A theory on a confusing Presidential poll, informed by the CD7 primary

Without research, one could be forgiven for assuming that John Edwards and Barack Obama are duking it out to become the liberal alternative to Hillary Clinton, whose pro-Iraq War, anti-free speech record has drawn the ire of activists. But the polls show something different. As noted at Eschaton:

Obama/Edwards supporters don't seem inclined to support the other one. Clinton is a popular 2nd choice as well as 1st one, and when Obama or Edwards are excluded from the poll their support largely shifts to Clinton.

Conventional wisdom, thrown under the bus by the truth.

That poll also shows support for Edwards as first choice nearly doubling from 9% to 19% since November 2006, while Obama's support has remained level at 19% - 20% since the day he declared. And there I go, evidencing Atrios' interpretation. I lean towards Edwards and I find myself bashing Obama.

Meanwhile, a very recent University of Iowa poll (found here) reveals this:

Results show that Edwards remains the leader among likely Democratic caucus goers, competing primarily with Clinton for caucus support. Edwards led by a substantial margin with 34.2 percent. Clinton followed with 28.5 percent, and Obama with 19.3 percent... Although Edwards led in support among Democratic caucus goers, this same group believed Clinton was the strongest candidate.

Why would the caucus-going supporters of two theoretically similar candidates default not to each other, but to a third, less-similar candidate? Consider the CD7 primary of 2006, where Peggy Lamm, a female centrist with a history of cooperating with Republicans, faced off against two ostensibly liberal male contenders. One was Ed Perlmutter, a Democratic insider with high name recognition and a long history of campaigning in the contested district. The other was Herb Rubenstein, an intelligent, affable newcomer who could claim early opposition to the Iraq War. Three months before the election, the polls put Perlmutter at 51%, Lamm at 31% and Rubenstein at 6%.

Now exit the realm of provable facts and consider a theory.

In a Democratic primary, voters are torn by competing forces. They want a candidate they can ethically support and they also want a candidate who can win a general election. An ideologically-driven candidate's mission, then, is not just to sell him or herself, but to sell the idea that an ideologically-driven candidate can win the general election. If the candidate fails, primary voters shrug their shoulders and vote for the centrist.

In CD7, Perlmutter succeeded because the voters of CD7 knew him as a person. Edwards is following a similar path in Iowa, where he has been campaigning forever.

Rubenstein did not have Perlmutter's name recognition or ground game, so he tried an alt-strategy, reaching out to anti-war voters, bloggers and activists. Similarly, Obama has not spent as much time in Iowa as Edwards, so he is trying his own alt-strategy, becoming a fundraising juggernaut and outright celebrity who the voters of Iowa may soon see as a potential winner.

If Edwards/Perlmutter or Obama/Rubenstein supporters conclude that their candidate is a loser, they are likely to default not to a similar candidate, but to someone they view as a general election winner.

There are doubtlessly imperfections in this comparison. But if you're thinking I'm forcing it just to give myself an excuse to start posting Christina Aguilera videos again, well, that's just crazy. Since you brought it up, though:

Objectivity trumps facts in the classroom?

[This diary was cross-posted last night at SquareState - Ed.]

Not too long ago, a group of sixth graders decided that global warming was a hoax. And it seemed sort of cute because sixth graders are young and of course they'll grow up someday.

But yesterday a Longmont paper revealed that the sixth graders' teacher has decided to quit to pursue a career writing books supporting creationism. Some snips from the story:

A science teacher who's spent 10 years with the St. Vrain Valley School District is retiring this spring to write more books on creationism and the dangers of Darwinism. Ken Poppe, 58, made national news last week after his sixth-grade paleontology class debated global warming and decided humans aren't causing it...

Though his students were free to choose as they pleased, Poppe said he too disagrees with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which declared Feb. 2 that it's 90 percent certain human-generated greenhouse gases are to blame for global warming...

"I'd talk about the alternatives to evolution if kids brought it up. But I'd never set out to challenge evolution," Poppe said of his classroom focus.

It appears that Poppe attempted to separate his personal faith from the scientific facts he taught in class. Now that he has reached a point where he feels that his faith is more important than the curriculum, he is honorably retiring. Kudos to him.

But a closer look at the earlier story reveals this worrisome quote:

Ken Poppe said he let students choose which side of the debate to argue. Poppe personally believes global warming is cyclical and not affected by humans, while his Colorado State University student aide David Richards believes the opposite. Both, however, said they presented both sides equally to the students leading up to Thursday's debate.

Presenting "both sides equally" is not the same thing as presenting the facts. And if a teacher decides that opposing views deserve to be heard, they should be given the respect due to them and no more. The IPCC is 90% certain that global warming is manmade, not 50%.

An obession with objectivity has damaged mainstream journalism, which often seems more concerned with presenting both sides to a story than it is with uncovering the truth. This same tendency should not be allowed in the classroom. I can see it now:

"Most mathematicians believe that two and two equal four. But others believe that numbers are an artificial construct designed by their creator to help them grasp the concept on infinity."

And then the teacher will allow the students to debate the subject and dare parents to question their kids' ability to make up their own minds.

A is A, people. It always will be.

Opponents of New Energy Economy legislation wasting time

Governor Bill Ritter's New Energy Economy means jobs. It means innovation. It means a cleaner state. It means a habitable planet.

It also means a whole lot of whining from entrenched oil and gas interests and their friends in the legislature.

On Tuesday, a group of legislators led by Yuma Republican Cory Gardner asked Ritter to slow down energy legislation including HB-1341, which would overhaul the oil and gas panel. (Read about it in the Rocky or the Post.)

It begs the question, just how slowly would they like things to move? Climate change has been an issue for years. Decades, even. The effects are being felt now. We are lucky that Colorado still has the opportunity to seize a leadership position in the new - and essential - green economy.

Fortunately, the governor seems to understand this. And he isn't inclined to cave on one of the central planks of the Colorado Promise. A statement his office released Tuesday night reads, in part:

"My administration has made every effort to listen to the concerns of the energy and resource-development industry. We understand how important this industry is to our economy and the value it brings to our state. Our intent is to balance the extraction of resources with the concerns the people of this state have expressed surrounding impacts to our water, air and land. Over the past five years, members of the public have lodged more than 1,500 complaints with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conversation Commission regarding those impacts.

"By end of this year, the state will likely grant more than 6,000 new drilling permits, a doubling from just a few years ago. We will have received more than 33,000 permit applications. Colorado is in the midst of one of the largest energy-development cycles in decades, probably ever, and we must do all we can to protect the public's health and our environment.

"Harris Sherman, the executive director of the Department of Natural Resources, and other members of my administration have spent more than 30 hours in stakeholder meetings with the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, the Colorado Petroleum Association and others interested parties regarding HB1341. We have spent twice that amount of time on the phone gathering input from and listening to stakeholders."

Translation: "The oil and gas industry has been heard. And will be heard. And now you're wasting time."

The same could be said in our nation's capital, where for years oil and gas interests have blocked attempts to slow global climate change. Finally, the voices of science, progress, passion and optimism are being heard. One can only hope they are not too late.

Bill Ritter, education funding and the schools of New Orleans

Everybody wants something for nothing. For instance, the state education fund will be insolvent by 2010. But Governor Bill Ritter's plans to fund it - first by using federal mineral-lease royalties, then by freezing the mill levy - have met with stiff opposition.

Next up, Ritter follows the President's lead and borrows the money from China.

But what if solutions aren't what the GOP is after? What if it wants to create seemingly unsolvable problems as an excuse to foist charter schools upon the state?

Charter schools certainly seem to be on the agenda of Dr. Barry Fagin, an Independence Institute senior fellow and adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. (A name which ought to raise a red flag for many of you.)

Fagin's column in the Monday, March 19 print edition of The Denver Daily News sang the praises of Daniel Hudson, who Fagin says he first read of in The Atlantic. Fagin lauds Hudson as a "tough disciplinarian" who is fighting "Big Easy bahavior" in the emerging schools of New Orleans. Coincidentally, I also read The Atlantic. So I know the article was ambivalent about Hudson's methods and results:

[Hudson's story] seemed to make no impression on the young man. I couldn't tell whether it was because the student was already too far gone, or because Hudson was so busy talking, and yelling, that he had forgotten how to listen... As Hudson himself knew well, the time he spent in the halls, the endless meetings with parents, meant he knew little of what was happening in the classroom. What was clear, in the time I spent in classes, was how little of the training Jarvis had mandated for teachers seemed to have taken.

Fagin calls the education experiment in New Orleans "unprecedented in American history... Parents have complete freedom to send their child wherever they want. The money follows their child, period. In response, schools are springing up like wildfire." In fact, New Orleans' "experiment" has led to a scary reality - school administrators who want to screen out underachievers and blacks:

Huger would have preferred that his school have selective admissions, by which students are screened on criteria like test scores and grade-point averages. He also would have preferred more of what he delicately called "diversity" - as in white children. But under the guidelines, choice ran only one way: Huger would have to educate any child who chose him.

The same article reports that across America, charter schools are failing to meet academic benchmarks. In Washington, D.C., "the latest numbers showed that only four of thirty-four charter schools had met academic benchmarks. And in Philadelphia, the most recent data showed schools run by educational management companies - which Huger saw as the best bet when run in partnership with local nonprofits like his - lagging behind public schools in improving performance."

As Ritter said at a recent Bell Policy Center event, education is the key to opportunity and economic growth. And there's little doubt that our schools need an overhaul; Democratic leaders like Andrew Romanoff are leading the way. But charter schools are far from the silver bullet the free market fundies make them out to be.

Blake misses in HB-1008 column

The headline from Peter Blake's column last Saturday asked "Can passing bad bills help GOP?" A better headline may have been, "How much misleading data can we fit into one column?"

Blake argues that HB-1008 is "a singularly cynical proposal" that Republicans may have decided to support to put "Gov. Bill Ritter in a bind once again."

The bill would make it easier for firefighters with cancer to get workers comp. So how does Blake try to make it sound like pro-union pandering? The column rests on two assumptions. The first is that HB-1008 "is roundly detested by those who would have to pay higher workers comp premiums, namely the municipalities and special districts that employ firefighters." This is a point the Rocky's editorial staff made - nearly word for word - in January, when it wrote, "HB 1008 would increase the cost of workers comp insurance purchased by the municipalities and special districts that employ firefighters."

But neither statement is accurate. In fact, statistics provided by the House Democrats cite a number of states that have passed presumptive cancer bills without impacting workers comp premiums:

• California has had "no impact" in actuarial assumptions or funding of the state's firefighter retirement system. An actuary in the system says that this legislation has had "minimal effect" on the actuarial costs to the retirement system.

• Illinois has had presumptive cancer legislation in its worker's compensation statute in place since 1984. For the first 6 years after the implementation of the statute, the City of Chicago (which employs 50% of the firefighters in the state) had an 8.3% reduction in the number of beneficiaries receiving occupational disability benefits.

• In the first 4 years after passing presumptive cancer legislation in Nevada, the state had a total of three claims. This averages to less than one claim per year for a rate of 0.02% in the state of 3,990 firefighters.

• Rhode Island had a total of 6 claims in the first 8 years after the presumptive cancer legislation was implemented in 1986. This, again, averages to less than one claim per year for the state of 5,000 firefighters.

• The state of Oklahoma had 22 claims paid in the 6 years after passing presumptive legislation, an average of 4 claims per year. The average cost per claim was $10,409 for a state of 12,420 firefighters. That is less than a dollar per year per firefighter to pay for the coverage of cancer in his/her profession statewide.

Blake's second assumption is that "[n]obody really knows what causes cancer and the only studies linking cancer to firefighting are funded by the firefighters. But HB 1008 says that most cancers afflicting firefighters after five years on the job 'shall be presumed to result' from their employment."

A press release from the House Democrats cites "studies done over the past 50 years [that] have provided evidence that supports the fact that members of the firefighting profession develop certain forms of cancer at an alarmingly higher rate than previously believed." The bill is limited to these forms of cancer - those that attack the brain, skin, digestive system, blood or genitourinary system.

It is unreasonable to place the burden of proof on a cancer victim. It is a fact that firefighters develop specific cancers at a high rate due to their exposure to various toxins. And presumptive cancer legislation has had only a minor impact in the states where it has been enacted. It seems like HB-1008 would be a hard peice of legislation for the GOP machinery to attack.

But Peter Blake has a history of leaving critical facts out of his columns. (For instance, Colorado Media Matters called him out for a column that "pointed to two of Colorado political consultant Dick Wadhams' campaign successes without acknowledging -- aside from a passing mention of comparisons between Wadhams and Karl Rove -- the negative campaign tactics Wadhams has used to achieve those successes.") But ignoring data in order to portray a good bill as a giveaway to the firefighter's union? He's really gone too far.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Jeffco commissioners approve tower

Right next to death, taxes, globalization and the tides, there's high definition television. Here's a clip from the Post's story "Jeffco approves TV tower on top of Lookout Mountain":

Jefferson County commissioners today unanimously approved rezoning for a digital-TV broadcast tower on Lookout Mountain.

Saying they felt trumped by a quickly passed federal law, the commissioners said they will enforce building and zoning codes for the 730-foot-high tower.

Lake Cedar Group, a consortium of local TV stations, has sought rezoning for the tower so it can broadcast high-definition TV to the metro Denver area by the federal deadline of February 2009.

"The best way to manage this is to affirm the previous board's approval and continue to monitor compliance with building codes authorized by the official development plan," Commissioner Kevin McCasky said of 2003 actions.

Commissioner Kathy Hartman said was "not exactly thrilled to find myself" in a position of the federal government saying that the county did not have jurisdiction over local issues such as health consequences of tower radiation.

"If we had voted no, everyone would ignore us, and it would have no effect," Hartman said.

There are two stories here. The first is about the tower itself, advancing technology, and the health concerns of the surrounding community. The second is about the way in which our Senators and even the Jeffco commissioners have attempted to gain control of the situation.

In December of last year, I published a story called "More federal government trampling of local concerns." My opinion remains unchanged. Both sides have valid arguments and Washington was too quick to assert itself.

An even better example of this tendency is the Bush administration's decision not to wait for the recommendations of a local committee before proceeding with the auction of oil and gas leases on roadless Colorado land.

I don't mind a strong federal government because issues like terrorism and global warming can't be solved at the local level. But in some cases, Washington simply goes too far.

In defense of a governor who shouldn't need defending

Governor Bill Ritter is arguably the most powerful person in Colorado. His election in November was just short of a landslide. And in the two months since his inaugural, he has helped calm the Amendment 41 debate, directed aid to Colorado's blizzard ravaged southeast counties, recommended full funding for the new science and engineering complex at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, indicated he will approve major renewable energy legislation, saved the state a reported $1.6 million on prescription pharmaceuticals...

I could go on like this for quite awhile.

But a casual observer of Colorado politics might get the impression that Ritter is a governor under siege, taking heavy fire from all sides. Today the Post's Tom McGhee reported that Ritter is attempting to win back labor's trust after his veto of HB-1072. The Rocky's Berny Morson wrote that Ritter is considering vetoing two education bills, one carried by a Republican and one carried by a Democrat. And the Post's Jeri Clausing reported that "in just two months in office, Gov. Bill Ritter has emerged on the opposite side of candidate Bill Ritter on two key issues, raising questions of credibility and the reality of carrying out his sweeping Colorado Promise."

The last statement is especially disingenuous. Nether of the issues Ritter allegedly flip-flopped on - HB-1072 and the allocation of federal mineral lease dollars - was even part of the Colorado Promise, a document the Ritter for Governor campaign released in September of 2006. At the time, I wrote that, "The comprehensive 52-page policy book takes on every issue facing Colorado, from healthcare to the economy to the environment to illegal immigration." On February 11, 2007, I reread the document and realized that'd I'd been wrong. Themes like "energy" or "education" were mentioned far more than issues like, say, union voting procedures.

It's true that some of the voters who cast their ballots for Bill Ritter were voting against his Republican opponent or for pet issues. But I believe most voters chose Ritter because they wanted major, 21st Century reforms for our state's healthcare, transportation, education and clean energy systems.

In other words, voters want the Colorado Promise.

There is no excuse for breaking a campaign pledge. But the two flip-flops alleged in the Post are less serious than Clausing makes them out to be. The first is that Ritter's veto of HB-1072 contradicted earlier statements to labor groups; I discussed that situation on February 9, 2007. The second is that using increases "in federal mineral lease money to shore up the state's failing education fund" would violate Ritter's pledge to "give priority to energy-impacted areas for severance tax and federal mineral lease moneys." Even those alleging this change of heart state that they haven't seen Ritter's plan yet, which makes the whole thing sound like preemptive politicking.

In politics, the perception of smoke can create a very real fire. But there's not even smoke here. Just a lot of hot air.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

All Positive, All The Time Week: Bill Clinton

The further we get away from the Bill Clinton presidency, the more I miss it. So with our country eyeing another recession and Coloradolib in the midst of its 2nd All Positive, All The Time Week, here are two lessons that our future Presidents could and should learn from our 42nd.

1. Save when times are good, so you can spend when times get rough: Clinton didn't take the roaring economy of the 1990's as a license to spend. Instead he built up a big surplus. That meant that when Bush needed to give the economy a boost after 9/11, he could afford what many assumed would be a short-term tax cut. Our next President won't be so lucky. He - or she - may simultaneously face a tricky economy and a huge deficit.

2. Consumer confidence can help the country survive recessions: The recession of 2001-2002 was accompanied by a 20% drop in business spending. Why? Because businesses behave more rationally than consumers, and corporations were readying for a prolonged recession. But consumers have short memories. And after the longest economic expansion in our country's history, consumers forgot what a recession felt like. And so they "defied a recession and Sept. 11 and kept spending at a healthy pace." Even at it's recession nadir, consumer confidence was still higher than it was the month Bill Clinton took office. (84.9 in November 2001, indexed to 1985 vs. 76.7 in January, 1993.)

I'm not claiming that Bill Clinton single-handedly recession-proofed the economy. Or even that he deserves sole credit for the Roaring Nineties. But his economic policy definitely paid dividends long after his administration was over.

David Schultheis worst legislator in history

How strongly can I put this? David Schultheis is a huge embarrassment to our state. His anti-hispanic, anti-government, anti-female agenda is too extreme for Colorado. And his efforts to disguise his intolerance as piety should offend the religious and non-religious alike.

Schultheis is apparently oblivious to the train wreck that is his legislative record. In fact, he seems to believe his professed religiosity in and of itself makes him a better person than his less-sanctimonious peers. Here he is speaking from the State Senate floor yesterday, quoted at Colorado Confidential:

"In order to have morals you have to have virtue, and to have virtue you have to have religion."

It's impossible to have morals without religion? Hogwash.

Schultheis' most recent abomination was the "Religious Bill of Rights" that was shelved by the State Senate yesterday. The bill was inspired by the paranoid fantasy that the 92% of Americans who believe in God are somehow being persecuted by the 8% who don't. Among other things, it would have allowed science teachers to opt out of teaching evolution and reinterpreted what Schultheis called "the misunderstanding of 'Separation of Church and State.'"

Schultheis has made a career out of hiding unchristian positions behind evangelical rhetoric. The sooner the legislature is rid of him, the better.

Ritter, Suthers send letter on 41: Analysis

The two biggest debates of the 2007 legislative session have been trumped-up, partisan, finger-pointing fests.

Bill Ritter and John Suthers' letter spoke of "very little guidance regarding the meaning of certain provisions of Amendment 41." But the amendment was ambiguous by design. Morgan Carroll's eloquent pre-election endorsement of 41 stated:

Amendment 41 will have "enacting legislation" to nail down precise definitions and address any potential ambiguities before taking effect. The public can and will have a say in that process as well. The measure was written to put some flexibility to shape the implementation of Amendment 41 to make sure that while we implement this that we can be fairly surgical in clarify that it reaches only those we intend to.

Colorado Confidential wrote that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed a willingness to write enacting legislation - at least in the case of Amendment 27, which contained similar language.

And a few days ago The Rocky Mountain News reported that this process was already underway:

Children of government employees could accept scholarships and lobbyists could socialize with public officials under a bill that seeks to clarify the controversial gift-ban law known as Amendment 41.

The proposal, expected to be introduced early next week, is designed to prevent a host of unintended consequences of the law approved by voters in November.

It does so by listing a handful of exemptions, including allowing CU professors to take Nobel Prize money and spouses of slain police officers to accept donations.

It also inserts language that more closely ties a gift to its intended effect.

So for the second time in just a few days, Ritter has had to go to extraordinary lengths to quiet a controversy that shouldn't have been.

(More: Sentinel, Post, SquareState)

Who vetoed HB-1072 and why?

Jon Caldera wants credit for the veto. The complicit media, union strategists and Democratic legislators must take some of the blame. And GOP Machiavelli Dick Wadhams almost certainly played a role in shaping biased media coverage.

But is it silly of me to suggest that the responsibility for Friday's HB-1072 veto rests solely on the shoulders of Governor Bill Ritter?

Colorado is a weak-governor state; the power lies with the legislature. So it's not surprising that Ritter used the way-out-of-porportion circus surrounding HB-1072 as a chance to make a statement using the biggest hammer he had at his disposal.

In this context, the veto feels less like a capitulation to the rightwing noise machine and more like a message to the legislature.

Message received. Yesterday's Denver Post reported that Democratic House Speaker Andrew Romanoff would assemble a "council of business and labor leaders to advise the legislature in light of the bitterness between the two sides over House Bill 1072." Why? Because both sides "have an interest in educating the workforce and reducing the cost of health care." [Ed. - Emphasis added.]

Ritter's veto has reminded everyone exactly what the Colorado Promise goals are: Guaranteed healthcare, reformed education and a New Energy Economy.

Well done, Governor. So long as those goals are, in fact, met.

Bill Ritter and the power of the veto

I'd like to say I didn't see it coming. But I did. Today, Governor Bill Ritter vetoed HB-1072, setting off a firestorm of criticism and second-guessing.

Moderate changes the Colorado Labor Peace Act are a fine idea. But in this case, labor groups and the Republican Party both over-reacted, attempting to make political statements early in Ritter's term.

Ritter's response was unexpectedly savvy. First he restated his commitment to bipartisanship:

...I promised the people of Colorado over the last two years, that I would work tirelessly to bridge traditional divides, to bring together groups that often find themselves at odds: Republicans and Democrats, business and labor, developers and environmentalists. I vowed to listen to a wide range of views, to unite and to build consensus around a public policy agenda that speaks to the common good.

Then he chastised those who put him in this unwinnable situation:

From the beginning, this was a bitter, divisive and partisan battle. Opposite sides dug in, refusing to consider reasonable compromises. It demonstrated precisely why so many people have grown so cynical about American politics. The bill's proponents made no effort to open a dialogue with the opponents. At times, the opponents were neither respectful nor civil. It was over-heated politics at its worst.

Ritter made sure to leave the door open for the bill to come up again:

I am persuaded by their argument that changing long-time Colorado law relating to business and labor negotiations in this manner, in the atmosphere with which it was debated, is not now in the best interests of our state. (Ed. - Emphasisis added)

And Ritter finished by reminding all involved that his priorities as governor remain unchanged:

Creating the New Energy Economy, reforming health care, funding education, and building a 21st century transportation system requires that kind of [bipartisan] spirit and commitment.

Ritter's veto leaves him with the ability to re-open negotiations with labor, while building up IOU's from business groups. But it also leaves him with a heavy responsibility. Because those of us who supported him won't forget those elements of the Colorado Promise that Ritter held most dear. The voters are owed substantive proposals for guaranteed healthcare, a 21st Century transportation system, and major steps towards the implementation of a New Energy Economy that greatly reduces pollutants while providing a livlihood for thousands of workers.

The clock is ticking.

Why I'm all worked up about the Edwards bloggers

There are two things about this issue that bother me:

1. Marcotte and McEwen may be controversial. But much worse has been written on the Internet by anonymous bloggers who publish unsourced assertions and vile speech while hiding behind pseudonyms. (I mention some local examples here, here and here.)

2. Republican Senators like John McCain and John Thune have also employed controversial bloggers. They got away with it because they kept their relationships secret, and were never questioned by a credulous media.

In the end, the debate is larger than John Edwards. If the radical right and the mainstream media have their way, honest, controversial commentary may disappear. In its place will be the deceitful, anonymous, clandestine Internet of John McCain and John Thune. And that'd be a very ugly Internet indeed.

(Media Matters: 1, 2, 3, 4)

HPV vaccine faces campaigns against profits, sex

Every year about 4,000 women die from cervical cancer. Yesterday Colorado's Democratic legislature took action. A Senate committee approved a bill requiring girls to be vaccinated against HPV, an STD that causes the disease.

The Rocky's story on the situation at the Capitol reported that some oppose the bill on the grounds that the company that makes the vaccine will profit from its sale:

Opponents accused Merck & Co., manufacturer of Gardasil vaccine, of pushing similar legislation across the nation to boost its bottom line.

People are absolutely right to be suspicious of the ties between the doctors that dispense new medicines, the legislatures that mandate their use, and the companies that profit from their sale. But the Rocky's article doesn't give enough emphasis to the fact that social conservatives have been been campaigning against the vaccine for years as part of the movement's ongoing war on sex.

Time Magazine's article "Defusing the War Over the Promiscuity Vaccine" states:

The New Scientist in Britain quoted the Family Research Council's Bridget Maher warning that "giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex."

Similarly, About.com states one reason the vaccine is controversial is that "[m]any groups feel that the HPV vaccine will encourage promiscuity among young people."

Last year The New Republic reported that the social conservative movement had begun to couch its opposition to the vaccine in the language of choice:

Instead of campaigning aggressively against the vaccine, Christian groups have adopted a subtler rhetorical strategy: saying simply that they favor "choice"--that is, allowing parents to decide whether the vaccine or abstinence is right for their children. This strategy is no less pernicious for being polite. And it could go a long way towards undermining the vaccine's potential benefits.

The point is that the war against the vaccine stems not just from the reported concerns about choice and profits, but from a deep-seated opposition to premarital sex.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

UPDATE: A telling quote from The Denver Post:

[O]pponents said it crosses a new line of government mandates and could encourage sexual promiscuity in teenagers. "This will create the perception of immunity, and sex outside of marriage will actually increase," said Ed Hanks of Colorado Right to Life.

Ritter appoints Russell George to head CDOT

I learned last night from Colorado Confidential that Governor Bill Ritter has appointed Russell George to head CDOT. It wasn't the news I was hoping for.

1. George headed the Department of Natural Resources for Bill Owens. Last November, the voters of Colorado demanded change, not a rehash of the Owens administration.

2. George has a reputation for compromise. But his compromises seem to end up with the oil and gas industry getting what it wants. For instance, oil and gas interests wanted to drill the Roan Plateau. Environmentalists wanted to stop them. A drilling plan was given the go-ahead last September. George shrugged and said, "We got it as good as we could."

3. George didn't want the job. (CoCo's article quotes Bill Ritter, "I wouldn't take 'no' as an answer... I kept reminding Russell he is a public servant and Colorado needed him in this position.") The appointment was necessary to pacify complaints from the Western Slope.

So to quiet a few angry voices, Ritter made an uninspiring appointment of someone with uncertain commitment to the job at hand.

I didn't post the news until this morning because I wanted to see if the Post's story on the appointment told me anything that changed my opinion.

George does have an impressive resume. And the move illustrates Ritter's determination to govern from the middle. So I'm crossing my fingers and waiting for further evidence. Colorado badly needs an innovative, comprehensive 21st Century transportation system based on clean burning technology. I can only hope that George is the best person to get us there.

Tom Tancredo and the definition of conservatism

The American voter imagines that there are only two political philosophies. Pete Stark sits somewhere on the left and Jean Schmidt sits somewhere on the right and the rest of us fit somewhere on a continuum between them.

The truth is much messier. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the case of CD6 representative and 2008 presidential contender Tom Tancredo.

Tancredo is trying to position himself as a conservative. In The Denver Post, he was quoted as saying, "It appears to me that there is a void, which I think I can fill, (being) a true conservative with a conservative history."

But Tancredo's biggest fans are not the free-traders and religious fundamentalists that the average voter thinks of as conservative. Read what three prominent conservatives have written about him:

1. RedState questioned Tancredo's conservatism: A person with even modest social conservative convictions would simply not be funded by an organization whose activities are as repugnant as FAIR's."

2. Captain's Quarters derided Tancredo's aspirations: "Front runners in presidential politics usually get there by having a broad policy outlook and developing the kind of experience that lends credibility to their executive potential. Single-issue legislators rarely fare well when throwing their hats in the ring -- Bob Dornan springs to mind here -- and usually wind up as a laughingstock, and their issue marginalized. Tancredo's exploratory committee might want to take all of this into consideration before wasting political donations better used to help the eventual Republican nominee win the general election."

3. Robert Novak blamed Tancredo for Republican failures: "Although no more than 25 House Republicans follow Tancredo's rigid line, that is enough to obstruct a coherent Republican posture... In trouble on Iraq and federal spending, Republicans are being lured into a nativist posture that is political fool's gold."

The most passionate Tancredo backers are not Republicans the way that, say, George Will is a Republican. They're paleoconservatives, a school of the conservative movement that emphasizes family, cultural identity and a strong military. Things get blurry after this. Because it's easy for troubled souls to confuse "family, identity and strength" with "eugenics, race and violence." And that's how you get conflicts like the one RedState was writing about.

Over the last few days, Tancredo hasn't proved himself capable of winning over mainstream Republicans. He's hired a key Pat Buchanan supporter to run his campaign in New Hampshire. And despite his instance that he's popular in Iowa, the latest polls show him getting only 2% of the likely Republican primary vote. This might feel familiar to Tancredo. His 1998 election was the result of a five-way primary that he won with only 25.7% of the vote.

Maybe Tancredo's base isn't the GOP at all.

Over the past year, I've become convinced that a healthy percentage of the CD6 representative's support lies outside his party. I've personally heard anti-globalist Democrats sing his praises. Online, I've seen self-identified liberals post pro-Tancredo statements. It makes sense, in a way. After all, it's not just Republicans who feel uncertain about the future, insecure in their jobs, and scared of an increasingly multicultural country.

Let me put it another way. In the days before the 2006 election, Republican nominee Doug Lamborn in CD5 was pulling only 2% among Democrats. I will eat my computer if the same was true for Tancredo in CD6.

Right launches string of attacks on Bill Ritter

I guess the whole bipartisan fad is over. The Bill Ritter bashers are out in full force. And they're not going to let the facts stop them from tearing in to Colorado's new chief executive.

Let's start with state-level malcontent David Schultheis, whose bigoted tirades are the stuff of legend. Schultheis has decided that Ritter, who came into office with a strong record on illegal immigration, is somehow at fault for, well, everything. From The Rocky Mountain News:

In an opinion piece he sent to the media, the Colorado Springs Republican blasted Ritter for making only a brief five-word comment about illegal immigration in his 42-minute State of the State speech last week before the Colorado General Assembly. "Gov. Ritter failed to mention the growing interconnection between most of Colorado's problems and the growing invasion of illegal residents in Colorado, primarily from the country to our south," he said.

Somehow Shultheis failed to mention the GOP's inaction on illegal immigration, the Democratic legislature's comprehensive immigration reform package of 2006, or the fact that it costs the taxpayers more money to deny services to illegal immigrants than we save.

Next up, Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi, whose column yesterday practically accused Ritter of bankrupting Colorado just six days into his term.

Finally, there's Archbishop Charles Chaput. Today's Denver Post reports that the Archbishop called Ritter's "pledge to lift eligibility restrictions on state-funded pregnancy prevention and family-planning programs 'seriously flawed public policy.'" Don't get confused. Ritter has always been opposed to public funding of abortions. But his policy centers on reducing unintended pregnancies. And helping healthcare practitioners who aid people with family planning is consistent with his promises to the voters of this state.

In the last couple of days, I've also rebutted unfounded attacks on Ritter's inaugural and appointments.

Politics ain't beanbag. I don't really expect Harsanyi & Co. to give Ritter a honeymooon. But Schultheis and the rest of the GOP hardliners on Capitol Hill owe it to the voters to give our duly-elected Governor a chance.

The governor's mansion is a lousy place to make friends

John F. Kennedy once said that the White House is a lousy place to make friends. And the same goes for the Colorado Governor's mansion. So it should come as no surprise that Governor-elect Bill Ritter's appointments have included early supporters and experienced legislators.

Still, some on the Western Slope are complaining that, despite the presence of Prowers County Commissioner John Stulp and Manitou Springs Mayor Marcy Morrison, Denver is over-represented in the Ritter administration. The Rocky quotes Republican Senator-elect Josh Penry:

"The final verdict is still out, but at this point it looks more like the Cabinet of the governor of Denver than the governor of Colorado."

Did Penry read my post "Bill Ritter not just the governor of Denver"?

Colorado Confidential reports that some wanted Ritter to re-appoint Bill Owens' Department of Natural Resources director Russell George instead of nominating Harris Sherman. But Ritter can hardly be faulted for wanting fresh ideas for a department with a lackluster record. Colorado Confidential's story quotes Duke Cox, chairman of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance:

"There needs to be some changes made in DNR - especially concerning the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission - and one couldn't expect Russell George to fire some people that he had worked with these past years."

It looks like what we're seeing is less an honest dispute and more a preview of the GOP's strategy for the coming years. Let's call it, "Whine and Vote No."

Several ways John Hickenlooper is different from George W. Bush

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper deserves some of the grief he's getting for the mismanaged response to last week's storm. But those comparing him to President George W. Bush circa August 29, 2005 (here and here) need to have their heads examined.

1. Hickenlooper did not spend the storm smiling through a photo-op with John McCain.

2. Hickenlooper's aides would not have worried about telling him he'd have to cut his vacation short.

3. Hickenlooper did not have to watch the storm on DVD.

4. Hickenlooper did not appoint an inept crony of a crony to head disaster response.

5. Hickenlooper's mismanagement did not help cause 1,836 fatalities.

6. Hickenlooper will not have to spend 105 billion taxpayer dollars to get the city running.

7. Hickenlooper has not tried to shift the blame to the opposition party.

8. Hickenlooper has not tried to cover up his mistakes.

Hurricaine Katrina further exposed the President's incompetence, laziness and moral poverty. At the very, very worst, the Mayor can only be accused of the former.

Jon Caldera, John Hickenlooper, and the wisdom of investment

On Fridays, I try to make time to watch Independent Thinking, the show where "hard-pressing conservative host" Jon Caldera hosts "lively - and sometimes heated - debates among elected officials, journalists, activists, concerned citizens." The show is typically littered with distortions and falsehoods. But Caldera is interesting. And it's always good to expose yourself to different points of view.

But I've just about had it with Caldera's insistence that tax dollars spent on transportation, education and healthcare should not be considered investments. This is hogwash. For instance:

1. For every dollar invested in education through the G.I. Bill, "it is estimated that nearly seven dollars was returned to the American public."

2. Money invested in public transportation provides "an economic stimulus far exceeding the original investment - as much as six dollars for every dollar invested."

3. Democratic Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's plan to reduce homelessness may save the city $1.5 million.

The investment meme scares Republicans for the same reason that the Fighting Dems and Western Pragmatists do. They all disprove the assertion that the Democratic Party is made up of dewey-eyed idealists, raising taxes to fund half-baked schemes.

The Democratic Party of the year 2007 is about results. And the GOP can't deny it any longer.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

A tale of two Bills: Ritter the next Owens?

The Saturday Rocky repeated the rightwing lie that big-spending Democratic legislators are plotting to exploit their control of the governor's mansion just as soon as they can find the $5 million to repair it:

"I think Democrats' expectations are sky high," said Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, of Colorado Springs. "They're looking at nearly 50 years of pent-up frustrations..."

Being in charge provides the Democrats opportunities but plenty of challenges, said political consultant Katy Atkinson. "What we normally see when you have a legislature controlled by the governor's party is legislators who are downright giddy at the prospect of getting lots of their bills passed," she said.

As I wrote Friday, Democratic leaders like Andrew Romanoff sound like they're focusing on enacting Ritter's Colorado Promise agenda, not developing a list of pet projects. But over the next two years, Ritter will doubtlessly see some bills he'll wish he hadn't. And the Sunday Denver Post profile of outgoing Republican Governor Bill Owens offers a chance to look at how easily a governor's legacy can be tarnished by extremists within his own party:

The governor "was once on every conservative's short list of possible candidates for higher office," says [the Cato Institute's Stephen] Slivinski. "Now he will probably be long remembered by those same conservatives as a turncoat."

Small-government fanatics will never forgive Owens for fixing the glitch in TABOR. Family values voters still wonder about the Owens' temporary separation. And GOP insiders still gripe about Owens' political missteps. (See Coors, Pete; Traylor, Kiki; and Bob, Both Ways.) But for much of his tenure, Owens was a conservative's dream. Only after fire and recession pushed the state to the brink of financial catastrophe did he finally stand up to his party's fringes.

Contrast that with governor-elect Bill Ritter, who staked out the moderate middle during the 2006 campaign and is promising to adhere to it. From the Rocky, again:

Ritter, a self-described moderate, isn't promising the world to his party. "The governor-elect will act as a gatekeeper on good public policy and do what's right for Coloradans," said Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer.

The dynamics of the 2006 campaign will make it hard for liberals to pick apart Ritter the way conservatives are picking apart Owens. Colorado voters are likely to get what they were promised. Nothing more, but certainly nothing less.

Hitchens on religion, Coloradolib on Hitchens

The most eloquent post in my archives is "The ghost of Christopher Hitchens." In it, I attacked one of the world's sharpest writers for spending the last five years abusing his liver and making apologies for Tony Blair.

I don't have the heft to dent Hitchens. But I still thought long and hard before I clicked publish.

Hitchens is on my mind again because of his recent comments about Mormonism. From William K. Wolfrum via Crooks and Liars:

CH: "I say that anyone who believes that stuff is an idiot... Especially at a time when people are always saying it's the Republican Party that's run by religious crackpots and nutbags. And it's very important to point out these people have a big foothold in the Democratic Party, too... I think less of [Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid] because of the stupid cult of which he's a member."

Wolfrum goes on to write "Hitchens should be ashamed of himself for singling out Mormonism and apologize to all Mormons." But it's important to put the comments in context. Hitchens hates all religions. He once said, "I don't regard Islam as the enemy, I regard religion as the enemy." And in Letters to a Young Contrarian he wrote:

"I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful."

But right now, any stab at Mormonism stings especially hard. It is a religion under fire from evangelicals upset that the GOP's most conservative presidential frontrunner, Mitt Romney, is Mormon. It is a growing, young religion, the adherents of which may comprise 5% of America by 2042. And it is a religion concentrated in the West, which is crucial to longterm Democratic ambitions.

Hitchens' comments also cut deeply because they assail the very heart of politics. Compromise is based on respect between adversaries. How can Hitchens respect someone who says that a blue sky is red? What if 92% of America insists on it?

Is it any wonder that Hitchens has gone off the deep end? How many antitheist neocons are there these days? Not many.

Congratulations to Hitchens for having the courage to be completely alone. I hope that one day, I show the same strength. I just pray it doesn't drive me bonkers.

The ghost of Christopher Hitchens

If you listed our language's 10 finest sentences, you would find half had been crafted by Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens' works are so transcendent that remembering them inspires genius in his lessers. Examine my first sentence. The alliterative beginning. The assonantal end. Would I have written so well without Hitchens' ghost hovering over my keyboard? I doubt it. Which is why it has been difficult for me to watch him fall apart.

Hitchens' move from socialist to neocon is the stuff of legend. It began with his hatred of Bill Clinton and accelerated after 9/11. He even "slightly" endorsed George Bush in 2004. I remember reading that piece in The Nation. It was the first time that I simply could not follow one of his arguments. He wrote that liberals faced a prisoner's dilemma, forced to choose between a Democrat they despised and a third-party candidate who couldn't win:

...[Kerry] is offering you the worst of both worlds. Myself, I have made my own escape from your self-imposed quandary. Believe me when I say that once you have done it, there's no going back. I have met a few other ex-hostages, and they all agree that the relief is unbelievable.

Kerry isn't liberal enough, and he can't win, so liberals will feel better if they vote for Bush? Hm.

At first, I believed that my biases were getting in the way of my reason. But Hitchens' reviews in The Atlantic have also gone south. (I recall his willfully combative reading of The Waste Land, in particular.)

Last night, the remaining respect I had for Hitchens evaporated. NPR broadcast a segment in which Hitchens attempted to defend his new career as a neocon apologist after four double Scotches and three glasses of merlot. "I thought the United States should be defended from nihilistic Islamism and [left-wing thinkers] thought... it brought [9/11] on itself."

There are two errors in that sentence. First there's the false choice between defending our country and criticizing it. And then there's the implication that knocking over a secular dictatorship was the best way to destroy Islamic fascism. Hitchens' thought process is the same as your garden-variety Bush voter: He can't distinguish between the need for a hawkish foreign policy and the decision to invade Iraq.

The rational left's opposition to the Iraq War is built on the war's opportunity cost. If you'd given a President Al Gore $300 billion dollars and 130,000 troops on Sept. 12, 2001, Osama Bin Laden would be dead today. But we didn't have a President Al Gore. We had Bush. And so we find ourselves the babysitter of a deteriorating Iraq, our military stretched thin, our debt unmanageable, and our borders porous.

Unfortunately, it seems that Hitchens is no longer interested in debating the rational left. The NPR interview portrayed a man busy sparring with a small cadre of radical pacifists, churning out wordy reviews, and lubricating his liver.

The loss to our letters is incalculable.