McConnell heads for tall grass

Bob McConnell, who twice in the past five months told Republicans in western Colorado he was their man for high office, today set some kind of record by quitting the party in righteous indignation less than 24 hours after receiving his second rebuff. McConnell lost the August primary for Congress to Scott Tipton (who went on to unseat Democrat John Salazar), then lost last night's state Senate vacancy race to Jean White, then let loose today with the following mass email announcing his exit from the GOP.

crv email edition feb2011

Notice the military boast with which he signs off: "Rangers Lead the Way." Would that be the way to the tall grass when the going gets tough, Bob?

WHY I AM NO LONGER A REPUBLICAN January 4, 2011

To those of you who listened when I asked you to trust the Republican Party, I apologize. The GOP has failed us at the national, state, and local level. I am no longer a Republican because the GOP no longer represents me or what I believe. When I stepped into the fray a year and a half ago I thought the evil I was fighting was the progressive movement. I was only half right. We must defeat Barack Obama and his agenda. The GOP is not up to the task. It is time to face the reality that conservatives are being shut out of the Party. Conservative values, not a "go along to get along, what will keep me in office" mentality will defeat Obama in 2012.

As I drove back from the vacancy committee meeting in Craig last night, I heard that the RNC is $4 million in debt. And these are the people who will lead us to fiscal responsibility? Small wonder contributions are evaporating after we learned last summer that more than two-thirds of all contributions go to keeping the national machine in first class when they travel to gala dinners, and the occasional massage parlor visit. GOP "leadership" in the US Senate and House is an oxymoron - a true contradiction in terms. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are poster boys for the GOP "paid their dues" mentality. They are the same two who with Pelosi and Reid, "led" us through the Bush 43 and Obama era financial debacle. Last month they caved on critical conservative issues during the lame-duck, and I sense that was just the beginning. Refusing to allow Michelle Bachmann a leadership position was a slap in the face to the Tea Party energy that put a new group of Republicans in office. Soon Congress will vote on whether to keep the government open by funding it with money we don't have. How will Republicans vote? And before May, Congress must vote whether or not to raise the debt ceiling AGAIN, further financially strapping our grandchildren. How will Republicans vote - based on the promises they made while campaigning or based on what they're told by the poster boys?

At the state level, the GOP looked like the Keystone Cops during the last election - funny if not so pathetic in result. Last night the SD 8 Vacancy Committee appointed Al White's wife to finish his term - liberal bloggers say the fix on that has been in for weeks. I am sure liberals celebrated with champagne when they heard the result. When a selection as important as the SD 8 seat is made by secret ballot, we, the people, suffer.

I am now registered as Unaffiliated. It was easy to disengage; just go to a website , and then start paying attention to patriots who pledge allegiance to the flag, not a party.

We need a vehicle other than the GOP to defeat Obama, because the GOP is not up to the task. It is a waste of time to try and change it from within; they have made it clear we are not welcome. The only way to get their attention is to leave. Not necessarily to form another party, but to stand together outside the Boy's Club as independent voters. We can field candidates who have no party allegiance or affiliation. We can choose people who have integrity and want to serve us, not just more mediocre life-long politicians who have paid their dues. Let's get their attention.

I have always urged you to "keep the faith." That never meant faith in the Republican Party, or any political machine. I ask you to have faith in yourselves, in ourselves as conservatives, to overcome the most serious crisis the Republic has faced in a hundred years. We must not repeat 1912 in 2012 and the GOP is well on the way to doing just that.

Rangers Lead the Way!

Bob McConnell

beawatchman@aol.com

970-846-4907

What's Jay say? Woods, cells, pets

Jay Says One: Gov. Bill Ritter signed a law that expands civil protection orders to include threats or acts of violence against pets. Pets? This is the same governor who has supported the killing of unborn babies in the womb. Why would an individual or a society want to protect animals, but not human beings? Jay Says Two: The Food and Drug Administration is putting the pinch on adult stem cell therapy that uses the patient's own stem cells. This procedure has been very effective. However, embryonic stem cell research, which requires the killing of of a baby in its earliest form, has been approved. The irony is that there has been private sector funding of embryonic stem-cell research, but it has failed to produce results. Why is our government so intent on killing babies?

Jay Says Three: After Brit Hume's son committed suicide, Brit recognized his need and yielded his life to Jesus Christ. He encouraged Tiger Woods to consider "the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith." Then, there was a firestorm of criticism. On the live coverage of the Masters, Tiger was so upset with his play that he cursed using the name of Jesus Christ on national television. Will there be the same sort of outburst against Tiger Woods for using the name of God the Son in vain?

He painted the true Colorado

[photopress:allen_true_fm_rotunda.jpg,thumb,pp_image] (Denver Post, Mar. 7) “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” mutters a world-weary American to his paramour at the end of a Hemingway novel. The acid dismissal of love typifies suspicion of idealism in any form, a timeless temptation for humankind. Hemingway gave his story a modern setting but borrowed its title, “The Sun Also Rises,” from Ecclesiastes, a world-weary classic of 2200 years ago. Since the novel’s publication in 1926, Americans have gone on to conquer the Depression, defeat Hitler and Tojo, end segregation and polio, win the Cold War, computerize earth and explore space. Still the stance of cynicism toward nobility and goodness is widely fashionable.

To enter the new wing of the Denver Art Museum, for example, you walk past a huge whiskbroom-and-dustpan sculpture and make your way into a jarring, angular Daniel Liebeskind structure that resembles a glass skyscraper felled by an 8.8 earthquake. Don’t assume you know what beauty is, the objects seem to say. Not so fast with your delight in the human spirit and your pride in our civilization.

After running this gauntlet of the unpretty on a recent afternoon, however, I was more than rewarded by the DAM’s enthralling exhibit of the works of Colorado painter and muralist Allen True, 1881-1955. His heroic depiction of man and nature in the older and newer West may not tell the whole story, but it immortalizes a proud part of it that we should gratefully cherish. You need to see our state’s past through True’s eyes.

Trappers, prospectors, pioneers, cowboys and Indians, builders and aviators come to life under his imagination and brush in a way that celebrates their “men to match my mountains” vision and purpose while escaping Hollywood cliché. And equally striking as the art itself is the self-confidence of an era that could give it a public place of honor all across the city and region, not so very long ago.

“More people, more scars upon the land,” the gate-closing grumble of John Denver in “Rocky Mountain High” (named an official state song in 2007), was not the way Allen True’s generation viewed the human settlement and beautification of this vast territory previously written off as the Great American Desert. A good example is the specimen of his art most familiar to Coloradans, the water saga with True’s murals and Thomas Hornsby Ferril’s verse in our State Capitol rotunda. The theme is people flourishing as modernity advances – rather than the depopulation grimly sought by leftist scolds.

Under the painted, silent gaze of True heroes and heroines, lawmakers not only in our capitol but also in those of Wyoming and Missouri (from which Lewis and Clark, Pike and Fremont started west) make decisions for this new century. You’d like to think the vitality, generosity, and optimism of his art – and of Ferril’s poetry, sure that “beyond the sundown is tomorrow’s wisdom” – would guide them more than the cramped and gloomy green ideology now ascendant.

“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” said Shelley. The way we visualize and verbalize our sense of possibilities has more power to limit or liberate us than any government. Sentimentality is no substitute for reason and reality, of course, as Hemingway’s scorn for “pretty” thought reminds us. But there is a realism in the American success story, captured by the painter True and the poet Ferril, superior to the sentimentalism of frightened Gaia-worship. Let’s embrace it.

The West portrayed in old songs, an open range and Front Range with never a discouraging word, mountain majesties near gleaming cities undimmed by tears, may lack practicality. Yet it’s a better ideal to strive for than anything in Al Gore’s lugubrious poetry – and Allen True depicts it gloriously. The True exhibit runs through March 28, not to be missed.

Colo. sports thru Texas eyes

As one of the many transplants who have moved from Texas to Colorado, I’ve picked up on several interesting differences between the sports scenes in Houston and Denver. Denver is one of the most unique sports cities in the country with an eclectic mix of competition for fans to take in.

Obviously there are the big four with the Broncos, Rockies, Nuggets and the Avalanche, but there is so much more. From Major League and Arena soccer to Arena and Australian Rules Football. There are even two professional lacrosse teams in town, not to mention the array of high school and college sports.

In Texas it is no secret that football is king, from high school all the way to the NFL. But while support for the Texans has continued to grow through the years, Houston is light years behind Denver when it comes to supporting an NFL franchise.

High School football is another matter. While it has increased in popularity in Denver, the entire state of Texas is infatuated with that level of football, and the majority of the State champions at the top levels over the last decade have come from the Houston area.

Prep baseball in Houston is far superior to that in Denver, with a laundry list of top MLB players originating from Houston. Meanwhile the biggest MLB player from the Denver area at the moment would probably be Brad Lidge.

Of course that’s not a surprise considering the climate here and how difficult it is to play baseball in cold weather. Anyone who has ever caught a 90 MPH fastball in sub-50 degree temperatures or hit a ball off the end of the bat would agree.

I guess the most obvious difference between the two cities when it comes to sports is the variety. While Houston has the Rockets and the Houston Dynamo, which has won the MLS championship, it is dominated by football and baseball from the professional ranks down to high school.

Denver provides more options which sports fans clearly enjoy, and while the Broncos obviously reign supreme, fans relish the opportunity to take in the plethora of athletic competition the city provides.

Austin Corder has covered sports for the Amarillo Globe and San Antonio Express as well as his hometown Houston Chronicle. He now lives in Genessee, equidistant between Invesco Field and the ski areas.

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.