susan Barnes-Gelt: Romney's positions are vague and the overall Republican field is weak. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over the upcoming legislative session, policing in Denver, the Lobato school case, and the National Western Stock Show. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for January: 1. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR: HERE GOES

Susan: The economy is beginning to recover and employment is finally going in the right direction.  Obama will have a tough race this November, but so far – the Republican looks weak.  If Romney is the strongest in a weak field, your party’s in trouble.

John: Romney believes in a bigger economy for all to share. Obama believes in a bigger government for all to support. Romney believes in a stronger America for the world to respect. Obama believes in a weaker America for the world to push around. It’s a very clear choice. Advantage Romney.

Susan: We don’t know what Romney believes in because – despite numerous debates – he’s failed to articulate a vision for America. Bashing the president and reciting America the Beautiful while he lies about the number of jobs he’s created and brags about firing people, is not going to win an election.

John: What you just heard, folks, is the whole Obama campaign. Throw mud, discredit the challenger. At all costs, distract the voters from the incumbent’s record of failure. It’s time again for the Reagan question: Are we better off than four years ago? We’re not, so we need a new president.

2. WHITHER THE NATIONAL WESTERN STOCK SHOW?

John: I’ve enjoyed the National Western Stock Show for over 50 years. My son and his son have enjoyed it. It’s a Colorado treasure and a Denver economic powerhouse. The Stock Show must go on, no matter what. If we can bid for the Winter Olympics, surely we can preserve the National Western.

Susan: Yes the stock show is a Denver institution. And that’s where it belongs – in Denver - central Denver. However, the 2-week event needs to become part of year-round job generating campus. 21st Century management and vision must refresh the 160 year-old institution.

John: Just so the whole thing is done with voluntary financial contributions and good old free enterprise. When you say “year-round job generating campus,” I hear boondoggles and subsidies, taxpayers on the hook and special interests at the trough. Horses and cows at the trough, fine. Special interests, no.

Susan: 95 acres in the middle of town, used less than 3 months a year – primarily for special events – is a boondoggle. The National Western notwithstanding – we’re not a cow town anymore. The site needs to generate jobs, revenue and enhanced property tax – no taxpayer bailout, buyout or bond.

3. DOES DENVER NEED AN INDEPENDENT POLICE MONITOR?

John: As the father of a police officer, I am not objective about law enforcement. It’s a good thing – hard work, dangerous work. The dedicated people who do it deserve the benefit of the doubt. Denver’s independent police monitor and oversight board are needlessly adversarial to law enforcement. Why have them at all?

Susan: A handful of rogue cops, an ineffective internal review process and a series of abusive conflicts mean citizens don’t trust the police department. That’s why Mayor Hancock took the unprecedented step of bringing in a police chief from outside the department. Accountability is key.

John: To protect public safety, we grant government a monopoly of force. To prevent tyranny and protect liberty, we have watchdogs to watch the watchers. It’s a balancing act. But the outgoing police monitor, Rosenthal, lost the balance. His call to bring in the feds, an Obama administration that’s anti-police, is wrong.

Susan: Agreed. The police dept doesn’t need a federal investigation. On the other hand, the department has been rogue since Paul Childs was murdered in 2003, I expect the new chief and manager will clean things up. But an independent monitor can give them cover and reassure the public.

4. PRIORITIES FOR LEGISLATIVE SESSION

Susan:  It’s an election year for the state legislature, so we can anticipate a lot of posturing and empty rhetoric. However, Colorado faces big challenges - K-12 & higher ed funding; job creation, transportation, human services and infrastructure – to name a few.

John: Friction between, and within, the political parties makes that big agenda all the tougher this year, Susan. The top Senate Democrat, and two leading House Democrats, hope to take away GOP congressional seats. Hard feelings remain from the reapportionment battle. And bitter primaries may split the Republicans.

Susan: You’re right, John. A serious lack of leadership and vision plagues Colorado and the same lack of civility in the US Congress, is trickling down to state and local government. The unintended consequence of legislative term limits has created a revolving door for career politicians.

John: Take it from a senator who left because of term limits. The limit is a helpful safeguard against legislators settling in forever and getting captured by the system, at the expense of our liberties and our pocketbooks. If this legislature just concentrates on economic growth through free markets, I’m happy.   5.  Lobato & the schools – now what?

Susan:  In December a Denver judge determined Colorado’s school funding system was “irrational and inadequate.”  The state Board of Ed and the governor are appealing. If the ruling holds, the cost to state taxpayers will be enormous.  Though it’s tough to argue resources are adequate or equitable.

John: It’s called the Lobato case, and everyone watching better hope the Colorado Supreme Court overturns it. The ruling by Judge Sheila Rappaport points the state toward bankruptcy, and in pursuit of the impossible. Her idea of adequate school funding envisions every child above average. The constitution doesn’t require that.

Susan: The constitution requires fair and equitable. Of course you can’t legislate – or fund – equality. However, crumbling schoolhouses, insufficient digital equipment, furniture and books impact low-income districts and schools. Well-to-do districts and schools raise money from parents. Schools serving low income kids don’t have that option.

John: All the constitution requires is, quote, “thorough and uniform.” By no stretch does that justify the $3 billion budgetary hit demanded by teacher unions and rubber-stamped by the judge. America has doubled real dollars per pupil in government schools since 1970 with no gain in test scores. More spending is not the answer.

Grim reminder in Parker deaths

Have you observed two reoccurring events in the news?  First, there is murder followed by a suicide.  Is this the result of teaching and acceptance of evolution in our society?  If life is just a matter of chance and time, what difference does it make what I do?  If I am not responsible to a Creator God, than I can do anything I please. 

Second, the people left behind always express shock that their friend/relative was capable of such an atrocity.  However, such disclaimers ignore basic humanity for the perpetrator and the one making the claim.  Jesus said, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander" (Matt 15:19). 

Evolution conjectures that things are getting better and better.  The news of the day negates this theory.  If we are honest with ourselves, we will recognize the truth about our own deceitful heart.

My 2012 survival kit

(Denver Post, Jan. 1) “Let us eat and drink,” said the beautiful people at last night’s glittering parties, “for tomorrow we shall die.” Maybe they thought their insouciance fitting as 2011 ticked away, but they could not have thought it original. It was Obama’s favorite economist, John Maynard Keynes, the original Mr. Stimulus, who remarked coldly in the 1930s that in the long run we’re all dead. And Keynes was echoing the dissipated elites of ancient Israel 2700 years ago, says the prophet Isaiah. Fatalistic irresponsibility endures though nations rise and fall. Our fall may now impend, as 69 percent of those polled believe America is in decline and 57 percent expect our kids will live less well than we do. Yet you saw little evidence of that somber outlook in the prosperous holiday bustle at suburban malls and downtown theaters. A psychologist might call it cognitive dissonance. I’d call it either rank denial or good old American gumption. But which?

On this first day of a fateful election year the choice is entirely ours – and I choose gumption. Notwithstanding our fiscal and economic woes, political polarization, slumping demographics, nukes in Iran and North Korea, global jihad and sharia, the USA has the potential to come roaring back in 2012 and onward to 2020. It starts with deciding we can.

True, historians warn that great nations seldom make it to age 250, and we’re now 235. “Pessimism, materialism, an influx of foreigners, the welfare state, the weakening of religion, the love of money, and the loss of a sense of duty,” Sir John Glubb’s checklist for a country in decadence (from his 1976 book “The Fate of Empires”), fits us all too well. Our advantage, though, is that there has never been an America before.

Are we exempt from the undertow of history and the underside of human nature? Absolutely not. We do possess, however, resilient free institutions and an indomitable fighting spirit. From this fortunate combination – representing for our generation a trust to keep, not a charm to boast on or coast on – a victory for the United States over decadence and decline, against the odds, remains possible.

I’m no Pollyanna. Our state and nation are ill-led by Democrats and Republicans alike. Judges flout the Constitution, producing tyrannous rulings like Colorado’s Lobato school case, and making it unlikely the Supreme Court will annul the disaster that is Obamacare. The spiritual poverty in today’s public square would appall the pioneers who put “Nil Sine Numine,” nothing without the Spirit, on our state seal. We face a stormy year.

But like many Christian and Jewish conservatives, I enter 2012 with a survival kit of ideas and ideals that keep me buoyant, storms or not. Here on the shelf by my desk are wisdom-books giving timeless encouragement in the toughest times. Enemy attack, economic crash, electoral defeat? I hope and pray not. Still in such volumes as these, there is sustenance to persist regardless.

Of course my list of ten titles, compiled years ago for a friend, won’t match yours. But I do recommend compiling your own. It will ground you on bedrock and make 2012 go better. And what are the books on my shelf?

First is the Bible, alongside Chesterton’s “Everlasting Man” and Lewis’s “Mere Christianity,” for an anchor in eternity. Next, “The Federalist” for politics and Bastiat’s “The Law” plus Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” for economics. Weaver’s “Ideas Have Consequences” and Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative” diagnose America’s travails since 1945.

From literature, though a hundred come to mind, I complete my ten with Bolt’s “Man for All Seasons” and Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” epitomizing moral integrity. We’ll need a lot of that, and divine help besides, as beleaguered America turns the calendar page. Happy New Year.

2011 valedictions & 2012 predictions

Fantasy presidential nominations for Ross Perot, Olympia Snowe, and John Hickenlooper, along with bouquets for Douglas County school vouchers and brickbats for the Denver police, enliven the air waves this month as Head On completes its 15th year on Colorado Public Television. John Andrews on the right and Susan Barnes-Gelt on the left offer their annual backward glance at winners and sinners of the old year and gaze into a cracked crystal ball for headlines of the year to come. This month John and Susan also spar over Hickenlooper's report card, Obama's chances in 2012, and fracking. Here are all five scripts for December. 1. WINNERS & SINNERS OF 2011

John: Thanks so much for listening as Head On completes 15 years on Colorado Public Television. It’s time again for Colorado winners and sinners of the old year. Thumbs up for Douglas County vouchers, the Pat Sullivan arrest, and the amazing Tim Tebow. Thumbs down for Aurora corporate welfare and the redistricting mess.

Susan: Thumbs down to Curt Fentress’s faux federalist, new state courthouse at 14th and Lincoln; the clueless National Western Stock Show and the Regional Transportation District’s breathtaking incompetence. Thumbs up to the new Clyfford Still Museum, David Tryba’s Colorado History Museum, and Denver’s new Crime Lab at 14th and Cherokee.

John: So, a crime lab connoisseur, are we? More of my winners and sinners include thumbs up Scott Gessler and Walker Stapleton, shaking up state government, and for the taxed-out voters who crushed Proposition 103. Thumbs down for the power-grabbing judge who ordered billions more in state aid to education.

Susan: Sinners: Text messaging Denver cops; Scott Gessler - a partisan political hack, not a statewide elected official accountable to every voter; Wall Street bankers who hedge against their clients; Winners: Coloradans. All of us are lucky to live in a state replete with natural beauty, a gentle climate and Colorado Public Television 12.

2. FEARLESS PREDICTIONS FOR 2012

John: Goodbye, 2011. Hello, Susan and John’s fearless predictions for 2012. Put on your crash helmet, Barnes-Gelt. This is gonna be a wild one. The stock show moves to Limon, out where the cattle are. Occupy Denver moves to Glenwood Springs for a bath. A deadlocked Republican convention drafts Hickenlooper.

Susan: U.S. Senators and Congressionals are permanently attached to lie detector machines; the occupy movement and tea partiers form a successful third party and nominate Ross Perot; text messaging goes the way of the phone booth; the Catholic Church ordains women and pigs fly!

John: Air traffic controllers land those pigs – which is called bringing home the bacon – as Facebook buys the US Postal Service, Diana DeGette leaves Congress to replace Whoopi Goldberg on The View, and Donald Trump’s hair is enshrined at the Smithsonian. What a year we have ahead!

Susan: Repub’s nominate Olympia Snowe for president; Colorado voters abolish Amendment 23, TABOR & the Gallagher amendment; Washington DC reverts to a swamp and Denver becomes the U.S. capitol. My button bracelets become the decade’s fashion rage and each and every one of you have a happy and healthy 2012!

3. ELECTION YEAR ALMOST HERE

John: Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, politically written off last summer, was on the comeback trail as 2011 ended. But Iowa and New Hampshire will have their say as 2012 begins, and Romney or some other Republican could jump ahead again. The ultimate comeback would be an Obama victory in November. Never underestimate the incumbent.

Susan: Mitt, Newt, Newt, Mitt, Newt Mitt – hmmmmmmm. When petulant professor, 1990’s whiner Newt is the flavor of the month for the Republican – not-Mitt posse – cast about for a viable alternative to Hope & Change. I’m betting on a third party candidate – Ron Paul? Trump? What a circus!

John: Barack Obama will go down as one of the worst presidents in history, and he’ll lose next fall. Economic futility and foreign policy weakness disqualify him for a second term. Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, Romney, Gingrich, or Huntsman could all do better. Not party, not ideology, but simple competence will decide this one.

Susan: Competence: Huntsman’s the only competent choice and he won’t get there. Perry doesn’t know there are 9 members of the Supreme Court? Repubs who served with Gingrich say he’s unpredictable and mercurial; Romney – which one? The moderate, the conservative? The hedge fund bandit? The liberal governor of Massachusetts? Flop! Flip!

4. FRACKING SPURS ENERGY BOOM, BUT IS IT SAFE?

Susan: To frack or not to frack? Hydraulic fracking, the trendy new oil & gas production technique used in Colorado and other mountain states has been linked to groundwater pollution. Fracking pumps fluid into wells under pressure, fracturing rock and releasing oil and gas. OOOPS – here we go again.

John: One country on earth, America, impairs prosperity, quality of life, and national security by denying its people the full benefit of their own energy resources. Reason enough right there to fire Obama and the Democratic Senate in 2012. The phony panic over fracking is a green hoax as bad as global warming.

Susan: John, you’re too smart to ignore science. It’s not just the greens who worry about damage to the environment. Maybe you don’t care if your water is tainted by fracking or the air you breath full of particulates. Reality doesn’t go away because you chose to ignore it!

John: Hydraulic fracturing to release oil and gas reserves on a Saudi Arabian scale is producing tremendous benefits to Colorado, a dozen other states, and our whole country in terms of jobs, wealth, energy independence. More benefits await. Fracking only occurs with tight environmental safeguards. Don’t let Chicken Little shut it down.

5. HICKENLOOPER REPORT CARD

Susan: One year into his first term, John Teflon Hickenlooper continues to be popular. His aw shucks, a-partisan, can’t we all just get along approach to governing is particularly refreshing compared to the venal and mean-spirited personalities of most partisan-pols. His approach is good for Colorado.

John: A flat economy isn’t good for Colorado. Neither are mediocre schools and crowded prisons. Voters didn’t hire Gov. Hickenlooper to be the likable feller in a Western movie, the sequel to City Slickers. They hired him to be the chief executive of our state, and so far he’s done zilch.

Susan: I wish that Governor John Hickenlooper could wave his magic wand: create jobs, fix the schools and overhaul the prisons. Sadly – neither he nor any other elected official has that power. A healthy economy, great schools and a rational penal system depend on rational people negotiating rational decisions.

John: No question Hick is probably a great guy to have a beer with. He could brew the beer for you. But that was two jobs ago. After a year in his current job as Colorado CEO, the ambitious Hickenlooper has no accomplishments or vision to point to. That’s a C in my gradebook.

Show some backbone

(Denver Post, Nov. 27) “Thanksgiving and Christmas 2011, now those were tough times. The House and Senate couldn’t agree on raising taxes. Denver and Aurora couldn’t agree on the Stock Show. Democrats couldn’t get excited about Obama. Republicans couldn’t get excited about anyone. It was grim, I tell you. Worse than 1933, with unemployment over 20%, Hitler and Stalin menacing Europe. “Worse than 1942, with the world in flames, the Allies beset by Germany and Japan. Worse than 1968, with assassinations, race riots, failed presidencies, antiwar marches.

“No, youngsters, none of those dark days compared with the year we lost Steve Jobs. Elway was dissing Tebow. Big Air was cancelled. Black December, we called it. Be grateful you weren’t born yet.”

Will Grandpa be narrating such melodrama by a Colorado fireside decades from now? Hardly. So why the long face? We’ve survived worse than this. Purpose and grit will get us through. Coloradans have backbone. Our best days are ahead, there’s no doubt of it.

Yet four out of five Americans in a recent poll said the country is now in decline. Maybe we are beginning to see ourselves as a people that things happen to, rather than what we’ve historically been since Pilgrim times – a people who make things happen. It’s a huge difference; and fortunately, it’s still our choice.

Local reaction to failure of the congressional “supercommittee” to reach a deficit-reduction agreement, as reported last week by the Denver Post, portrayed Colorado as an almost helpless dependent of the federal budget. The state will be a less desirable place to live in dozens of ways, one gathered, if spending growth slows down to keep America from a Greek-style fiscal collapse. Woe is us.

The obvious rejoinder is twofold, it seems to me. First, let’s have some perspective here. Spending growth HAS to slow. Barreling along on the current unsustainable path is not an option. It would make all 50 of the states a worse place to live.

Second, since the budget binge is clearly ending, deal or no deal, let’s make a virtue of necessity and get busy positioning Colorado for greater economic self-sufficiency. The time should come when we’re NOT a groveling client of the Beltway. How about both parties in the legislature and the Hickenlooper administration vying to outdo each other on reforms toward that goal, come January?

New Year’s confetti will hardly be swept up, of course, when presidential politics goes white-hot with caucuses and primaries, Colorado included. Some say that movement on policy will then halt because of election-year posturing. But considering our state’s particular leverage in the 2012 race, why do we have to accept that?

We’ll not only be a battleground state again as we were in 2008. This time, Colorado could play the decisive role that Florida played in 2000. Strategists on both sides have spun out scenarios in which our nine electoral votes tip the balance of 269 to elect the incumbent or the challenger. (Lucky we stayed off the National Popular Vote bandwagon.)

So we will have, to put it mildly, the respectful attention of both Obama and his opponent – Romney, Gingrich, or whoever – all the way to November. As individual voters and especially through our organized groups, we should be thinking about what we want from them. I don’t mean our selfish wants, but our agenda for the civic good, for America’s renewal.

Our state is being paid yet another compliment, if you can call it that, as pundits left and right predict that the “fear and loathing” attack campaign Obama used to rescue Sen. Michael Bennet’s reelection here in 2010 will become his own national theme against the GOP in 2012. If true, too bad. Such scaremongering demeans our intelligence and our backbone. Will Coloradans stand for it? Stay tuned.