Salazar v. Coors

Coors Concedes, Despite Losing By Only 2%

2004-11-03T07:49:00.000-07:00

The headline is meant to be ironic. Over at View From a Height, I've been getting lots of hits on "Margin of Litigation," as though it were either a scientific term like "margin of error," or a legal term. Of course, it's neither. It's more like a wish, frankly, and that margin seems to be growing, rather than shrinking.

Last night, though, Pete Coors didn't have either on his side, at least by traditional standards, and was man enough to admit it. No recounts. No depending on absentee or provisional ballots to drag things out. Very gracious, very nice, very thankful and appreciative, but also very vanilla, which probably best encapsulates the reason that he lost.

Of course, we also lost control of the state legislature, both houses, which means that we don't yet know if Salazar was riding a Democrat tide here last night, or had coattails. Over the next day or two, as we start to analyze the data, we'll post some of the analysis here. For the moment, it just looks like Salazar was able to get enough votes out west and in the high country to offset Coors's advantage in Colorado Springs and in the even-more-thinly-populated eastern plains.

Coors is a good man who was never really able to capitalize on the resources of the statewide party to the extent that he should have. Speaking for myself, I doubt that Schaffer could have done much better statewide, but it be interesting to compare parallel-universe state maps. I suspect they would have been very different.

2002 Poll Biases Suggest Coors Victory

2004-10-29T09:43:00.000-06:00

The final polls are out in the Senate race, and we again have great disparity among the different surveys, as we did two years ago for the Wayne Allard-Tom Strickland showdown. In the final election weekend polling of 2002, the Post had Strickland up by 1, the Rocky Mtn News had Strickland up by 5, and Zogby had Strickland up by 9. The final result? Allard 50, Strickland 45. That means the Post undercounted the GOP candidate by 6 points, the Rocky by 10 points, and Zogby by an atrocious 14 (but Zogby's reputation for state polling is notoriously bad).

Today, looking at a comparable snapshot of the race between Ken Salazar and Pete Coors, Zogby has Salazar leading by 9, the Rocky (Public Opinion Strategies) has Salazar leading by 6, and the Post (Mason-Dixon) shows the candidates knotted at 46. Factoring in the same biases that affected Colorado pollsters in 2002, the results of the election could be forecast as follows:

Zogby: COORS +5 (Salazar +9, net GOP gain of 14)
Rocky: COORS +4 (Salazar +6, net GOP gain of 10)
Post: COORS +6 (TIE, net GOP gain of 6)
Average: COORS +5

If this model holds true, Coors will win by the same margin that Allard did two years ago. But it will only happen if the Republican GOTV effort does its job. And believe me, it's looking strong.

The key difference between the two years, of course, is who is at the top of the ticket. In 2002 it was the governor's race, and Bill Owens won convincingly. The Dems fielded a weak candidate. Colorado is going for President Bush this year, but it figures that some more Dems will come out to vote against him. So I think it's safe to add that handicap to the average posted above. My prediction? Coors wins by 2 to 3 percentage points.

One final note I can't repeat often enough: predictions don't come true if you don't vote, if you don't volunteer for the 96 Hour Victory Team to ensure that every possible supporter of our side gets out and votes.

The only one of the polls with any internals available is the Denver Post. It looks like their balance of party sample (using a model of 37% GOP, 33% Independent, 30% Democrat) is very close to the actual. The Rocky Mountain News wouldn't release their internals because of "proprietary" issues.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

What Is Going On Here?

2004-10-29T01:34:00.000-06:00

I wonder if many of you out there might be wondering why the posting at this site has been so sparse of late. Quite simply, it's because there's not a lot of news. As Ben's analysis below shows, both candidates have been doing pretty basic campaigning for the last couple weeks, and not making a lot of news. The Denver Post has coverage of Salazar's bus tour and of Coors' brutal schedule, and the Rocky Mountain News has stories of Coors' message and of Salazar's appeal, but neither story really does a whole lot to move the story down the field.

By the way, if you're concerned about the Zogby tracking poll that shows Salazar up by 11, don't be: in 2002, Zogby's last poll had Tom Strickland up on Wayne Allard by 9--Allard won by 5. Make no mistake--this will be a close one; but I tend to agree with Ben that the candidate's itineraries tell you alot about where they think the race is.

Cross-posted at Best Destiny

But Where Are They Campaigning?

2004-10-28T07:56:00.000-06:00

This morning's Post features separate reports from the campaign trail for both US Senate candidates. Read side-by-side, one gets the impression of a serious contrast. Mark Couch's piece focuses on Republican Pete Coors as a weary, sometimes frustrated, candidate who still makes the occasional gaffe during his speeches. Karen Crummy's piece paints Democrat Ken Salazar as a loose and confident rock star. Maybe it's more of the subtle tones that seep through, with the Post praising its pick for the Senate as a genuine man of the people and portraying his GOP opponent as a bit aloof and elitist.

Not surprising. I'm more interested in the subtext in the stories... namely, where are the candidates campaigning in the last week?

Salazar: After leaving the Eastern Plains, the failed Dairy Queen franchise operator stumps in southern Colorado cities like Lamar, Las Animas, and Alamosa - not far from his childhood home in the San Luis Valley. This rural constituency was supposed to be a stronger suit for the Democrat, yet he is focusing on shoring up this group six days before Election Day.

Coors: He's hitting Longmont and Fort Collins to shore up support, too, in some areas that are traditionally more Republican-leaning. Most interesting, though, is the mention of a rally in Denver with Sen. Elizabeth Dole to attract female voters.

This snapshot indicates that for the most part, both candidates are using the homestretch to reach out to the base. But to me, it looks like Coors is reaching a bit more into Salazar's column than the other way around. Will we see either of the candidates in suburban Denver over the next several days... especially the swing turf of Jefferson County - Arvada & Lakewood? I'll be keeping my eyes and ears open. Accepted wisdom in Colorado politics says close statewide races these days are won & lost on this neutral turf. Stay tuned.

Apart from the fact Coors has had to toss in more of his personal fortune than he earlier anticipated, I'd say the GOP machine - both state and national - is running this campaign on schedule and on target. With a little help from the 96-Hour Victory Team, we can carry Coors across the finish line on top. With the political eyes of the nation tuned to Colorado, don't forget the most important thing you can do: every vote counts.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

A Photo Finish? Your Guess is as Good as Anyone's

2004-10-25T17:00:00.000-06:00

The most recent developments in the Senate race: the President comes to town to help push the Republican candidate past the finish line in front, and Coors pours $500,000 more of the family fortune into the race. What does it mean?

Salazar told supporters on the campaign trail: "I think they recognize that they are behind and that the only way they can win is by pumping millions more dollars into this election."

But then again, Coors also opened up his pocketbook to the tune of $400,000 right before his primary election showdown with Bob Schaffer. It wasn't desperation there, as the election results pointed out. However, Coors also subsequently promised to hold his personal contributions to the federal spending limit of $571,840. Now that Coors has topped that figure, Salazar is allowed to ask individual donors for up to $6,000, rather than the $2,000 allowed under regular campaign law - a result of the so-called "Millionaires' Amendment."

Recent polls are all over the place:

Zogby (Oct 21-24) Salazar +9
Survey USA (Oct 18-20) Coors +4
Ciruli Assoc (Oct 15-19) Salazar +4
Rasmussen (Oct 18) Coors +1
CNN/Gallup (Oct 14-17) Salazar +1
Rocky MN (Oct 13-15) Coors +5
Real Clear Politics Average = Salazar +0.6

Prognosticating who is going to win this race at this point means going with your gut. Only clear answers to some murky questions could give us a better picture of which candidate is edging ahead in the Senate race. With early voting a week old here in Colorado, how many votes does each candidate have locked in? Who is going to turn out in large numbers?

We can say for sure that Salazar, the failed Dairy Queen franchise operator, didn't greatly benefit himself by appearing with Kerry at a recent rally in Pueblo. And, of course, Kerry just pulled out of Colorado.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

I Ran Away From John Kerry, Before I Ran With Him

2004-10-20T09:16:00.000-06:00

John Kerry and Ken Salazar will finally share the same stage, after weeks of taunting from the Coors camp about their never having met. The event looks like a sandwiched-in kind of thing, on the way from Reno to Las Cruces, NM. Pueblo is heavily hispanic, and this looks like an attempt to use Salazar to shore up Kerry, without unduly damaging Salazar. Salazar, obviously, runs far ahead of Kerry among hispanics.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Coors Pulling Ahead

2004-10-19T07:58:00.000-06:00

Two sets of polls show Ken Salazar losing ground badly in the last couple of weeks of the campaign. Public Opinion Strategies, whose polls last month were widely discussed here, now has Coors with a 45-40 lead, where he had trailed 42-52 a month ago. The USA Today Gallup Poll has Coors erasing a 9-point deficit two weeks ago, to pull within a point, 49-48. (As an aside, it also has Amendment 36 collapsing to a mere 39% support, compared to 53% opposed.)
Neither poll would take into account a series of weekend side-by-side comparison interviews and profiles in the local papers. Those are online, but none of them really contains much new information.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Why 'Sending Coors a Message' Is a Bad Idea

2004-10-18T18:21:00.000-06:00

I received this via email from a Thinking Right reader today. Mr. Telli makes a very convincing argument why, while standing on principle is certainly respectable - in a political season where our very lives are at stake - it's foolish.

My Fellow Colorado Conservatives,

A few days ago I received a letter entitled "Sending Pete Coors a message about our Conservative values" from a group calling themselves Grassroots Conservatives. This letter urges other conservatives to refrain from voting in the Colorado Senate race, because Pete Coors is "masquerading as a conservative" and "bowing to the anything goes agenda". The letter is not signed and while I believe it could be a ruse from the Democratic Party to divide Republicans and convince some to stay home on Election Day, I also believe some conservatives may do exactly as this letter urges and refrain from voting in the Senate race. My fear is that many conservatives may be troubled by Mr. Coors' positions on social issues and rather than vote for someone they believe does not hold the same values as them, they will not vote. I completely respect standing on one's principals, but I believe this position is shortsighted and foolish and one that could hand the election of the second Colorado Senate seat to the Democrats.

I do not believe Mr. Coors is the easy victor on November 2 (as implied in the letter), and I am certain that the Democrats will turn out to vote for Mr. Salazar. If conservatives refrain from voting in this race, they not only risk losing the Colorado Senate seat, but also risk losing Republican control of the U.S. Senate. If Mr. Coors is victorious, it is possible that, with Senator Allard's and other conservatives' guidance, he will vote with his fellow Republicans. Mr. Salazar never will. If the Democrats gain control of the U.S. Senate, social issues held dear by conservatives will fall by the wayside. For example, the Marriage Amendment will not be brought up again for debate and certainly not for vote, there will be no hope to ban the horror of partial birth abortion, and the assault on God in our society is sure to continue and possibly increase. Furthermore, and possibly most importantly, if President Bush is to continue to bring the fight to our enemies, he must have the support of the Senate. The Colorado Senate race is only one important race this election year and Colorado Conservatives must do their part to help ensure Republicans maintain control of the U.S. Senate. It is for these reasons that I urge my fellow conservative to vote for Pete Coors on November 2.

I am in no way connected to the Coors campaign. In fact, I did not support Pete Coors in the primary and I was surprised by the margin he defeated Bob Schaffer. I also have concerns regarding his conservatism. However, I am certain that if the atrocity of partial birth abortion is ever going to end, if the sanctity of marriage has any chance of being protected, and if so many other issues that we hold dear will remain in the public forum, the Republicans must retain control of the U.S. Senate. If conservatives turn out in our full numbers on November 2, I'm confident this is possible. If not, then we allow the liberal Democrats to win.

May God continue to bless America.

Christopher Telli

Colorado Springs

Crossposted @: Thinking Right

No Special Prosecutor

2004-10-15T13:45:00.000-06:00

Secretary of State Donetta Davidson will not seek a special prosecutor to look into the voter registration fraud here in Colorado.

State GOP attorney Mike Norton claimed Democratic Attorney General Ken Salazar has a conflict of interest in the investigation because he is running for U.S. Senate.

Davidson said there was no evidence of a conflict of interest and that Salazar is actively looked into claims that multiple voter registration forms have been filed under a single voter's name.

She said she saw no reason for Gov. Bill Owens to ask Salazar to step aside.

I'm sure that the Secretary didn't want to open a new front in this battle, one where the Democrats would scream that she was trying to prejudice the Senate race. That's no reason not to do her job, or to let the AG off the hook from doing his. And trying to buy off the baying wolves this way doesn't encourage faith in the system.

Salazar has refused comment on the issue, and the press hasn't been pushing too hard, either. At least a couple of reporters at the press conference the other day were overheard complaining that the Secretary was already trying to shift blame to the AG for the problem of felons registering to vote.

As a candidate for office, he has just about as clear a conflict of interest as an Attorney General can possibly have. He failed to provide so much as an amicus brief in defense of the Secretary in the Common Cause case. The prosecutions of hundreds of illegal registrations have been better-investigated by 9News than by his office.

Salazar has been on the partisan side now of three successive issues - redistricting, ballot rules, and now registration fraud. Let's hope the voters notice this.

Let the Ground Game Begin

2004-10-15T09:46:00.000-06:00

Colorado's US Senate candidates Pete Coors and Ken Salazar held their final debate forum of the 2004 campaign last night in Pueblo, each trying to sway the tiniest segment of voters, as undecideds slowly disappear and take sides. Sounding the recent themes of the campaign, Coors tried to hang the Kerry anchor around Salazar's neck - telling the failed Dairy Queen franchise operator that he was trying to act Republican - while Salazar made the contorted accusation that Coors has proposed big liberal spending.

While debating is not a strong suit for the beer executive, the good news in all this is that the debate is taking place on the right turf. Bush's edge in popularity in the state is something both candidates are trying to take hold of, Coors explicitly and Salazar more subtly. The message of national security and fiscal conservatism are the resounding themes, and the Democrat is trying desperately to make himself look like anything but the liberal he is.

Meanwhile, the Post reports that Salazar is getting a lot more help (by a margin of 4-to-1) from the national party committee than Coors to run TV ads down the stretch. The speculation is rampant in the story as to what this means. Perhaps the most astute:

"I'd be surprised if Republicans were throwing in the towel three weeks out," said Eric Sondermann, a Denver political analyst. "But both candidates are moving towards a ground game. They realize there are very few persuadable voters they can turn around with a 30-second commercial." [emphasis added]

From Coors spokeswoman Cinnamon Watson:

"Salazar has been outspending us from the get-go," she said. "It's still a close race."

The point here is that the ground game is underway. Republicans are switching into a new phase of this campaign, which has been polled at a dead heat in recent weeks. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is deciding every day how and where to distribute scarce resources, when there are a number of races in play nationwide. Right or wrong, they've decided the race in Colorado is going to be won or lost in the trenches.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

Survey USA on Colorado

2004-10-10T22:09:00.000-06:00

Survey USA (courtesy RealClearPolitics)published the results of polling done last week in Colorado.

The keys:

1. Bush 52, Kerry 44. Wonder how long it will be before the Dems pull their money out of this state?

2. Coors 48, Salazar 48. Related to the above question, how long are the President's coattails, and how important will they be to this race? The Prez will be in town tomorrow to fundraise for Coors and stump for himself, so this could be pivotal.

3. Amendment 36 (the REALLY STUPID IDEA!) Yes 45, No 44, Undecided 12. Even Survey USA mentioned that the emerging Democratic strategy is one of Yes is Bush, No if Kerry. Gotta get to work on those undecideds.

Now, before anybody gets too excited, the poll contained 37% GOP, 29% Dem, and 34% Unaffiliateds. Sure, Colorado's voter registration numbers run GOP and Unaffiliateds ahead of Dems, but I don't think it's by that margin. Also, inside the numbers shows Kerry ahead with Unaffiliateds 51-43, and Salazar ahead with Unaffiliateds 56-38.

In other words, this poll shows nothing more than the imperative to keep working, keep working, keep working. Only three weeks to go.

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Live Blog of Senate Debate

2004-10-10T09:32:00.000-06:00

8:54 - Iraq. Salazar thought he was a threat. Blames the President's presentation, calling it a "mistake," and focusing on "massive" intelligence failures. Russert asks about voting for the resolution now, but Salazar doesn't appear to understand the question. Notes Lugar and McCain.

Coors broadens the question to the war on terror, not just Iraq. Sticks to that when Russert pushes the point. Calls North Korea "North Dakota," but corrects himself.

8:58 - Complains that Washington hasn't acted with urgency. Tries to contrast with Coors.

Are you running away from Kerry?

Good question. Salazar tries to say no, but not very credibly. He doesn't repeat his comment that Bush is trying to prop up Coors.

To Coors: Is Salazar an appeaser? Coors doesn't let Salazar's attack go. Good. Then goes after Salazar for not really having a plan. The info on France and Germany is now coming home to roost. Doesn't repeat "appeaser" comment. Coors has good answers, but doesn't look comfortable.

Salazar steals some time, with some good words, but their indistinctness seems to confirm Coors's comments.

9:02 - Shows Salazar clip accusing Coors of opposing OBL death penalty. Is this fair? Salazar dodges the question, and accuses Coors again of being a rubber stamp. Mentions Lugar and McCain for the 3rd time. Salazar now equates "cop-killers" with OBL?

Coors complains that Salazar is running a dirty campaign. Weak. Coors is opposing death penalty because the Church opposes it, but he can't say that.

9:05 - Shows Coors ad about law enforcement tools. "What tools do they need?" Coors says it - Patriot Act. Good. Russert wants specific tools that would be denied, and Coors refers to Patriot Act as a whole.

Salazar comes out opposed to "roving wiretaps?" And then complains about "clean campaign" and personal attacks.

9:08 - Salazar is trying to link Coors to the environmental smear that Coors was never associated with, and that was quickly discredited. Salazar actually says "they started it." Coors disassociates from ad, and says to move on. Comes across as much more statesmanlike.

9:10 - To Coors: what would you cut? Coors fumbles. Goes back to generalities rather than specific programs and tax cuts.

Salazar calls himself a "deficit hawk," tries to use that interchangeably with "fiscal conservative." Throws in privatizing Social Security. Coors calls him on the actual numbers.

9:14 - Russert to Salazar. Need to do something with SS, Medicare, Defense. Salazar turns it to reimporting drugs. Russert: would you not cut taxes for anyone? Salazar fumbles now, naming penny-ante programs. When pressed, he goes back to

9:15 - Same-sex adoption. Salazar tries to bring up Cheney. And now Salazar now has to backpedal on the issue. Coors is very clear about needing "mother and father." Doesn't waver when confronted on this. Good.

9:17 - Conflict between Coors Beer, and Coors the candidate. Money time, Pete. Coors still doesn't have a great answer on this.

9:19 - Drinking age question. Coors calls it a state issue, and separates the state's right from federal government dictating highway money. Coors's answer is better, and Salazar purses his lips when talking about what Coors would do.

9:21 - Salazar says he'd oppose it, but Coors points out that the Democrats are neutral, and that Salazar's opposition is new. Gets the last word.

Overall impressions: Coors still doesn't have some answers to basic, although niggling questions. Salazar comes across as more polished, but Coors had some very good answers to some very tough questions, and confronted Salazar.

I'd say, slight advantage to Salazar.

Saturday Senate Update

2004-10-09T23:04:00.000-06:00

Three items today:

1. The Denver Post and Mason-Dixon Polling released their most recent poll today, showing Salazar holding a slim 46-44 advantage over Pete Coors, with 9% undecided. Two thoughts--for a person with all the normal advantages of incumbency (having won statewide election twice) being statistically even and well below the 50% mark at this point has to be disconcerting for the Salazar camp; and, while I admit up front that I haven't seen the internals and my MATH MAY BE FLAWED (perhaps somebody out there better with matrices can help me out here), it seems that this poll rather substantially oversampled the unaffiliated vote--perhaps as high as 40% of the sample. Again, HELP ME WITH THE MATH to see if I have this analysis correct.

2. The two candidates held a major televised debate today in preparation for a nationally televised debate on "Meet the Press" tomorrow. Video of the debate can be seen here. I haven't had the chance to watch the whole thing, so I will withhold comment until after I do and after tomorrow's debate.

3. The Rocky Mountain News today endorsed Ken Salazar. Generally considered the less liberal of the two Denver major dailies, this is certainly not great news for the Coors camp. However, if you read the endorsement, it hardly comes across as a ringing endorsement. It congratulates Salazar for 18 years of good service and pragmatism, while saying he's also wrong on many issues.

Cross-posted at Best Destiny

No On 36

2004-10-08T09:40:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I finally heard a radio ad by Coloradans Against a Really Stupid Idea. Nicely done, as well.

The "dead" site I went to the other day is now up and running, and offers plenty of reasons not to vote for Amendment 36. Pete Lepetsos sent me an email to alert me that the site is up and chock-full of good info about the ridiculous amendment. Check out No36.org.

Cross-posted on exvigilare.

UPDATE: the above link text was changed from NoOn36.org to No36.org. Good catch, Pete.

Pete Coors - Soft on Terrorism?

2004-10-07T11:41:00.000-06:00

If you listen to/watch the latest Ken Salazar ad, you'd sure get that impression.

Featuring a shot of Osama bin Laden and foreboding music, the commercial's voice-over asks us if we "think that Osama bin Laden should receive the death penalty for causing the deaths of over 3,000 innocent Americans on Spetember 11th", or some such. It then continues along these lines: "Pete Coors doesn't. He's against the death penalty for terrorists..."

Coupla problems here:

1. Pete Coors is against the death penalty, period. He is a practicing Catholic, and, apparently unlike Ken Salazar, believes that the church's ordinances should be followed by those who claim to be adherents. He is similarly opposed to abortion, for much the same reason.

Now, I'm not a Catholic (I'm a protestant - specifically, an Evangelical Christian), and I support the use of the death penalty in the most heinous of crimes, but I'd not include terrorism in that number. "What?!!" shouts a stunned readership...

Nope. Terrorism is not, to my mind, a matter for the judicial system. It is an act of war, and all of its captured "soldiers" should be dealt with in military tribunals - not courts of law. Terrorism is not a law enforcement issue, and therefore, the application of punitive legal measures to the practice makes absolutely zero sense to me.

2. The ad might be more accurately written this way: Ken Salazar wants to bring terrorists to our shores, tie up millions of tax dollars in trials and appeals, and by doing so, subject our nation's citizens to unecessary security risks. Pete Coors wants terrorists killed. By our soldiers. Overseas.

So long as Ken Salazar continues to take the Kerry tack - that terrorism is chiefly a law enforcement matter - he shows that he remains unserious about the war in which we find ourselves, and about the tangible risks that Islamic terrorism poses to our entire way of life.

The ad is utterly disingenuous, and should serve as a starting point for Coors' criticisms of Salazar's weakness on the matter.

(Cross-posted at Exultate Justi)

Coors is in trouble, and 36 will pass...

2004-10-06T16:12:00.000-06:00

if my recent searches are any indication at all. Yesterday morning I looked up the Coors for Senate website, went to the Arapahoe county contacts page and called one of the numbers I found there. I called in order of offer any assistance and to get yard signs/bumperstickers. I identified myself by (full) name. The gentleman that I spoke with was very friendly but seemed a bit bewildered, as though he hadn't gotten calls of this nature before. That may be true but it is unsettling. He told me that he didn't have any yard signs and that I would have to go to the county headquarters to get them. Fine, where is it? He gave directions (of a vague nature, anyway).

I drove to where the gentleman sent me and could not find it. I drove in circles, canvassing the area in search of anything that looked like a campaign headquarters. Nothing. No Coors for Senate signs, no red, white and blue banners. Not a damn thing.
Now tell me this - if someone goes to the trouble to contact one of the campaign volunteers, get "directions" and drive to the campaign headquarters, shouldn't they be able to find the campaign headquarters? Throw me a bone! What does a casual observer go through?

So this morning I went to the GOP headquarters. I took both of the little ones, walked through the rain and found the office with no problem at all. The ladies were all taken with the girls (if you've seen them you know why) and offered me extra bumperstickers. They were down to their last two Bush-Cheney yard signs but offered both. I took one Bush-Cheney yard sign, one Coors yard sign (despite my feelings from yesterday) and four bumperstickers.While there I was also offered tickets to next week's Bush appearance. Very nice, very nice. So what better place to ask for signs for Amendment 36? I was advised that they don't have any signs related to 36, but if I just look up "no on 36" I would easily find the website and could get signs delivered right to my door. What service!

So I went home to Google No on 36. Uh, no. Not even the right state. Well, no big deal, probably just simple confusion. Surely the Colorado Republican site would have some kind of information related to such a significant amendment, wouldn't it? Uh, no. Well, I know TyroBlog is following closely (check out 86 Amendment 36), he's bound to know - he even had a letter published this week in the Denver Post. The link sends me here, a dead site. Well, I know that "Coloradans Against a Really Stupid Idea" is one of the groups that is leading the harge against the idiot movement. Google it, nothing.

Now, I could be overreacting or just pissed that I wasted all of that time. But if I'm looking for these things and can't find them what is an "average" voter supposed to do? If Salazar and the Pro-36 groups put enough money into simple informational advertising I think they both win. Ouch, does that hurt to say.

(cross posted on exvigilare).

Salazar Even AWOL on Actual Vote Fraud

2004-10-06T10:01:00.000-06:00

As View From a Height readers know, I spent yesterday at the court hearing for Common Cause v. Davidson at the Denver District Court. (The hearing continues today, but barring something radical, I think the salient points have been made, and the judge's standard for upholding the rules largely met.)

Ken Salazar's office, though, was noticeable by its absence. After suing the Secretary of State over redistricting last year, Salazar couldn't even be bothered to file an amicus brief in support of her proposed voting rules.

He also turned to be AWOL on a case of proven vote fraud, something Common Cause and Susan Rogers claimed doesn't exist in Colorado. There was, in fact, a high-profile case of signature fraud earlier this year, which resulted in turning over 110 fraudulent registrations to the AG's office for further investigation. Ms. Rogers stated that she had not heard back from the AG's office, and that the case had apparently resulted in no prosecutions.

Now, I know these things can be complex. But not that complex. Someone was purposely submitting false voter registrations, and figuring out who to charge can't be that hard.

Either Ken Salazar's offce isn't taking clear voter fraud seiously, or he's trying to dodge it through the election.

Coors Takes Foreign Policy Initiative

2004-10-04T23:29:00.000-06:00

The latest round of ad wars clearly has Ken Salazar on the defensive. For the last couple of nights, I've been seeing Pete Coors ads on foreign policy doing their best to 1) tie Salazar to Kerry on foreign policy and the war (someone evidently thinks maybe Kerry shoulda stood in bed last Thursday), and 2) make it clear just what that means. Coors points out, among other things, Kerry's votes on the $87 billion, and his opposition to missile defense. He shows side-by-side pix of Ken and Kerry, and then shows himself supporting missile defense and defending, obliquely, the Patriot Act.

So tonight, I see the Salazar response, and it's, well, Kerry-esque. He claims that Coors opposes the death penatly for terrorists. He quotes Coors as saying something about "not being experienced enough to answer" some question, which just reeks of an out-of-context quote. Then Salazar talks about first responders, responding to an attack, mind you, not preventing one. He comes out in favor of the death penalty for "terrorists and cop-killers," mixing war and police work, as though the petty drug thief down the street is the same thing as a murderous cult bent on destroying civilization. And he mutters something about "supporting the troops."

In short, Salazar comes out with an attack anyone can see through, and tries to bolster his own case by comparing war with armed robbery. Looks to me like the trap door is opening, and Salazar is standing there, Wile E. Coyote-like, pedaling furiously in mid-air.

I've been one of the Eeyores around here, so it's good to be able to push some good news over the wires.

Ken Salazar AWOL on Vote Fraud

2004-10-04T01:46:00.000-06:00

As the Colorado Secretary of State prepares to defend her voting identification requirements in court on Tuesday, Governor Bill Owens and State Representative Rob Fairbank have filed amicus briefs on her behalf.

Activists, in turn, questioned why Owens felt the need to weigh in on the case, given that Colorado's executive branch already is represented in court by Davidson and her lawyer.

Perhaps because the last time the executive branch was defended by Davidson and her lawyer, it was against a lawsuit filed by the Attorney General, who also in theory represents the executive branch. Ken Salazar is either too busy or uninterested in defending the executive branch in this case, so it falls to the Governor to do so.

Salazar clearly has a dog in this fight, and by failing to show up, he's clearly neglecting his duty as Attorney General. He should recuse himself personally from the matter, and instruct his subordinates to help defend the Secretary of State and the executive's prerogatives.

Too close to call.

2004-10-01T20:59:00.000-06:00

This is probably the most 'national' of the senate races. Things will really heat up in the next few weeks.

This wrap-up from the DC area.

COLORADO- Pete Coors (R) vs. The Hon. Kenneth Salazar (D)- Open Republican

You likely remember him as the guy in the jacket in those Coors Light commercials urging you that "1 means 21." Well, now Pete Coors is running for Senate, proposing a lowering of the drinking age to 18 (untrue), saying that it would promote responsibility at a younger age. Coors, a conservative and the heir to the Coors beer fortune is running against very popular Attorney General Ken Salazar, and is looking to retain the senate seat vacated by retiring Republican senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell. Salazar has twice won races in the Republican-leaning state. In a name recognition survey, most respondents matched Coors with the word "beer,"while Salazar with the words "attorney general," good news for Salazar. Quickly, name your state's attorney general. Most polls have Salazar up a couple percentage points in this Republican-leaning state. (Not according to yesterdays polls)

From the Washington Times on yesterday's debate.

Colorado Senate candidates Pete Coors and Ken Salazar turned up the heat at a debate yesterday in a tight race that's morphing from cordial to combative.

"I want to cut your taxes Ken wants to raise your taxes," Mr. Coors, a Republican, said at a debate sponsored by the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry. "I want to cut lawsuit abuse Ken thinks the current system is just fine."

Meanwhile, Mr. Salazar, the state's Democratic attorney general, slammed Mr. Coors for accepting campaign donations from pharmaceutical interests.

"Prescription-drug companies are the hidden hand behind [Mr. Coors'] campaign," Mr. Salazar told the packed luncheon crowd of about 500 people.

Mr. Coors was taken aback.

"You said you wanted to keep this a clean campaign, and you're calling me the handmaiden of drug companies," Mr. Coors said.

The campaigns have gone on the offensive even as polls continue to show no clear leader in the race. A Ciruli Associates poll for the Pueblo Chieftain released Sept. 18 showed Mr. Salazar leading by one percentage point, well within the margin of error.

But a Rocky Mountain News poll released the same day showed Mr. Salazar ahead of Mr. Coors by 11 points. A survey for

Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli said the wildly divergent surveys indicate that the race probably is too close to call.

Pete Coors may need coattails.

From the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Its not in doubt that the nations economic ship is cruising in unsettled waters.

Colorados U.S. Senate candidates Thursday laid out their analysis of the nations economic situation and their plans for jumpstarting the economy in a debate hosted by the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry.

Democrat Ken Salazar and Republican Pete Coors said they want the economy to grow, but they have different views about how to do that.

For Coors, the answer begins and ends with tax cuts.

The best way to help the most people is to have a strong, vibrant economy, he said. Our president . . . and the Congress had the courage to pass tax reforms in 2001 and 2003 that are lifting all ships. The tax cuts are working.

The nation went into a recession in 2000, an economic downturn caused by inflated stock values in the tech market and a host of other factors. (true)

Soon after the bubble burst, hijackers attacked New York and Washington on 9/11. That sent shockwaves through the nations economy. (true,true,true)

Millions of Americans lost jobs, saw their pay cut and were hit with skyrocketing insurance costs. (kinda true, more people are employed today then at any time in American history, the unemployment rate, 5.5, is lower than the average for the last 20 years)

President Bush and Congress responded with an economic-stimulus package, cutting taxes by more than $1.7 trillion during a 10-year period. (true and it worked) But the cuts are temporary, and theyve been accompanied by record deficits. (true if measured in today's dollars, untrue if measured as a percentage of the GDP or in constant dollars)

cross posted at The American Kestrel

Are Taxes A Campaign Issue?

2004-09-29T17:30:00.000-06:00

The thought actually sparked when I read the headline "Salazar Won't Sign Tax Cut Pledge". Turns out it wasn't Ken Salazar refusing to sign the pledge, but his brother John who is running for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District seat against Greg Walcher.

The thought that sparked was how have Coors and Salazar presented their positions on taxes.

A quick review of their campaign websites finds a major heading, brief statement, and 6-page PDF document on the Coors For Senate site. The document addresses tax code simplification, making tax relief permanent for American families, elimination of the death tax, small business relief, elimination of the AMT, eliminating tax penalties for our military, rural community tax credits, livestock disaster tax relief, homeownership tax credit, elimination of hidden taxes and the dividend tax, ending the taxation on social security benefits, and IRA contribution limits. You can get a copy here. Coors' positions are against increases in taxes and for returning more of the monies paid to those who paid them.

A quick review of Salazar's campaign website, although it actually took longer because you have search the text on each page to determine if he addresses the issue, found a number of references to taxes. One would expect burying if you're trying to hide your position on the issue. Salazar's positions, although explicitly stated, point the reader to the conclusion that Salazar will vote to RAISE taxes every chance he gets:

From The Issues CREATING JOBS AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY on Salazar's website:

"I am committed to work on crafting deficit reduction proposals. Our nation needs a balanced approach, a combination of spending cuts, budget reforms, and tax reforms that spread fairly the pain of deficit reduction.

No one likes paying more taxes. But we must have a fairer tax policy that rewards work, not just wealth. We need to be realistic: we cannot fund a strong national defense, homeland security, continue the war and nation-building in Iraq, as well as address education, health care, infrastructure and other domestic needs, at the same time that we permanently and significantly reduce our revenue base. Those who suggest we can safely increase spending while we permanently decrease taxes risk crippling the economic future of our nation."

Family ties run deep.

Cross posted at: ClayCalhoun.com

The Potential For Vote Fraud in Colorado

2004-09-28T18:37:00.000-06:00

Colorado 2004 looks like it's fixin' to be Florida 2000 - Nightmare on Colfax.

Like many other states, Colorado has seen a surge in voter registration. The Democrats have the largest share of those new registrations. Two of the most active groups have been the New Voters Project and Fair Vote Colorado. The New Voters Project is an arm of Ralph Nader's Public Interest Research Groups, and Fair Vote Colorado is run by a researcher at the liberal Bighorn Center, and a former Democratic operative. All of these groups share the Democrats' goal of expanding voter registration, even at the expense of ballot integrity.

There are two parts to the problem: what do I need to provide to register, and what do I need to provide to vote?

The answer to the first question is: a voter registration form stating your name, address, birthdate, and a signature. No ID. Social Security Number or Driver's License Number is not required. They will say it's required, but counties must register you anyway, if you don't provide one.

As a result of Florida 2000, Congress passed something called HAVA, the Help America Vote Act. This act mandated something called "provisional voting," which the states must allow. These are ballots cast pending validation. The Federal Government does not require any identification to be presented at the polls.

The Colorado Secretary of State's office has added several requirements. All voters, including provisional voters, must present either a driver's license or some other form of identification. It's worth noting that a number of these id's merely prove that person A lives at address B, but do nothing to assure that Mr. X standing in front of the poll judge really is person A.

Even this is too much for Colorado Common Cause, which has filed a lawsuit seeking to remove all ID requirements for provisional voting. This means that someone could register and vote, and never have to provide anything more than a signature. I have verified this assumption with the Colorado Secretary of State's Office.

The potential for fraud, and given the registration numbers, fraud on a scale large enough to tip a close election, should be obvious.

This is something of a tangential issue, one related to the integrity of Colorado elections as a whole. For those who are more interested, there's more complete coverage at View From a Height:

Vote Fraud in Colorado?

The Denver Post Does Voter Registration

Registration Requirements

ID at the Polls and What You Can Do

New poll: Coors surges ahead

2004-09-27T13:46:00.000-06:00

Hot off the presses: the latest 9News/SurveyUSA poll on the Senate race shows Republican Pete Coors with a 5-point lead over Democrat Ken Salazar. The survey of 625 likely voters was conducted from Sept. 21 to 23 and contains a 4-point margin of error.

Five weeks ago, a similar poll showed support for the two candidates was almost even. Since then, as both continue to advertise heavily throughout Colorado, Coors has increased support.

Catch this result: Maybe the most surprising numbers are when the poll looks at the priorities of rural voters.

Salazar has campaigned on his rural roots, growing up on the family ranch in the San Luis Valley. He trails by 13 percentage points in this area of the poll.

No surprises among the other findings:

Coors is leading by 24 points in the Colorado Springs area, but the poll also gives him a 1-point edge in the Denver metro area.

Coors leads significantly among male voters, while the two candidates are tied for the support of female voters. Gender gap?

The momentum is on Coors' side. The key is to keep the pressure on.

The same pollsters conducting a survey at the same time found President Bush leading Kerry in Colorado by a 52-44 tally. Results of the presidential poll were released Friday.

Kudos to Best Destiny for his astute call after the results of the presidential poll were released: "I would expect this trend to begin to translate towards the Coors/Salazar race, also. Hopefully the President has coattails--and long ones." It appears so.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

Coattails and Anchors

2004-09-26T18:49:00.000-06:00

The Denver Post today discusses the effect of the presidential race on Colorado politics, specifically the effects of Kerry's unpopularity and Bush's popularity. The fact is that while Bush may demonstrate coattails for Coors, Kerry is more likely to act as an anchor for Salazar, a fact that Ken's brother John, who's running for a House seat, apparently recognized a couple of weeks ago.

Salazar has the Daschle Problem. No, he hasn't gone around hugging Michael Moore. But he knows that he can only get elected running as something he's not - an independent moderate.

Salazar portrays himself as a political moderate, the fellow from the San Luis Valley who wears a cowboy hat and transcends party labels. It worked in his statewide campaigns for attorney general, especially two years ago when he won a vast majority of the counties even as Republican Bill Owens easily won re-election as governor.

Campaigning in a cowboy hat, and putting a cowboy boot on his site as a fundraising device have helped cement this image. Having been Attorney General helps any Democrat look like a law-and-order kind of guy. But this is the first election where Salazar has had to run 1) on national issues, and 2) as a lawmaker rather than a law-enforcer. Salazar has no choice but to triangulate these issues, coming out with policy proposals that are practically mimeographs of Kerry's, while talking about independence.

He's run hard against Bush, but has had to distance himself from Kerry, skipping the last few local appearances by the national ticket. But much of his strategy seems to mirror that of the national ticket. Consider this from the Durango Herald about a weekend campaign appearance there:

Democrat Ken Salazar said Friday that homeland security will be his top priority if he wins his race against Republican Pete Coors in November's election for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

"I think the first and most important priority we as a nation need to uphold is to protect the nation and the homeland," Salazar said.

While Salazar has mentioned national security in general terms before, he's clearly made education and health care the centerpieces of his campaign. Just at the moment that Kerry begins attacking Bush over Iraq, Salazar discovers national security.

Coors has begun linking Salazar to Kerry on taxes. That's fine for a start, but Kerry and Salazar have a lot of liberal proposals on health care and education, proposals which aren't like to be popular here if properly vetted.

Salazar is caught between a rock and a hard place. He's tried to nationalize the race by running against Bush, but the more he does so, the more he risks running as Little Kerry. It's time to close the trap.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Did You Notice That The Denver Post Likes Salazar?

2004-09-26T16:27:00.000-06:00

In case you didn't, or were perhaps unsure, the Post's coverage today leaves little doubt as to which direction they lean. The story today on Hope Salazar is about as big a puff piece as one can find in today's media environment. This story is so pro-hope Salazar, that it gives the appearance of being written by her. It's almost as if the staff writer contacted Mrs. Salazar and had her do just that. I picture the conversation going something like this:

Colleen O'Conner: Hope, can you do me a favor? The aspen's are in full color right now and I'd really love to get up there and snap a couple of pictures, but as you know, I have this story to write.

Hope Salazar: Yes, I know.

Colleen O'Conner: You know that you and I agree on pretty much everything, so what say we come up with a solution that is mutually benificial. I'll send over a staff photographer to snap a couple of pictures and have him give you a tape recorder. I want you to record what you would want published if you could do a story about yourself. That way, you get out the story that you want our readers to read, and I get to enjoy the environment, or what's left of it after the Bush Administration's failed policies, for the weekend. How does that sound?

Hope Salazar: That sounds wonderful, Colleen. I'll talk about my business career. As you know, Kenny and I own a Dairy Queen, and we couldn't be more proud of it.

When you read portions of that story, this scenario is not that outlandish to envision. Take this passage, for instance:

"We got a new toaster oven, and we're still getting used to it," she says. "I told Kenny, 'Look at my hands!' This is our family business, and I'm the only one with the burns."'

My first thought was "Would you like some wine with that cheese?"

I find it funny that there was no mention of the fact that this Dairy Queen wasn't exactly the small business of the year. Didn't it lose money? From the Rocky:

The couple paid just $49 in federal taxes three years later, after apparent losses from their Westminster Dairy Queen franchise pushed their income to $47,479.

Hmmm. And he wants to have a say in how money is spent in the Senate. Thanks, but no thanks.

The other story in the Denver Post today must have pained the author greatly to write. If there is one thing that a Senate candidate needs in an election year, especially during a Presidential campaign year, it's the endorsement and support of your party's candidate. Now I'm certain that John Kery would love to support, and has already endorsed, Ken Salazar, but Kenny, as Hope would call him, doesn't seem to want it. John Kerry's support of a Senate candidate has become the third rail of this years political season. Touch it and you die. This, better than any other indicator, shows the deep trouble in which the Kerry campaign finds itself. Lower tier candidates are fleeing from his support like rats from the S.S. Titanic.

The Republican candidates, have no such problem. Here in Colorado, Pete Coors openly and happily accepts the President's support and supports the Presidents policies. Not so with Mr. Salazar:

Salazar portrays himself as a political moderate, the fellow from the San Luis Valley who wears a cowboy hat and transcends party labels. It worked in his statewide campaigns for attorney general, especially two years ago when he won a vast majority of the counties even as Republican Bill Owens easily won re-election as governor.

So the image Bush paints of Kerry as a traditional, liberal Democrat could hurt Salazar in a state that generally votes for Republicans and where registered GOP voters outnumber Democrats by roughly 180,000.

The issue as I see it, is not that Bush paints Kerry as such, but that his 20 plus year voting record confirms it. The President doesn't have to do anything except hold up Kerry's voting record and say, "See for yourself." Local Democratic candidates know this and that's why they are fleeing his support.

Then there is this little peice of information:

Salazar has skipped Kerry's last three events in Colorado. In debates, he does not talk about Kerry. Instead, he speaks of being an "independent voice for the people of Colorado" and tells voters that he gets both the Democrats and Republicans mad at him by speaking up for what he believes is right.

I confess that I didn't notice that Salazar wasn't at any of Kerry's recent events, but then again, did anybody else, and will it matter? I think it will. Ken Salazar is avoiding John Kerry like John Kerry is avoiding reporters in regards to the magic hat and the Christmas in Cambodia stories. It can't last forever, and eventually, the public will notice that they share a party denomination.

Cross posted at Mangled Cat

Salazar the Non-Partisan

2004-09-24T11:03:00.000-06:00

Salazar told the crowd that one "clear difference" between the two candidates is that Coors is partisan and he is not. Salazar mentioned the card he gets from the Bushes.

Salazar's not a partisan? I know that it's part of appealing to the center, or the unaffiliated, that you scream from the rooftops that you'll put Land, Water, and People over Party and Politics, but volume generally bears an inverse relation to sincerity.

One word: Redistricting

The man personally threw the authority of his office behind a lawsuit against the state the employs him. Salazar claimed in the Denver Post, April 14, that he "exercised my power as attorney general in the independent manner that I should." Well, he was certainly independent of the other powers of government, aside from the Democrat-domination State Supreme Court. How independent he was of the Democratic Party is open to question.

Salazar filed a lawsuit against the state, against a law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. He neither issued an advisory opinion nor filed an amicus brief on behalf of someone else's case. In fact, according to the July 16, 2003 Rocky, it was Democratic legislators who joined Salazar's suit.

He did this even as his brother was running for the Democratic nomination in House District 3, which he eventually won. No, John didn't file until 4 months later, but I'd be more than a little surprised if the topic never came up over dinner.

Salazar's one of the most partisan Democrats in the state. Just because he's found some ways of working with the other side - a necessity when the Governor and legislature are both from the other party - doesn't mean he's not a partisan.

Salazar: I'm the Independent One

2004-09-24T08:31:00.000-06:00

Ken Salazar, the Democrat candidate for Colorado's U.S. Senate seat, is now portraying himself as the independent candidate. At a forum with Republican opponent Pete Coors in Lakewood yesterday, the Rocky quoted him as follows:

Salazar told the crowd that one "clear difference" between the two candidates is that Coors is partisan and he is not. Salazar mentioned the card he gets from the Bushes.

"I pledge to all of you here today that I will always, always put the interests of the people first," Salazar said. [My emphasis]

AND

"I'm the candidate for U.S. Senate and I'm not a rubber stamp for anybody, George Bush or John Kerry or any party," Salazar said.

That makes two Salazars distancing themselves from John Kerry in just over a week. His brother John, running for the hotly-contested 3rd Congressional seat has refused to declare who he is supporting for President. I thought it just might have been that Kerry was unpopular in the western Colorado district, but now it appears he may be seen as a liability statewide among independent voters. At least that's how the Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate is reacting.

In one of the recorded highlights, Coors assailed Salazar for his economically unsound position on taxes.

"Ken just said he wasn't going to increase taxes, but he said he wants to increase taxes on the wealthy," Coors said.

"He's defined that in a couple of different levels. The last time it was $250,000 incomes and above." That, Coors said, would burden businesses that create jobs.
Said Salazar: "I believe tax cuts that help middle Americans are important and are the ones that I will be supporting."

Salazar is clinging to the stale Democrat rhetoric of dividing rich vs. poor vs. "middle-class" (which a vast majority of Americans perceive themselves to be). His TV commercials tout the same message. So much for always putting the interests of the people first... unless you don't count those who make more than $250,000 a year or more as "the people." Which Salazar probably doesn't.

How long the failed Dairy Queen franchise operator will hold onto the Algore-like populist rhetoric and how far it will take him remains to be seen. But it's clear there are vulnerabilities. And Coors has to keep exploiting them.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

New Coors Ad

2004-09-24T01:17:00.000-06:00

Tonight I saw, for the first time (yeah, I try not to watch too much TV) the new Pete Coors ad. The main thrust: Ken Salazar can't help do anything about health care because he's too deeply tied to the trial lawyers' lobby; I can help, because I have no such entanglement.

I think this is a great thrust at just this time in the campaign. Coors has already worked the home-grown son angle, and continues to hit hard about taxes. Now, his campaign is opening up a new front which seems to undercut Ken Salazar's primary issue: health care reform. The more Coors ties Salazar to the trial lawyers (especially like the way the ad points out that Salazar has taken $500 million from the trail lawyers), the better that will play in this state, which tends to like candidates not so tied up to goofy fringe lobbies.

Now, is it just me, or is the next front to open up in this battle the one which starts "Ken Salazar would vote to prevent judges from even being considered by the full Senate; judges like Miguel Estrada--the first Hispanic nominee to the 1st Circuit Court, Janice Rogers Brown--the first black woman to sit on the California Supreme Court, and Bill Pryor--a man whose nomination has been opposed because he (like Salazar) is Catholic"

I'm actually asking--is it just me? The only reason I care about the Senate is because of its role in shaping the judiciary; do I just have too much time on my hands, or do people just not understand the importance of that role?

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Ciruli Polling

2004-09-22T20:59:00.000-06:00

Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli has a poll in today's Pueblo Chieftain showing Salazar up 46-45. I haven't looked very hard at the internals, but they suggest that Salazar has a better favorable/unfavorable ratio. Still, it's more evidence that the Rocky poll was an outlier.

Torrents of New Voters Keep Pundits in Dark

2004-09-22T10:15:00.000-06:00

The Rocky Mountain News is reporting that Colorado added 30,000 new voters in the past month.

Democrats in that 27-day span registered more voters than Republicans - 17,749 voters to 15,777 voters, according to the latest figures from the secretary of state through Sept. 14. Unaffiliated voters declined by 3,694 during the period, perhaps indicating new allegiances, but in any event putting the net number of new voters at 29,832.

While with figures like that, one might be inclined to see the possibility of voter registration fraud, what's undeniable is a rising interest in electoral politics. This is the same rising interest that blinded the pollsters and pundits before the Aug. 10 primary, that made the Schaffer-Coors race look like a dead heat. In sampling "likely voters," one must ask, are the pollsters missing an accurate count of this race? The recent Rasmussen tracking poll shows a dead heat between the Senate candidates, while the Rocky Mountain News poll gave Salazar a "scratch-your-head" 11-point lead.

I think this may be one of those times where those who want to read polls like palms or tea leaves may just have to admit that they don't know. And this doesn't only apply to the Senate race but to the Bush-Kerry showdown (and key Congressional races, too) in Colorado.

The question to be asked: how many of the gains in Republican registration are from new voters or from those who switched their independent affiliation? how many of the gains in Democrat registration? Some of my friends and I have helped register a few new Republican voters, but that's very narrow, impressionistic evidence. Perhaps there's something to learn from this data, but even that would only show us one piece of the puzzle.

The most profound thing I can think to say at this point? In Colorado, there's a whole lot of campaigning to be done in the next 41 days.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

Salazar Courts the Deaniacs

2004-09-21T13:33:00.000-06:00

From an email sent out by the Salazar campaign this afternoon:

Two weeks ago, Howard Dean's Democracy for America organization sent out an e-mail in support of South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle's re-election campaign to their membership of 700,000 people across the country.

Within 48 hours of the mailing, Daschle's campaign raised more than $250,000!

Now Democracy for America wants to do the same for two more Democratic U.S. Senate candidates, based on an on-line poll at their website. A fundraising appeal will be sent out for each of the top two vote-getters.

Please follow the link below to cast your vote for Ken Salazar...

I know politicians take money where they can get it, but suppose he actually wins this thing? It's bad enough that Salazar's brother John has to run away from John Kerry to have any chance at getting elected. It's worse that Zell Miller has to point out that failing to do so is taking the Georgia Democrats the way of, oh, Illinois Republicans.

But this? Does Salazar really want to be associated with these guys? Who knows what evil (ok, mischief) lurks on those contributor lists? Some enterprising 527 with a Mac and a small bankroll ought to pray for Salazar to win, and then run commercials putting Dean's scream up there next to Ken's hat.

The Rocky Poll

2004-09-20T16:32:00.000-06:00

I want to thank Lynn Bartels of the Rocky and Lori Weichel of Public Opinion Strategies for being so helpful with this post. Lynn tried valiently to answer my questions. When they exceeded the data she had in front of her, she passed me over to Lori, who spent way too much time on the phone explaining POS's methodology to me.

They both know I'm a blogger, so they both expect this information to show up on the sites. (Lori didn't know this at first, and assumed from the forwarded emails that I had some background in polling. So I guess the Pajamahudeen is making great strides in self-education.)

The answer to question #1 is: 39% Republican, 35% Democrat, 24% Independent, 2% Not Telling. This appears to oversample Republicans and especially Democrats, at the expense of Unaffiliateds. (It's worth noting that re-adjusting doesn't help Coors much, since he's still down 55-38 among unaffiliated voters.)

Here's what Lori had to say about that. I'll let you be the judge.

Independents tend to shrink in number as you approach the election. They consider this to be a result rather than a demographic to be adjusted for, since it's a self-identification. (Dick Morris uses this method himself. -ed.)

Democrats seem to be more motivated than Republicans. This is consistent with their new registrations, and with a higher-than-normal level of interest since February.

This suggests that Democrats will be more likely to vote than Republicans. Also, going back to 2000, exit polling showed only a 1-point edge to Republicans in actual turnout.

POS uses a random-digit phone call, rather than voter lists. They believe this lets them capture new voters, and voters in places like Weld County which don't require phone numbers to register. The latter helps preserve geographic balance. If other polls are using voter rolls, that could account for some of the difference.

Lori also suggested that the presence of Nader may help Bush, but hurt Coors, since there's no Green running in the Senate race, but there is a Libertarian.

Coloradoans are sophisticated voters. Sophisticated enough to feel comfortable splitting their ballot not only for elected office, but also for ballot initiatives and taxes.

So, we learn that POS interprets the oversampling of Democrats as a real phenomenon, indicative of Likely Voter status, rather than a quirk to be corrected, at this point in the election cycle. Even if we do correct for it, it doesn't help Coors much. He's getting killed among unaffiliateds. And POS has usually been identified as a Republican polling firm.

Looks, it's a small sample, it's at odds with four recent polls. The Republicans have tended to run ahead of the polls here for a few election cycles. Their GOTV effort now matches the Democrats'. If you assume that Coors has to make up four points rather than 11, it's very doable.

Going back to 2000, the Republican turnout exit-polled at one point better than the Dems', but Bush carried the state by 5 points. Perhaps that exit-poll followed a pattern where Republicans were less likely to answer the pollsters. Lori did say that most of the "Refused to Tell Party Affiliation" were Republicans. If so, the demographics in this poll may not be as reflective of actual turnout as Lori suggested.

We report. You decide.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Comparing Polls

2004-09-20T14:46:00.000-06:00

Coming out less than a few days after the Rocky Mountain News poll showed a double-digit lead for Democrat Ken Salazar (53-42), the new Rasmussen poll shows a dead heat with a slight edge to Republican Pete Coors (49-48). Both polls surveyed 500 likely voters and have the same 4.3% margin of error. What gives? Who do we believe? How much faith do we even put in the polls? With disparate results like these, it's hard to give a huge vote of confidence to them. But polls do tell us something, there's no doubt about that.

Unfortunately, the lack of detailed raw data from either survey makes it difficult to draw too many conclusions. (Let's put it this way: I don't make enough to cough up the cash for a premium membership to the Rasmussen site.)

Let's look at the new Rasmussen poll and draw some comparisons. The Rasmussen surveyed voters on Thursday, September 16. Result? Coors 49, Salazar 48. [Incidentally, the Rasmussen results are identical to the week-old projection made by Blogicus M. at Mile High Delphi.] The last Rasmussen tally on this race, conducted exactly a month ago, showed the Democrat with a 49-45 edge. Both results remain within the margin of error but read together seem to indicate a slight momentum shift into the Coors column. The latest RMN poll has failed Dairy Queen franchise operator Salazar leading by 11, but the last poll the firm conducted was in April, so indications of momentum are much less clear.

The Rasmussen poll also indicates identical favorable ratings for the two candidates. According to the RMN story on its poll, Coors has twice the unfavorables of Salazar. Maybe both facts coincide, and it's just a matter of emphasis. For example, Coors could be 60 favorable, 30 unfavorable, and 10 no opinion & Salazar could be 60 favorable, 15 unfavorable, and 25 no opinion. But I doubt the case. Rasmussen & RMN are getting two different reads.

Without the detailed data at my disposal, what I see are differently emphasized demographics from the two stories. The RMN poll highlights two huge advantages for Salazar: 68-23 among Hispanics and 59-35 among rural voters. The Rasmussen poll gives Coors an edge among military veterans of 55-43. Of course, the most surprising figure of these three is the giant lead for the Democrat among rural Coloradans. Just guessing here, but the gap is probably significantly smaller in the Rasmussen poll.

The RMN poll revealed 4% undecided, while Rasmussen puts the number at a paltry 1%. Perhaps the Rasmussen pollsters push their respondents a little harder, or perhaps it's just the sample. But if the former is true, it might indicate that more people on the fence are leaning in Coors' direction. If so, then the Republican needs to do a little better job selling himself.

So lest I get accused of preaching political agnosticism, what can we learn when we put these two surveys side-by-side? The result is somewhere in between. If you also factor in the internal numbers from Coors (showing +2 for Salazar, with a higher margin of undecideds, perhaps a reason to be suspect of the Rasmussen result) and average the three, you get about a 4-point lead for the Democrat.

Composite: Salazar 49, Coors 45

Overall, I don't think there's enough in all of these polls for Coors to lean on to justify any particular campaign strategy or tactic. What he needs to do still seems clear. All the following points have been made before among our members of the Rocky Mountain Alliance, but it can't hurt to repeat them. The Coors campaign needs to:

1. Connect Salazar with trial lawyers and the need for tort reform, making the case even stronger.
2. Highlight Salazar's varying positions on Iraq, much as Schaffer did back during the primary season. While the Attorney General hasn't been as slippery as the man carrying his party's presidential banner, he has been far from rock-solid on Iraq.
3. Make a stronger case for the difference between the two men and the two parties on values issues. Salazar is trying to parade around as a centrist. Coors needs to make the case that as a member of the Democrat party he'd be beholden to the special interests of the abortion absolutists and the anti-marriage zealots.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

Coors and the Hispanic Vote

2004-09-20T13:52:00.000-06:00

One of the realistic assertions from the Rocky's poll was that Coors is getting crushed among Hispanic voters, 68-23. Coors has, in fact, constantly been behind the curve with this demographic:

Coors has no Spanish-language version of his website

He has allowed Salazar to define the election in terms of health care and education, two issues key to Hispanic voters

He hasn't confronted Salazar on judges; a key victim of Democratic filibusters was Manuel Estrada

Neither Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera nor 1st House District nominee Roland Chicas has been featured in the campaign

Even the war could be used effectively. While Hispanics tend to be more skeptical of the war, it doesn't seem to be a defining issue for them. (I backed out the numbers from a recent Gallup survey, comparing Black and Non-hispanic White attitudes on the war; Hispanics seem about evenly split on the war.)

Nobody expects Coors to win the Hispanic vote, but he needs to make better use of what assets he does have if he expects to win the state.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Saturday's Debate

2004-09-20T10:52:00.000-06:00

As pointed out below, Coors got hit hard on the drinking-age question, in light of the deaths of a CU student and a CSU student from alcohol in recent days. He basically took the line that he stood by the claim, but that it wasn't a centerpiece of his campaign, which was certainly true.

Coors should simply have responded that these deaths happened when student returned to school from a non-drinking environment over the summer, and that they happened even though the drinking age is 21. Clearly this experiment has done just about nothing to keep alcohol out of the hands of students 18-21.

On the judges issue, I have to agree that abortion and Roe can't be the only issue that a senator votes on. But Coors has to make it clear that it cuts both ways. The Senate Democrats have been essentially litmus-testing judges on this for decades.

Coors can seize the high ground here by saying, "look, I'm against Roe and I think it was a bad decision. But judges have been meddling in all sorts of things recently that are properly decided by elected legislators. I won't vote based solely on Roe; there's a lot more at stake here, like the conduct of the war, for instance. And I certainly won't abuse the power of the filibuster the way that my soon-to-be colleagues across the aisle have gotten used to doing in the last few years."

More Senate Polling

2004-09-20T10:32:00.000-06:00

With this new Rasmussen poll showing Coors ahead, 49-48, it begins to appear as though the Rocky poll showing Salazar up by 11 points was an outlier. Coors had released a Tarrance poll showing him down by 2, following a Tarrance survey showing him down by 4. Salazar's internal poll had him up by 5, so it's possible that the Rasmussem poll, too, is a little over-optimistic.

Still, the poll was conducted on one day, September 16, after the first debate but before the Saturday appearances and debate, and would confirm a trends in Coors's direction, or at least a tightening of the race. (The distinction is important. The state-by-state Rasmussen presidential polls are compilations over a month of data from that state, collected during the national presidential survey.) Interestingly, the Rocky poll claims a +/- of 4.33%, while Rasmussen claims 3% accuracy.

Only the Salazar poll released its party registration numbers, which seemed to accurately reflect the state's balance. I've emailed the Rocky's reporter, Lynn Bartels, and asked her where I might be able to get those internals.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

David Harsanyi

2004-09-20T08:54:00.000-06:00

In a most telling piece, David Harsanyi, of the Denver Post, exposes the fact that Ken Salazar's populist notions are not really populist at all; but, only standard Democrat boilerplate.

At the conclusion of the article, David asks one very searching question,"Salazar is right on when he points to the out-of-control spending in Washington. But what programs would he cut? Well, that's still a mystery."

My guess is that Ken Salazar would reduce the size of government in the same fashion as ex-President Clinton...gut the military and drastically reduce spending on national defense matters. Not a good idea in light of our current war on Islamofascism.

Cross-posted at Damascus Road

Questions

2004-09-20T08:05:00.000-06:00

Mr. Salazar...just a couple of quick questions for you today...

Would you have supported the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the Federal bench? Or, would you, in the finest tradition of Democrat obstructionism,have voted with Tom Daschle, and prevented this fine jurist from realizing his potential?

How do you feel about our Constitution? Would you support the nomination of judges that are strict constructionists? Or do you, as so many other Democrats, believe that our Constitution is a living, breathing document that should be interpreted according to the whims of the day?

Should judges only interpret laws that are passed by Congress? Or, should they, as their own personal agendas allow, legislate from the bench?

Mr. Salazar, these are questions that I and many other Coloradans would like answered before we cast our ballots on November 2nd. What say you?

Cross-posted at Damascus Road

More Thoughts On The Debate and The Campaign

2004-09-19T23:15:00.000-06:00

Sunday's Denver Post coverage of the Salazar/Coors debate was a bit short, for my taste. It really did not give a very full picture of an hour-long event.

But the coverage did contain this important section:

For the first time in a public debate, Coors and Salazar were asked about abortion. Salazar said he does not personally support abortion, but he would uphold the law under Roe vs. Wade.

"I believe the decision about an abortion should be made between a woman and her God," Salazar said.

Coors, who opposes abortion with "no exceptions," said he too would not try to overturn Roe if elected to the Senate. He also said he would not use abortion as a make-or-break issue when voting in judicial confirmation hearings.

"People ask me if this would be a litmus test for me as to who I would approve as a federal judge," he said. "I don't think there should be one single, specific litmus test."

You should also be seeing a new mailing from the Coors campaign in the next couple of days. It's slick, it's impressive, it's full color, and it hits all the same notes as the campaign up to this point.

And it says not a word about the judiciary. This, combined with what I gather was a gentle approach to this issue in the debate, is a great disappointment to me. It seems that this is an issue that Coors can run on hard and win with--Salazar, regardless of his personal views, would vote with the Dems to block judicial appointments, then will vote to confirm judges who would enable partial birth abortions, and who would assert a "right" to gay marriage.

The cultural issues underlying this election are all centered in the judiciary, and oversight of the judiciary is one of the unique characteristics of the Senate. This is where the battle should be fought--and won. If we've learned nothing from Missouri and Louisiana, it's that support for these issues is stronger than we tend to think, or tend to be willing to articulate.

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Of Debates And Other Stories

2004-09-19T17:38:00.000-06:00

The debate last night, sponsored by the league of women voters, was overshadowed in part by the second death in a couple of weeks at a state university due to binge drinking. Coors' stance on the drinking age issue has been well documented, but perhaps mis-represented. He has always maintained that it is a state's rights issue, and has objected to the blackmailing of the states over federal highway funds. Most, if not all of the coverage has been portrayed in the light that he favors reducing the drinking age back to 18. Given that perception, it's easy to see why Coors was on the defensive.

As the Denver Post reports it:

Coors, a Republican who has said the country should possibly lower the drinking age, appeared to soften his position when asked about it in a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

"It is not my agenda and it's not my desire, and in fact, this is a Colorado and state's rights issue," he said to a crowd of about 200 at Park Hill Golf Club in Denver.
Coors opposes the federal government dictating the drinking age to the states.

Salazar, a Democrat who said the drinking age should remain at 21, pounced on Coors, contending that he had "changed his position." He also said there were "significant questions" whether the beer commercials aired by Coors Brewing Co. are targeting underage drinkers.

You know, it really bothers me how no one can discern the seperation that exists between the brewery and the man. The difference does exist, despite attempts to breakdown the barrier. It's unseemly, but that's politics. On other issues, the candidates fell pretty much along party lines. Salazar is pro abortion and pro gun control, stating that he would vote to reinstate the recently expired assault weapons ban, even though he claims to be an advocate of the 2nd Amendment.

Coors is against any form of abortion without exception and stated that he would not vote in favor of the assault weapons ban as there was no proof that the ban had any effect on crime prevention. The diferences extended to the Patriot Act, where predictably, the liberal Salazar has issues with civil liberites:

Both candidates also diverged on the issue of the Patriot Act, enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to give the government more power in cracking down on terrorists. Key provisions expire in 2005.

Coors said he would reauthorize the act to protect the country from terrorism. Salazar said he supports the act, but also amendments that would protect privacy rights. Critics of the act have maintained that as written, it tramples on civil liberties.

I find it curious that the only debate the Rocky finds worth mentioning is this one between Beauprez and Thomas on Friday in the 7th District.

In other news, there was a recently published poll that shows Coors trailing by 11 points. Salazar must be feeling comfortable about it, but as we were witness to during the Primary, polls don't mean a whole lot.

Coors' campaign, obviously, takes issue with the results and states it doesn't reflect their internal polling numbers:

The Coors poll, conducted this week, shows the candidates in a statistical tie with Salazar at 46 percent and Coors at 44 percent, said GOP campaign manager Sean Tonner.
In addition, Tonner said Coors wins on the issues, from homeland security to taxes and reducing wasteful government spending.

"We know this is a tight election, but we feel Pete is better poised to win," Tonner said.

One of the key issues is voter turnout and the Republican advantage in voter registration, which the Salazar campaign is aware of:

Salazar's campaign manager, Jim Carpenter, agreed the election will be tight, as voter registration heavily favors Republicans.

"It's a steep hill for any Democrat to climb in Colorado because of Republican voter registration numbers, but Ken's had a lot of support from Republicans and independents over the years," Carpenter said. "People have a good sense of him, despite smear ads from Coors' allies."

Republicans hold a 181,000-registration advantage over Democrats, but unaffiliated voters - the second-largest voting block in the state, behind the GOP - help call the shots.

All in all, it's going to be an interesting election.

Cross posted at MangledCat

Senate Polling

2004-09-17T22:32:00.000-06:00

The Pete Coors for Senate team announced via e-mail the results of a recent poll conducted by the Tarrance Group.

The key points: the race is still Salazar's, but by a statistically insignificant 46%-44% (LV, MoE 4.5%); among voters with a favorable impression of both candidates, Coors +20; among voters who identify terrorism/homeland security as their number one issue, Coors +46; on fiscal discipline issues, Coors +20.

The main shortfall of Coors (somewhat inexplicably) at this point seems to be name I.D.--that should change with the current media blitz. Though I'm not sure why recent media blitzes haven't done the trick.

I'm not sure how much weight I put in this poll--it was conducted on behalf of the Coors campaign. However, I could be downright hostile to this poll and I would still have to concede that a 46 point advantage on national security issues is astonishing, and not good news for Ken Salazar. His attempt to portray himself as a "law and order" candidate has clearly not broken through on the issues of defending the country. If this issue advantage finds a way to get through the murk of the campaign, this should be a race that mirrors the Allard/Strickland race of 2002.

Factor in the recent RMN poll that has the Presidential race at a dead heat, and it would seem that this state is much closer than anybody would like. Time to get to work.

UPDATE: The Rocky Mountain News has as its headliner today the results of its own poll which puts Salazar up by 11 points. In the article it does acknowledge the Coors internal poll, but this still can't be a good sign.

JOSHUA ADDS: I'd certainly be happier if their poll showed Coors up 10 points rather than down. But the internals don't seem to be available online, and Powerline has a post suggesting that polls that don't disclose their internals are more likely to favor Kerry. Could the same be true of this poll? The internals aren't there on the Rocky site, the News4 site, or the Public Opinion Strategies site. Without them, there's no way of looking at demographics, party balance, or anything else of interest. It doesn't surprise me that Salazar leads among Hispanics, for instance, but it does surprise me that he leads among rural voters.

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Salazar on the Bush Rally

2004-09-14T22:14:00.000-06:00

Ken Salazar's campaign sent out the following email about the Bush rally:

Bush: I was a little hot at old Ben [Nighthorse Campbell] when I heard he was retiring, because he's such a fine senator, but I feel a lot better knowing that Pete Coors is going to be the U.S. Senator following him. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Pete! Pete! Pete!

This is the first of many trips the President will make to prop Pete up. Let us know what you think about that?

Ken will be an independent voice in Washington not a rubberstamp. Pete Coors has also been in D.C. raising money at events hosted by Senators like Rick Santorum, Bill Frist and George Allen.

Salazar has received $10,000 each from HillPAC (Hillary) and DASCHPAC (Tom Daschle). While John Thune may be on the way to relieving him of the latter obligation, the former will still be operative for at least two more years.

In the meantime, Coors has been emphasizing wasteful spending, at the expense of Charles Grassley. That ad is airing even as I'm typing these words.

As for "propping up" Pete Coors, that's what the top of the ticket does. It's called "coattails." Salazar has run his entire campaign against the President. We'll see who's on the stage Friday when Kerry comes into town.

First Senate Debate

2004-09-13T23:59:00.000-06:00

Pete Coors and Ken Salazar met in their first one-on-one debate over the weekend, at an event in Grand Junction sponsored by Club 20.

To read the article (since I was in Denver over the weekend) it sounds like both men came off about equally bad--neither being able to claim the role of "statesman." On the plus side for Coors, this assessment by Gwen Florio:

It was a newly assured Coors who took the podium, in contrast to the man who stumbled through some of his primary debates,

I hope that's true and it holds up throughout the process. I blogged before about how unimpressed I was with Coors at two events during primary season, so I am encouraged that he may have picked up a little polish.

It also seems the two men have staked out their signature issues: Salazar, the economy and Coors, national security. I like the comparison--I think if those positions hold, this state will go with national security.

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Club for Growth Endorses Coors

2004-09-09T14:53:00.000-06:00

The Club for Growth today officially endorsed Pete Coors in the Colorado Senate race to replace BNH. An excerpt from the statement follows:

Pete Coors, Senate, Colorado

Yes, this is the former CEO of Coors Brewing Company. And, yes, we believe he is a strong pro-growth candidate in this crucial battleground Senate race. This election is to fill the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. We rate Pete as the third highest priority Senate candidate in the country because of his solid support for free markets, lower taxes, smaller government, and the closeness of the race.

In a Congress filled with too many career politicians and lawyers, Pete Coors would bring much-needed perspective from someone who has spent years in the private sector creating jobs, meeting a payroll, and delivering profits for investors.

You’re probably thinking, Pete’s rich, he doesn’t need my money to run a good campaign. But we live in a new world of campaign finance laws, including its new provision called the “millionaire’s amendment.” If Pete puts in more than $872,000 of his own money into the campaign, that would give his opponent huge loopholes around the campaign law’s contribution limits. And $872,000 won’t come close to paying for this expensive race.

Pete Coors and his whole family have been unwavering supporters of free market conservative causes for the past 25 years. Pete’s mother, Holly Coors, was one of the first founding members of the Club for Growth.

Our conference call with Pete a few weeks ago earned him rave reviews for his understanding of, and commitment to, the economic issues that the Club believes in.

While many Republican candidates know the economic theory, he has the experience of dealing with complicated tax laws and regulations and the stifling effects these burdens create on the free market system.

Pete favors making the Bush tax cuts permanent, creating Social Security personal accounts, tort reform, and controlling federal spending. In short, he is rock solid on all the key economic growth issues that will confront the next Congress.

The polls have this race very tight. The Democrats have nominated a popular Hispanic state attorney general, Ken Salazar, who is masquerading as a centrist. In reality, Salazar is a Kerry Democrat who wants to repeal the Bush tax cuts, renew the death tax, and opposes tort reform. This is a classic good versus evil race.

Cross posted at ClayCalhoun.com

The Post Leans On the Table

2004-09-08T23:58:00.000-06:00

The Post Leans on the Playing Table

Today the Denver Post ran an editorial giving the current state of the Senate race--at least, giving their view of it.

The first assessment reads like this:
Aside from the fact that both hail from old Colorado families, they provide quite the contrast. A moderate vs. a conservative. Pro-choice vs. pro-life. Prosecutor vs. businessman.
It goes on to introduce Salazar: Salazar, a popular attorney general, is a centrist politician ; and then to Coors: He's identified himself with GOP social conservatives, but seems to be most comfortable talking about economic growth, tax-cutting and building up the military.

I guess I don't mind the Post calling Coors a conservative; I'm not so sure the label "moderate" fits Salazar. To quote from his own website:

No one likes paying more taxes. But we must have a fairer tax policy that rewards work, not just wealth. We need to be realistic: we cannot fund a strong national defense, homeland security, continue the war and nation-building in Iraq, as well as address education, health care, infrastructure and other domestic needs, at the same time that we permanently and significantly reduce our revenue base.
In other words, I'll vote to raise taxes.

I believe the decision to have an abortion should be between a woman and her God. I will defend that Constitutional right. . . I do not support mandatory waiting periods, spousal consent, biased counseling requirements or other extreme limits on abortion rights Seems pretty moderate, eh? Somewhere between Justice Stevens and Tom Daschle (another good Catholic politician).

I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. I oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment. I support expanding hate crimes laws to include sexual orientation, . . . Well, that's clear as mud.

We need to re-gather our friends and allies to this essential international goal, a goal we all share. Our foreign policy is most effective when we act as the leader of a broad coalition of nations. Ah, yes, but first let's have some clarity about who our "friends" actually are.

In truth, on many issues Salazar makes a painful effort to strike the middle ground. However, the real questions are "would you vote to end the blockade on judicial nominations" and "would you vote to be proactive in the defense of the country, or do you support John Kerry in the position of 'striking decisively AFTER we get hit?"

It's hard to demonize Ken Salazar--he has a compelling personal story and credibly lays claim to some moderation. Certainly not to the degree that the Post intimates, however, and--more importantly--the effect of his winning would not be a moderating one on the Senate.

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Senate Polling Data

2004-09-08T22:43:00.000-06:00

Salazar's campaign is touting the results of a poll showing him leading Coors 48-42. A Tarrance Group poll commissioned by the Coors camp had him trailing 47-43. The polls seem to be free of the Democratic oversampling we've seen so much of.

Nevertheless, both polls were taken before the Republican convention. Now the conventions focused on the Presidential nominees, and Coors's speech wasn't broadcast live. However, the Rasmussen tracking poll has shown a persistent bounce for the generic Republican Congressional candidate since the convention.

Clearly, this is still a very close race, but it's also almost certainly closer than the Salazar camp's email wants you to think.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Coors ad makes bold turn

2004-09-08T11:58:00.000-06:00

The Coors campaign has unveiled an intriguing ad and one that may strike the right posture as he scraps for every possible independent and undecided vote. According to today's Post, the commercial criticizes Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa for a $50 million pet indoor rain forest project.

Unlike one of Coors' friendly "flannel shirt" commercials or a traditional attack ad against his Democrat opponent, the Republican Senate candidate has decided to demonstrate his independent streak. Not a bad move for a political novice who is perceived as being in the Bush White House's pocket.

"Pete's going to Washington to represent Colorado," [spokeswoman Cinamon] Watson said. "He's simply saying that spending is out of control in Washington."

The Coors campaign is not only trying hard to show their candidate is his own man but also that he is a Washington outsider and a real reformer. These are real strengths they should continue to play up as they look for ways to define an already well-known candidate.

And despite the Post's efforts, Sen. Grassley understands the political and campaign processes enough not to be angry or offended at the Coors campaign. In the first few paragraphs, the article reads:

The problem: The Iowa rain forest is the pet project of Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.

Not only is Grassley a Republican, he chairs the Finance Committee, which Coors has said he wants to join if he's elected in November.

Later on we learn:

"Pete Coors didn't contact Sen. Grassley," said Jill Kozeny, Grassley's spokeswoman.

Kozeny said the senator wasn't offended by the Coors ad. She said Grassley backed the project because it would provide economic development and educational opportunities in Iowa.

The ad wouldn't affect Coors' committee assignment, Kozeny said, because Republicans assign them based on seniority. [Emphasis added]

But one legitimate question Coors should expect to face and be prepared to answer in upcoming weeks: will he be willing to stand up to the President on a budgetary spending issue?

Another question is raised in the Post article and include prospects for Coors' sponsored legislation, even in a Republican Senate. It's a quote from Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington non-profit watchdog group.

"If there are any Colorado-related tax bills, you can just say 'nada' for a couple of years."

No reaction from the Salazar campaign is quoted. Can we expect a similar ad showing that the Attorney General would be willing to stand up to Tom Daschle & Pat Leahy's filibustering tactics against Bush's judicial appointments? Stay tuned...

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

Salazar & Colorado Springs & Miles

2004-09-06T20:05:00.000-06:00

Ken Salazar opened his Colorado Springs office this weekend, and guess who showed up? Mike Miles. Finally. The Post presents this as a love-in, with the two "joining forces," and seems to take it all but for granted that any intra-party rivalry is over. At the bottom of the article, though, this:

On Saturday, Miles said the rivalry was behind him as he made his first public appearance with Salazar since the August primary, in which Salazar got 73 percent of the statewide vote and Miles got 23 percent.

"I have never been able to say anything bad about Ken," Miles said.

The two met privately about two weeks ago, and that is when Miles offered Salazar his support for the run against Republican brewery scion Pete Coors.

It took Miles two weeks to offer his support to Salazar, and then two more weeks to actually get around to making a public appearance with him. Even then, it had to be on Miles's home turf. Pardon me for thinking his heart really isn't in this.

In the meantime, the Post takes pains to present the Republicans as still divided, and Coors as being unsuccessful in bringing the party together. This despite the post-primary visit by Sen. George Allen, who never once licked his thumb the entire time. Schaffer immediately and graciously endorsed Coors, has seemingly withheld nothing, and went on a "Unity Tour," dismissed by the Post.

In fact, the Post seems to go out of its way to interpret optimistic comments by State Treasurer Mike Coffman as pessimistic:

Treasurer Mike Coffman, a Schaffer supporter now backing Coors, said a conservative defection could be damaging for Coors.

"If you didn't bring your grass roots together, your support is fractured," Coffman said. "If it's fractured, they stay home."

But Coffman said Coors has repaired the schism. He contrasted the Republicans' efforts with crowing from Democratic moderates after Salazar beat the more liberal Mike Miles.

"The unity tour wasn't for the average voter, it was for the grass roots," he said. "During the primary, I would have expressed some doubt about whether we can come together. But it's really coming together."

"A conservative defection could have been damaging for Coors," is closer to what Coffman actually said. The article goes on to bury recent praise for Coors from a number of prominent social conservatives.

There are two reasons why Coors needs to be more mindful of former primary opponents: their numbers are larger, and the primary was more bitter. But the dynamics of the race probably turn in Coors's favor. He's more comfortable running as a conservative than Salazar is as a liberal. Coincidentally, this positioning is also more likely to be popular statewide.

Salazar was also always seen as a much stronger candidate than Miles. Coors needed to convince people he could do well in the fall. As a result, pragmatic Miles supporters were probably more likely to defect than Schaffer supporters in the primary. Coors's large margin of victory came not from traditional Republican prmary voters, but from traditional Republican general election voters. Which means that the remaining Schaffer voters include more pragmatists than the remaining Miles voters. These voters will support Coors more easily.

Finally, as an aside, Salazar is going to host former Senator Max Cleland in the Springs on Thursday. Cleland is probably intended to appeal to the large active military and veteran population is the Springs area, but this is unlikely to work.

With no history in the state, Cleland further ties the Salazar campaign to the national Kerry-Edwards ticket on an issue where they can't win: national security and terrorism. Veterans are strongly behind Bush, and strongly doubt Kerry's credentials on this issue.

Given Cleland's increasingly shrill and off-balance attacks on the administration, it's possible his target audience is the Miles liberals. In that case, they'd be better off showcasing him in Boulder, where the market for that sort of talk is much larger, and he'd be less likely to remind veterans of why they don't like the national Democratic ticket in the first place.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

The Senate Race and Immigration

2004-09-02T15:56:00.000-06:00

This, in a Grand Junction Sentinal report on candidate and immigration:

Pete Coors, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, also supports a program to let immigrants find jobs and to toughen penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants.

“Pete is a strong proponent of a guest worker program that allows immigrants to cross the border legally,” Coors spokeswoman Cinamon Watson said. “He is opposed to amnesty.”

...

“Current immigration law is not working,” said Ken Salazar, Colorado’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. “I support stronger border enforcement and efforts that would crack down on illegal human trafficking.”

This is an apparent weakness in Salazar's Hispanic strategy. Coors needs to hammer this. Salazar may be applying an "Only Nixon can go to China" strategy here, but his family is from old Mexican stock that the US overtook, not from a recent immigrant community. This line may not resonate the way he hopes.

Also, some of us have been wondering about Salazar's accent. It's real enough, but from where? Turns out it's a native San Luis Valley accent. The other morning, when I was checking out, the lady at the front desk had the same accent. It turns out her father was born in Pagosa Springs, and her grandfather was a young man looking for work during the Depression.

So there you go. Salazar may be an authentic liberal, and an inauthentic moderate, but he does seem to be an authentic person.

This Is the Great Outdoors?

2004-08-31T15:26:00.000-06:00

Ken Salazar like to brag about being a moving force behind the legislation known as Great Outdoors Colorado. Now when I think of the Great Outdoors, I think of this. I suspect you do too. I do not think of city playgrounds in Burlington, CO as the Great Outdoors.

Nice city playgrounds are a worthy use of municipal funds, no doubt about it. But we're talking about a playground, with playsets and benches and a grill, and a fountain. We're not even talking about Winter Park or Boulder's glorious trail system.

Salazar has been using his promotion of Great Outdoors Colorado in his response to the Summitville Slime. I'm just not sure those words mean what we think they mean.

Money and ideas.

2004-08-30T16:59:00.000-06:00

As of this month, Salazar raised $407 thousand from PACs while Coors raised $107 thousand.

Political analysts say they expect Coors to catch up in contributions by October.

They also say the money raised could hurt Salazar's image as being for special interests.

And though Coors is pro-life and against gay marriage, he said he disagrees with President Bush on budget issues.

Coors said Bush has allowed federal spending to get out of control.

A short review of where Pete Coors stands from the Canyon City speech.

The Budget -- "We're burning up the credit card," Coors said. "If you own a business, if you did your accounting like the federal government does their accounting, you'd be locked up." ... ... he would vote to keep the president's recent tax cuts in place and fight to extend the estate-tax reprieve that is set to expire in 2011. ... ... he would cut to reign in deficit spending but said his experience as chairman of Coors Brewing would be useful in making those decisions.

Health care and tort reform -- "We have the least efficient health-care delivery system in the world," which results in higher costs, Coors said. ... tort system and reducing the number of plaintiff and class-action lawsuits could lower costs. ...

Immigration -- " but immigrants should be documented, and he would be in favor of increasing penalties for companies that hire undocumented aliens... ... "my plan is to put military on our borders," both north and south, Coors said, receiving a round of applause from the crowd.

The military -- "I'll be an advocate of increasing our military budget," ...

Cross posted at The American Kestrel

Coors and Jobs

2004-08-28T20:46:00.000-06:00

The Denver Post seems detemined to keep thos going, with its editorial this morning. The paper gives Coors a fair shake on his management of the company, but then adds this:

His staff insists the advertising is accurate because of the jobs created by companies that emerged from reorganization at Coors Brewing, but these are the fruits of others' success.

Maybe. But these small companies started out with only one client: Coors, and while the new management there made the thing grow, and deserves credit for that, they got a big boost at the start. This whole argument is a fine enough line that the Post ought to find something better to write about.

Note also that the union has tried to organize the Coors Brewery four times and failed. This usually indiciate good management-employee relations. The single most important issue to potential union members is the continued existence of their jobs. Pensions don't matter if you haven't paid into them. Benefits don't matter if there's no job to take leave from. It doesn't sound as though brewery employees are sufficient worried about this issue to organize.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Salazar Responds

2004-08-27T11:48:00.000-06:00

Ken Salazar has unveiled a new ad, aimed at countering the Summitville ad that's been running in the state. It's a good ad, for what it is, and it quotes the papers' condemnation of the outside ad, without naming Coors or trying to link the Coors campaign to it. You can see it here. It's the one titled, "Protect."

Salazar's got a long history with water issues in the state. From the August 7, 2003 Rocky: "From 1981 to 1986, he specialized in water and public lands law as an attorney with Sherman and Howard; from 1990 to 1994, he was executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, and from 1994 to 1998, he specialized in water, environmental and administrative law with Parcel, Mauro and Spaanstra."

Western water right and water rights law are tremendously complex, but I'm sure the Coors campaign is looking into Salazar's long record on the subject.

Job Creation vs. Job Welfare

2004-08-27T07:08:00.000-06:00

I'm worn out today and don't have the energy or patience to tackle this article by Mark Couch. This "hit piece", masquerading as a news story, is so blatantly obvious in it's intent as to be laughable. However, the most telling of the quotes from the piece is as follows:

The numbers tell the story of a company more concerned with profits than people, say union officials who have tried to organize workers at the company's Golden plant.

One quick word for the union organizers...Corporations [ed-according to Websters Dictionary, evil is not a synonym for corporation], because it suits their best interests must be concerned about individuals. However, they are not in the business of acting as welfare agencies for the unemployed. The board of directors of any large company is responsible to the shareholders of the company, not union bosses.

Perhaps one of the other members of the highly esteemed RMA would care take up the baton of truth and run with it.

UPDATE: KOA AM850 radio talk show host, Mike Rosen has picked up on the afore mentioned article by Mark Couch....I'm gonna enjoy this!

Cross Post at Damascus Road

Edwards In Town

2004-08-27T00:18:00.000-06:00

What If There Was A Rally. . .

but nobody important came?

John Edwards was in town today to give a little talk at the JeffCO Fairgrounds. By most accounts, a couple thousand people were there to greet him, along with a handful of demonstrators.

There are three interesting aspects of this. One is the purpose of the speech: health care. Of course, nobody in the town-hall style meeting was willing to ask this question, but some reporter should: how much of the "administrative waste" in the health care system is a direct result of your profession--the tort?

Second aspect is the coverage: I've searched the websites of both dailys in town and all three "major" network affiliate newssites. As of posting, the Denver Post and Channel 9 (NBC) both cover the event in "real time;" but the Rocky Mtn News, Channel 7 (ABC),and Channel 4 (CBS) either neglect the story altogether or have this morning's "Edwards will be here" coverage. I find it interesting that the man who would be Vice President doesn't even rate a mention on the website of half the major media in Denver.

But the third aspect is what has my interest most piqued. I wasn't there, and haven't talked to anybody that was there, so I can't say for sure. . . but none of the coverage mentions Ken Salazar's presence at the rally. Neither of the major media stories mentions Salazar, and the Salazar website is bereft of mention or picture of him with his arm around John Edwards.

Now, it could be that the coverage is just not hitting this point. And I did not see any of the live reporting on the evening news, so I could be speaking out a little prematurely. But when Vice President Cheney was in town three weeks ago he was introduced by Bob Beauprez and, with the primary still a week away, both Pete Coors and Bob Schaffer were prominently in attendance. One would think that with the Veep candidate in town that Salazar would make a point of being there and of being VERY public about his presence--something like posting a picture on his website.

Could it be that the Salazar campaign recognizes that, his crafted persona notwithstanding, putting the candidate next to Sen. Lightweight would be a giant net minus in this state?

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Salazar Goes Over the Edge

2004-08-26T06:25:00.000-06:00

At press time last night (hah!), Salazar seemingly had played the Summitville issue the right way - show outrage at an unfair attack, get your opponent to condemn it, have the newspapers print editorials defending you, and generally get the word out that the attack as isn't worth the ether it travels through.

But I did say that Salazar had to be careful not to overplay his hand. Fortunately, he's gone and done just that. From this morning's Rocky:

Salazar noted that both Denver daily newspapers editorialized Wednesday against the ad. Like those editorials, Salazar asked that the ad be stopped, and called upon his Republican opponent, Pete Coors, to join in that demand.

Although Coors has denounced ads by outside groups, Salazar said Wednesday that isn't enough.

The two-term state attorney general labeled his brewery executive opponent a "handmaiden" to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries that fund Americans for Job Security, and said it was "almost a hypocrisy" for Coors not to try harder to get the ad off the air.

Coors spokeswoman Cinamon Watson decried the tone of Salazar's message, noting that immediately after the primary election Salazar had pledged a positive race.

"I'd say that anybody who's calling for a positive campaign and in the same breath starts name-calling Pete is a hypocrite," she said.

Good for Coors. Salazar knows full well that the law concerning collaboration is unsettled. Were Coors to successfully call for the ads to be pulled, it would effectively make him responsible for all outside advertising, even though he can't possibly control it. Salazar is trying to manufacture an issue now where none really exists. And he's setting up his own sadder-but-wiser pose when the Sierra Club comes in with ads showing Clear Creek flowing with sludge and explaining that it's all those Coors trucks that cause the Brown Cloud.

More worrisome is the tendency at both the national and state levels to turns debates about policy and record into debates about campaign finance. Today, after McCain-Feingold's warping of the First Amendment, such debates have a somewhat menacing tone. In a way, it's worse that Kerry, since these ads never really threatened Salazar's candidacy. Complaining about mud is only slightly more recent than mud itself.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Salazar and Outside Groups

2004-08-25T22:46:00.000-06:00

I'm going to take issue with Guy and Hugh on this one. I don't think Salazar is particularly out of line, and I don't think either this ad or this issue is going to hurt him any.

First, all of the papers, the Post, the Rocky, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Grand Junction Sentinal don't think that Salazar acted improperly. The abuses started before his watch, and he was partly responsible for putting and end to them. When the time for settlement came, he got a deal that more than paid for the damage, without having to go to trial.

Secondly, Salazar has already run and won two statewide races where this issue was raised. These are fairly recent races, so it's not like the state's population has turned over in the interim. In fact, this points out one of the problems with the group sponsoring the ad: they're from out of state, and clearly don't have any clue about the history of either this issue or Colorado politics.

Thirdly, Salazar himself has called, somewhat disingenuously, for outside groups not to advertise in state. Coors has joined him in this, even though the Rocky has editorialized in favor of outside groups. There's a limit as to how much Coors can say without being charged with collusion, though, and Salazar knows it. There's a fine line between being offended and grandstanding. In any event, Salazar isn't running for President, so it's going to be hard to judge him by Kerry's antics, no matter how much he's tried to run as a third member of the ticket.

Finally, this group is not a 527, but a 501(c), and if the ad stops before Labor Day, they won't have to reveal their funding sources. That's ok, although the eponymous Karen Crummy prefers "secretly funded" to "anonymous," and it does make it easier to draw inappropriately sinister conclusions about the people behind the ad.

In the end, this ad is almost likely to help, rather than hurt, Salazar. I've got nothing against third-party groups. My position on McCain-Feingold is pretty much that of the Wall Street Journal and National Review: it is an abomination in the eyes of the Constitition and the Founders. That said, if third parties are going to advertise, they need to do their homework.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Double Standard

2004-08-25T08:34:00.000-06:00

It looks as if Ken Salazar is taking a play from Senator Kerry's playbook.

U.S. Senate candidate Ken Salazar challenged his opponent, Pete Coors, to have the "guts" to stand up to a secretly funded political group that launched a television attack ad targeting the state attorney general Tuesday.

In an attempt to stifle free speech, Salazar has attacked the Coors camp over a 527 advertisement that criticizes Salazar's handling of the Summitville mine. Mr. Salazar, my question to you is: Will you condemn Moveon.org, as well as Michael Moore, for their ad hominem attacks against George Bush? Will you ask Teresa Hines Kerry to withdraw her financial support of Democrat shadow groups? Or, will you, in the tradition of John Kerry, send a delegation to the brewery demanding that Coors denounce the ads?

Cross Post at Damascus Road

Media Love Republican Factions

2004-08-23T08:33:00.000-06:00

One disgruntled Schaffer supporter writes an e-mail to Republican leaders saying he can't bring himself to vote for GOP Senate candidate Pete Coors, and it gets splashed on the Rocky's pages. What is my reaction supposed to be? Shock and surprise that there are people out there like this? Hardly.

One of the most important questions to ask is: how many people like this are there? It's a question the RMN's Gwen Florio can't answer unless there has been a neutral poll with objective analysis to figure out the views of Schaffer supporters. But believe me, I'm not waiting by the phone for a pollster to call and ask me any such question. Nor am I anticipating a reporter to interrogate me as to why such a "diehard Schaffer supporter" (they love that phrase) as myself is now wholeheartedly supporting Coors.

Florio highlighted Loveland's Jeff Andreski, a strong supporter of 2nd Amendment rights.

Andreski said that the lengthy e-mail was a reflection of the frustration he felt after a campaign in which Schaffer was outspent by his high-profile opponent.

Laura Teal, the grass-roots coordinator for Schaffer's campaign, said, "I hear that message consistently" from other Schaffer supporters.

But Teal said she continues to take her cues from Schaffer and his support for Coors.

"He has set a very high level of moral fortitude for the rest of us Schaffer supporters," she said.

Coors spokeswoman Cinamon Watson concurred, saying that "quite frankly, Bob Schaffer has been one of our best ambassadors in that effort" to bring his former supporters into the Coors camp.

Is there frustration out there? Sure there is. It's only natural after such a hard-fought primary. Most Schaffer supporters, such as myself, were solidly back in the Republican fold mere hours after the primary results were disclosed. We followed the lead of the former Congressman himself. Some will take a little longer, and in the end a handful on the fringes may sit at home and make a statement that no one in any political party leadership will be moved or influenced by. The way to have made a meaningful statement was in the way I (and many others) supported Bob Schaffer up through August 10: with enthusiasm, with vigor, with dedication and passion. Now we have to be united again... there's simply too much at stake.

Then Florio slipped in a subtle remark like this one about one of the Colorado Republican party's leaders:

The day after the primary, Schaffer and Coors staged a "unity tour" of Denver, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. Last Friday, Allard and U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell joined Coors in another Front Range unity spin.

State Treasurer Mike Coffman, who had grumbled after the primary that Coors wasn't the best candidate for the job, attended both events. [My emphasis]

Coffman and I still believe that Coors wasn't the best candidate for the job, or else we would have supported him from the beginning. But come on... we understand that the race is now between two men; and Pete Coors is far better than Ken Salazar.

And to call the rally "unity spin" could be fair enough, except I challenge you to find a comparable Democrat event described in similar terms. Good luck. Stories like this in general wouldn't bother me, if there were any similar coverage on the other side. Maybe I'm naive enough to believe that gruntled dissenters exist on both sides of the party aisle. Maybe I'm naive enough to believe that the press should try to give them balanced coverage. Can you imagine a story on one of the Denver daily's pages that went something like this?

Dennis Kucinich stood next to Ken Salazar - the man who hopes to join him in Washington - last Friday and declared that Colorado's Democrat "family feud" is over.

Antonio Magurski, of Boulder, begs to differ.

Magurski is among the die-hard supporters of former U.S. Army Ranger Mike Miles, who unsuccessfully opposed Salazar in the Aug. 10 Senate primary.

The day after the primary, Miles and Salazar staged a "unity tour" of Denver, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. Last Friday, Kucinich and U.S. Congressman Mark Udall joined Salazar in another Front Range unity spin.

Kucinich, who also backed Miles during the primary, said Friday that "this is a time when Democrats need to come together."

Unity, schmunity, says Magurski.

In an e-mail sent to several Democratic leaders, Magurski said he won't vote for Salazar in November, nor will he vote for Salazar's Republican opponent, beer magnate Pete Coors.

"I will not be part of a charade like what just transpired," he wrote.

Magurski said that the lengthy e-mail was a reflection of the frustration he felt after a campaign in which Miles was not only heavily outspent by his high-profile opponent but stifled by the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee and other Washington heavy-hitters....

Keep dreaming.

Back to the real article, where a very important quote from pollster Floyd Ciruli was pushed to the end.

But the fact that this year's Senate race is so close, and that its outcome could decide the balance of power in the U.S. Senate - which potentially could confirm a new Supreme Court justice - likely will bring those people back into the fold in November, Ciruli said.

And the Rocky Mountain Alliance of Blogs will do its part to bring as many into the fold as possible.

Cross posted at Mount Virtus.

More Debates Scheduled

2004-08-21T21:07:00.000-06:00

We have been made aware of two more debates on the schedule for this race. On October 12, Allied Jewish Federation will hold its Candidates' Forum, apparently to include the 1st District House candidates as well. Details to follow, but it should be a chance to highlight foreign affairs.

And the local CBS affiliate will televise live a 1-hour debate on Friday, October 29 (don't these guys ever debate any time other than Shabbat?), from 6-7 PM. Again, with a panel of journalists.

Hey, how about a debate with a panel of bloggers?

A delicate situation.

2004-08-21T13:42:00.000-06:00

The Coors company and Pete Coors in particular has always had a history of supporting minorities. I think that Mr. Coors should take the time to explain himself in detail on these kinds of issues. He is going to need the votes. Pete Coors, with his history, is moderate enough and articulate enough to make a good case.

... Northwest Denver's venerable Coors Bar - no relation to either the candidate or the company - switched management and orientation, transforming itself into Denver's newest gay club.

The unassuming stucco corner tavern at 34th Avenue and Navajo Street has always been called the Coors Bar, he said, and has its own contingent of neighborhood regulars. It morphed into the Coors Nightclub, with a lesbian clientele, in March. ...

... The Coors Brewing Co. supplies beer and sponsors promotions such as the Coors Light Bash on Fridays, when $10 gets you all the eponymous brew you can drink from 9 until midnight.

Cinamon Watson, spokeswoman for Pete Coors' Senate campaign, said Wednesday that the candidate would have no comment on the tavern's transformation. ...

... "Straight talk -that's a subliminal message," Padilla theorized. "He's saying, 'I'm a straight man who doesn't like gay marriage.' "

Padilla pointed out that the full-page ad from Coors Brewing in OutFront is headlined "Straight Talk From
Coors." The brewery began running the ads in gay papers nationwide after gay and lesbian groups criticized Pete Coors' political platform and threatened to renew a boycott against Coors beer.

The boycott ended, in part, because the brewery became a nationwide leader in gay causes, granting health benefits to employees' same-sex partners and sponsoring Denver's annual gay PrideFest. ...

Polls seem to indicate that most people do not like the idea of 'gay marriage'. Perhaps a new definition is in order. The federal government has something like 40,000 laws and regulations mentioning 'marriage'. These were originally written with one woman and one man in mind. Extending these to relationships of two people of the same gender, without having a good idea of the full extent of this decision, is probably not the right thing to do. Think of 'straight white guys' like me, because we are a comparatively small minority of the overall population, suddenly qualifying for affirmative action and diversity rules and regulations.

Another 'civil relationship' (certainly we can come up with a better word or phrase) recognized by various levels of government, now and in the future, is the way to deal with this. Marriage, because of the 'Full faith and Credit' clause of the constitution, requires all states to recognize and honor these types of contracts.

Of course the even larger question of why governments are involved in what is essentially a religious institution should also be addressed. But for now we're stuck with it.

Cross posted at The American Kestrel

Ken Salazar - NEA Subsidiary

2004-08-20T09:17:00.000-06:00

Guy and Ben have already posted on this, so I'll just make a couple of brief comments.

This is a play to his base, and again to an issue important to the Hispanic vote. I don't want to sound like a broken record, and it's not the prism for the whole election, but it is key to Salazar's strategy. When the voter registration drives and GOTV efforts start, he needs to have this nailed down already. Also, remember that a couple of voucher measures have been voted down statewide.

That's no reason to oppose them, but it does mean Coors has a little sales job to do. School choice is a winning issue in inner cities and needs to be pushed is southern Colorado, too. Coors, as a businessman, should have plenty of stories about how competition improved his business's products and practices over the years.

Salazar on Education

2004-08-20T08:19:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Democrat Senate candidate Ken Salazar announced his plan to improve education. It's funny what an endorsement from the National Education Association will do for you. Salazar, who had won kudos for arguing the case for the state's voucher program in court, has now grown silent on the issue of school choice. If you haven't already, read the statement on his website.

The leaders, activists, and grassroots in the Hispanic community who fight on the front lines for a way to rescue their kids from failing schools need to know this. They need to hear this issue brought up in a debate or in a press conference. Salazar needs to give an answer that shows whether he's on the side of the heavily-funded teachers' union monopoly or of the poor families looking for alternatives. On most of his stances, he sounds like an echo chamber for the NEA's policy positions. Surprise, surprise.

What's on Salazar's education agenda?
1. Arguing the bogus NEA position that No Child Left Behind is a good idea in principle but that it's heavily underfunded. This makes Salazar and the NEA appear to be on the side of accountability but lets them demand more tax money all the same.
2. Increase federal funding for early childhood education.
3. Make higher education a federal funding priority to reduce tuition costs.
4. Increase federal funding of remedial education programs for adult literacy.

In the Post article, Salazar is also quoted as supporting a few other education items: first, "smaller class sizes". This is one of the NEA's favorite mantras, which could be better translated as "more union teachers." Studies have shown smaller class sizes to be beneficial on the margins for students in the early elementary grades but not after that.

Second, more after-school programs. Let's boil this all down... Salazar believes, like the NEA, that the federal government is not spending enough money on education. This is a lie that fewer and fewer Americans are falling for. More people are beginning to demand results from the public education system, rather than expecting to pour money down a bottomless pit. When people realize how much money is being spent per pupil, most believe the schools have enough or too much funding already.

The one area where Salazar's $9.4 billion estimated education proposal parts ways from the NEA is his proposal that certain teachers should be afforded special pay raises: teachers in tougher schools and teachers who work in more difficult subject areas (i.e., math and science). Supply and demand makes sense to most of us, which actually makes this part of Salazar's plan fairly reasonable. But not to the teachers' unions. They'll probably have to look past this part of the proposal, knowing that a Senator Salazar will be a solid vote for increased federal education funding. Just what we DON'T need!

Cross-posted at Mount Virtus

Boilerplate

2004-08-20T07:49:00.000-06:00

In typical Democrat fashion, Ken Salazar is calling for raises for teachers, smaller classroom size, and new afterschool programs for kids. Ummm... Ken, we've tried all of those and they haven't helped to improve things. A wise man once said that the definition of insanity was repeatedly trying policies that fail and expecting different results. Methinks that's the case here.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ken Salazar on Thursday called for improving the nation's public schools with smaller classes, pay raises for some teachers and new after- school programs.

Salazar proposed giving $5,000 raises to teachers at schools that have trouble recruiting and retaining teachers. He would also give $5,000 annual bonuses to math and science teachers.

The price tag of the Salazar plan: $9.4 billion in 2005.

Hmmm...Reward the teachers; but, no mention of how that will improve learning.

On a brighter note, Pete Coors has proposed vouchers that would allow parents to send their children to a school of their own choosing. In typical fashion, the Denver Post holds Coors accountable for the funding of this program (as they should) but fails to ask the hard questions regarding the funding for the $9.4 billion dollars in federal spending that Salazar proposes.

If Ken Salazar wants to improve education here in Colorado, he's going to have to come up with some new innovative solutions. The same tired old proposals have not worked in the past and show no promise of working in the future.

Cross Posted at Damascus Road

Run It Up The Flagpole And See Who Salutes It

2004-08-19T21:26:00.000-06:00

While doing some research, I stumbled across a couple of bits of information that could very well be innocuous, but I thought I'd put it out there and see what feedback I get.

While checking out Ken Salazar's major contributers, I discovered one surname that was at the top of the list. Alvarado, specifically Linda and Robert, who have given 8 large this year to the Salazar campaign. I thought nothing of it until I discovered this:

Turner Construction Company, in association with Empire Construction Company and Alvarado Construction, Inc. provided construction management/general contractor services for the new Denver Broncos Stadium.

A major hispanic contributer to the State AG, was also awarded a contract to work on a tax-payer funded stadium. A very expensive stadium, I might add. Coincidence? Could be.

Cross-posted at MangledCat

JOSHUA ADDS: I wonder if this isn't part of the minority set-aside program. The whole Adarand case was supposed to deal with that, but since then, there have been several adverse rulings. I'll need to check up on that.

Debate Scheduled

2004-08-19T15:43:00.000-06:00

At least one debate between the two Senate candidates has been scheduled, for Saturday night, September 11, in Grand Junction, at the Two Rivers Convention Center. Salazar & Coors will debate from 7:00 to 7:55, following an undercard of Ken's brother John vs. (presumably) Greg Walcher, from 6:00 to 6:55. John Salazar & Walcher are facing each other for the 3rd District House seat, although there's still a little counting left to do on the Republican side there.

It's extremely frustrating that this news appears in the Cortez newspaper, and on neither of the campaign websites. Another reason you need us.

Any Grand Junctions residents or bloggers who'd like to file a report here, please let us know.

Problem with "Straight Talk"? Please!

2004-08-19T08:37:00.000-06:00

We knew this line of attack would keep coming after the primary, but the Coors campaign is reacting the way it needs to continue to react: "No Comment." Leave it to one of Denver's two dailies to dig up a story about a tiny lesbian bar in northwest Denver that happens to have the same name as the Republican Senate candidate and his beer company. That allows the Rocky's Gwen Florio to turn such phrases as:

Here at the Coors Bar, the juxtaposition of Coors the taproom, Coors the candidate and Coors the company is head-spinning enough to make one wish for, well, a drink.

And then there are silly paranoid quotes like this from the bartender:

Padilla said he can't stand Pete Coors' "Straight Talk, Honest Answers" campaign slogan.

"Straight talk - that's a subliminal message," Padilla theorized. "He's saying, 'I'm a straight man who doesn't like gay marriage.' "

When the Denver dailies are done with their silly insinuation stories like this one, perhaps they could actually look more closely at the issue of "gay marriage," the logical and historical arguments, as well as determining what the mainstream position is. Note to the writers: check out what happened in Missouri a few weeks ago, when an overwhelmingly Democrat electorate voted for the state marriage amendment by a whopping margin of 72-to-28 percent.

But the best way to get the Post and Rocky to confront their bias on this would be to see if they could find a story about a church with the name "Salazar" in it (or perhaps in the name of the pastor or priest), and then interview some parishioners about the irony of the fact that the Democrat Senate candidate has taken a stance on abortion contrary to the teachings of his own Catholic faith. Don't hold your breath.

Cross-posted at Mount Virtus.

NFIB Endorses Coors

2004-08-18T14:27:00.000-06:00

The National Federation of Independent Business, one of the country's major small-business organizations, has endorsed Pete Coors for Senate.

This shouldn't come as a complete surprise. The SAFE Trust PAC endorses Republicans predominantly, although not exclusively, and they don't make an endorsement in every race. However, they have given money in the past to the Blue Dog PAC, a conservative Democratic PAC, Gary Condit (oops), and James Moran of Virginia, both Democrats. Locally, they were strong supporters of Bob Schaffer and Bob Beauprez in their House runs.

Coors ought to be able to turn this to his advantage. Probably the biggest issue on the table for small business (aside from making sure that the city where they operate still exists in the morning) is health care. Those who cry the loudest that the Federal Government should use its bargaining power to further distort the market for prescription drugs are blocking Senate action that would let small businesses group together to enhance their bargaining power. It fits in nicely with Coors's "markets not bureaucrats" approach to things.

Salazar has made health care his headline issue, ahead of everything else. This no doubt has something to do with his aggressive courting of the Hispanic vote. Coors now has an endorsement that he can effectively use to bolster his counter-message.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

More on Coors as a Corporate Citizen

2004-08-18T14:16:00.000-06:00

A couple of days ago I promised you some more information on the 'Coors is the worst polluter in the state' mantra.

It's not true.

This from the Beer Institute. Yes, I know that this is an industry mouthpiece but take a look at the whole article. Below are listed just a couple of the innovations
where Coors led the industry.

In the 1950s, the steel can industry told Coors it was crazy to waste five years and $10 million to develop the technology to make aluminum beverage cans. But the first commercially produced aluminum beverage can in America was made at Coors' plant in Golden, Colo., on January 22, 1959.

The industry thought Coors was even crazier to think people would return the cans for recycling. Yet in 1959, Coors single-handedly launched the aluminum can recycling revolution when it began offering a penny for every returned can. AND IT WORKED.

On its own, Coors designed and built the first modern wastewater treatment plant in Colorado in 1952, adding a secondary treatment process decades before it was required to do so.

And it goes on and on.

Another industry tribute but look who is giving Coors awards.

Top management is integrally involved in developing and upholding the company's environmental principles. Chairman Pete Coors signed the latest environmental, health & safety principles document, which is posted throughout the company. The company has received numerous awards, including two from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

This from EcoIQ; a magazine that promotes sustainability.

In the rainforest, nature uses feedback to "close the loop." In the face of limits, feedback triggers adaptations that lessen or make an end-run around physical constraints. In business, companies like Coors use feedback to "close the loop," triggering innovations that lead to new products, processes, businesses, and profits.

Some interesting information from the EPA. The wonders of modern technology.

A view of how Geographic Information System (GIS) computer software is used for a global view of environmental management. This video tours Coors industrial site to learn about the technology used to reduce pollution from can manufacturing and how Public Service Company of Colorado controls Coors emissions. An
environmental consultant tells about contemporary pollution prevention. A representative from the Denver Office of Emergency Preparedness demonstrates how the Environmental Information System is utilized.

Industrial
Ecology March 00 - Shared Vision Magazine

The agreement adds the Japanese firm to a growing list of large corporations, such as the Denver-based Coors Brewing, that are looking to nature to improve their bottom line. "All waste and all pollution is lost profit," says William Coors, the founder of the Coors Brewing Corporation. The first breweries to switch from glass to aluminum and buy back its products from consumers, Coors products are now 90% recyclable.

Now are a number of the above representatives of industry. Yes. Coors is in the 'beer industry'. Actually many industries including can and bottle manufacture, ceramics, metal and plastic fabrication, and wear, fluid and electronic engineering. These are well paying high tech jobs that employ thousands.

Peter Coors and the Coors family have tried to be good corporate citizens and good neighbors in Colorado and elsewhere. Don't be fooled by the leftist 'mantra' attacking Pete Coors in an effort to pick up a few votes. And don't get distracted from the important, real issues in Colorado.

Lock 'n' Load

2004-08-18T08:56:00.000-06:00

It looks like both candidates are loadin' up for the coming campaign season. Initial reading of the Rocky Mountain News piece would have one believe that Salazar holds all the cards on fund raising. However, reading deeper into the piece shows that Coors will not be left wanting for funds.

Salazar spokesman Cody Wertz said Coors' ability to draw on his personal wealth will be a concern during the general election.

"We know we're going to be outspent many times over during the next 11 weeks," he said, " so we wanted wanted to get a healthy (advertising) buy in."

Watson said the Coors campaign is "aggressively" raising money.

Because of the national importance [control of the US Senate] of the Colorado Senate race, there should be no shortage of funds. It's gonna be interesting.

Cross Post at Damascus Road

Early Polling for Senate

2004-08-18T01:04:00.000-06:00

In the first poll that I've seen on the US Senate race, Pete Coors gets 48% of the vote, and Ken Salazar gets 47%. The poll of 622 likely voters was conducted by Survey USA.

The poll also shows that the Presidential race is a dead heat at this point, with both candidates getting 47% of the vote.

These numbers don't add up, to me. . .especially the second one. I know that everybody thinks this may be a battleground state this year, but I just don't see it that way. That the Presidential race is even in this poll indicates to me a 4-6 point discrepancy from reality in favor of John Kerry. Which, given the internals, seems to also point to a 4-6 point lead for Pete Coors.

Follow up that intuition with a reminder of how wrong the polls were about the GOP primary, and I think this bodes very well for Pete Coors.

Follow THAT up with a look at the SUSA methodology, and you find that they seem to have overpolled Democrats by a decent margin: this poll consisted of 35% Rep, 32% Dem, and 32% Independents. In a state where voter registration splits along lines closer to 36% GOP, 33% Ind and 30% Dem, Kerry/Salazar probably picked up a few points in the methodology.

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Websites - Advantage Salazar

2004-08-17T15:23:00.000-06:00

When I was hanging out with these guys, about 20 years ago (dear God, where does the time go?), we used to rate probationary speeches on two criteria: style and content. (Sometimes, someone would throw "form" in there to confuse people, which, at 3:00 Saturday morning wasn't too hard to do. Usually, at that point, we'd head down to the Corner for breakfast.) Do well enough, or speak late enough that people had stopped caring, usually about the time the keg ran out, and you passed.

It is in that spirit that I offer the following critiques of the two Sentorial websites.

Style

Neither site dies here, that is, neither site has such a horrible design or color scheme that it sends you, screaming, here. Both sets of site designers seem to have mastered the basics: red, white, and blue, but muted, and faded into each other. Nice menus, pictures of the candidates, large content area.

And yet. Coors's site leaves you searching much of the time, while Salazar's has the menu equivalent of street signs, rollover popup menus. You've got people to your site, you don't want them wasting time looking at the endorsements when what they really want is your position on gun control. (Actually, what you really want is for them to hit the "Contribute" button. Both sites make that pretty easy.) One click and I'm at Salazar's Press Releases. Coors makes me run through two separete clicks, a bunch of text I'm not going to read anyway.

This stuff is easy to fix, and Coors should fix it. He's spending money on the site as it is, he should at least get his money's worth.

Content

What's going to take a lot more work to fix is the content. Here's where Salazar eats Coors lunch, and washes it down with a Bud.

Salazar's press releases are up to date. Coors's most recent press release is from lsat month. Coors makes you register for a press kit. Salazar has a schedule of events and a Meetup site. Key stuff, to let people get involved. Salazar also has his TV ads on his site. Half of Coors's links take you to registration forms. His should should spend more time giving information and less time asking for it.

Finally, and most importantly, Salazar mirrors his site in Spanish. Coors is already at a language disadvatage, why compound it? Please don't make ideological arguments to me, unless you believe Coors can afford to just write off the Spanish-speaking media.

As a way to keep track of the campaign, the Coors site just doesn't offer any value-added.

Summary

Look, it's easy to make too much of this, but the blog is a web-based medium, and I think we can write about candidates' websites without it being a case of digital naval-gazing. I realize that, from the point of view of the web, TV looks like this, but that's not the point. It's a medium whose power is growing (you're reading this, aren't you?), and it's important to use it properly.

Coors still has plenty of time to do this right, but it's a little worrisome that he hasn't done so yet.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

More Salazar to come...

2004-08-17T13:21:00.000-06:00

Too busy to take a bite out of the next of Ken Salazar's position papers. I'll get to #3 before the week is out, though.

A Non-Vote Is A Vote For Salazar

2004-08-16T13:10:00.000-06:00

Absolutists have to be unbalanced. That is my biased conclusion, anyway. This letter to the editor in today's Rocky (scroll down to the letter entitled: values absent in Coors) is an example of such. I'm going to reprint it for the benefit of those without a scroll wheel:

I am a true-blue Republican, but I cannot support Pete Coors. The moral values that persuaded me to support Bob Schaffer are much more important to me than my Republican affiliation. I will not support a man who promotes the immorality of drunkenness. I will not support a man whose company caters to the rebellious act of homosexuality. And besides all this, how can I support the man who viciously attacked my candidate?

I will vote for neither Salazar nor Coors. I am not alone in this - many share my sentiment. I believe that Salazar will triumph because the Republican Party has chosen to alienate those of us who hold conservative moral values. I hope they get the message when they lose in Colorado.
(I'm witholding the name -ed)Fort Collins

Not voting at all is a guaranteed vote for the opposition, which is the same as voting for Salazar. I have a feeling that those same moral values that are preventing him from voting for Coors would not allow him to vote for Salazar, either. So why do it? Looking at his own letter, it would appear that he bought into the Colorado Conservative Voters ad campaign in which they accused Coors of lowering the drinking age. He even expresses his offense at how Coors attacked his candidate. It makes no difference that the Coors campaign was responding to the outright false ads from the 527 who supported his candidate. It's perfectly reasonable, perhaps even responsible, for CCV to trash Coors because they were doing so in the best interest of his candidate, from the writer's perspective, anyway. If that's his train of thought, well it can keep moving right on through the station. I'll take a cab.

This writer appears to be a passionate supporter who is obviously disappointed that Bob Schaffer lost the Primary. I feel for him, but need to point out this fact. The very next day, Bob Schaffer threw his support behind Pete Coors because he understands what is at stake. Bob Schaffer understands the importance of keeping the Senate seat in Republican hands.

If his candidate can do it, what is preventing our writer from doing the same? Pride? Anger? Resentment? Probably a combination of all three, I would guess. The bottom line is there will never be a candidate who conforms to every one of every citizens morals and views. When that candidate is found, which Bob Schaffer was for a great number of people, he will most likely not be electable to a large number of people. In order to succeed, it is imperative that we rally behind the candidate who will give us most of what we want and still win an election. Pete Coors is that guy. Vote for him, or you vote for Salazar by default.

Cross-posted at MangledCat

Bitterness

2004-08-16T07:14:00.001-06:00

Mike Littwin, after allowing his cup to run over with the bile of bitterness, finally gets around to taking a swing at Pete Coors. Given his druthers, Mike would have us believe that there should be two candidates standing in the center of the ring, armed with nothing but their respective ideologies, preparing to bludgeon one another into mute submission.

Oh, there were a few of you romantics out there - very few, apparently. And you know who you are. You voted for Mike "Keep the Change" Miles. You lined up with Bob "I Really Did Think Bill Owens Was My Friend" Schaffer.
But this was a race that was foretold almost as soon as Ben Nighthorse Campbell dropped out, when Ken Salazar jumped in ahead of his friend, Mark Udall, and the Republicans recruited Coors to save the party from falling on its sword with Schaffer- Owens making the announcement before Coors could change his mind. (And before Owens could get the blame for failing to run himself.)

Come on Mike, lighten up. It's the season ya know. You just can't get away with posing as a political idealist. You're a ~~progressive~~ way left of center homer....always have been , always will be. Just like the rest of us, you want your guy to win; and trying to cover that up with pseudo-objectivity and political idealism is beneath you. I say, let 'em take the gloves off and may the best man win.

Cross Post at Damascus Road

Salazar position papers #2 - The Economy

2004-08-16T07:09:00.000-06:00

Last week, I posted the first in an ongoing series of analyses dealing with Attorney General Ken Salazar's positions on the issues, and the ways in which they help to determine whether or not, as the Salazar campaign maintains, he is a true centrist, willing to strike a different path from the national Democratic Party. Here. Then, we take a look at Salazar's second position paper, Creating Jobs and Economic Activity. I must preface this analysis with an admission, and a caveat - I am not an economist, and though generally familiar with the various macroeconomic schools of thought, am not qualified to present any sort of authoritative opinion on the minutiae involved in discussions of this type. As such, I present to you my impressions only as those of a conservative "civilian", and defer to both those whose works I cite (i.e., The Heritage foundation, Daniel Drezner, et. al.), and those members of the Alliance (specifically Joshua) who might want to chip in with additional insight. That having been gotten out of the way, let's jump in:

Statement:

As a small businessman and farmer, I know that private enterprise, not government, creates jobs. But government policies and priorities can make a difference to families and businesses, and Washington has an obligation to act responsibly, and fairly, when it comes to federal spending, the deficit and tax and fiscal policy.

No real argument here. We're still dwelling in the realm of platitude and hyperbole, so there’s no real point in nitpicking as yet. As Salazar has written, it is private enterprise that fuels economic growth. As such, the Federal Government has a very limited role to play. I suspect that the Attorney General and I would begin our economic policy divergence at that point, however, and that we would likely have very different definitions of exactly what constitutes "responsible action" on the part of the Federal Government. Moving on:

Statement:

Unfortunately, too many families are struggling, feeling the pain of job cuts and insecurity, and their dreams for the future put on hold or changed forever. I want to be a voice in the Senate for those families.

One of my highest priorities will be to promote policies that create jobs and economic opportunity. I will work with business and community leaders throughout Colorado to achieve that goal.

Here's where we begin to gain a bit of insight into Salazar's direction. Additionally, here is where we are presented with our first example of a red herring run amuck. "The pain of job cuts and insecurity" is, unfortunately, something that has always existed, and will always exist. Industries will rise and fall in power, and companies will start and fail. These things are inevitabilities, of course, but Salazar intimates that the opposition party (the GOP) is somehow responsible for intensifying these fears, though the unemployment rate is currently identical to that of 1996 - during the "golden years" of the Clinton economy. It's hard to get too exorcised over this particular throwaway line, though, as it's a political standard, and will likely see use from both sides (in one form or another) in any campaign for Federal office. I must admit, however, that I'm tempted to run for national office, just so I can be the one candidate who, in the midst of a heated debate over economic policy, turns to the audience, and says, "Well, in contrast to my opponent, I'm not the candidate for the little guy. Personally, I hope that each and every one of your fails to achieve your dreams, and that your children are faced with a future of dead-end jobs, hopelessness, and poverty. Oh, and also, I'd like to announce that I now own all four railroads, AND have made an offer on Park Place. The hotels will be in place shortly." Let's just get this out of the way, shall we? I do not operate under any assumption that my political opponents are ghouls, or that the Republicans, and the Republicans alone have our nation's best interests at heart. I don't think that Ken Salazar is a bad guy (on the contrary, he seems to be a fine human being), I just happen to think that he has some bad ideas, and that, though his motives are very likely pure, the policies of the Democratic Party will not lead to the type of success to which we should aspire. This, of course, is why I disdain so much of the campaign process. Each time a candidate (from either side) makes some boneheaded remark about how they pull for the little guy, they make the unspoken accusation that their opponent doesn't. Granted, I've known plenty of people who, because I'm a conservative, assume that I go around at night poking the homeless with sharp sticks, just for kicks. I've got to say that there's little more off-putting about the political process than having to listen to some candidate intimate that I don't care as much as he does, simply because I favor different solutions to the problems we face. It all boils down to class warfare, which unfortunately, seems to the make up the very foundation of DNC economic policy. Unfortunately, I see a great deal of this focus beginning to emerge in Ken Salazar’s economic position paper (providing yet another example of the "Salazar is anything but an independent"-phenomenon).

Statement:

Government should be a responsible steward of the money entrusted to it, and it should prepare now to meet its future obligations. Yet in just three years, the federal budget has gone from record surpluses to record deficits. Today, the national debt has grown to more than $60,000 for each and every American household. That must change.

As a Senator, I will be a strong voice for fiscally conservative policies that don't saddle our children and grandchildren with even more debt. America's long-term economic health is at a crossroads. It is simply immoral to pass the responsibility of paying off the national debt onto our children and their children.

I am committed to work on crafting deficit reduction proposals. Our nation needs a balanced approach, a combination of spending cuts, budget reforms, and tax reforms that spread fairly the pain of deficit reduction.

These paragraphs provide an excellent example of Ken Salazar"s ability (like Roy Romer's, and Bill Clinton"s) to co-opt conservative-sounding verbiage ("deficit reduction", "spending cuts") for use in promoting traditional Democratic economic policies (tax increases, spending increases, etc.). Salazar is correct in his assertions about the national debt. It is troublesome, and does, in fact, call for serious action (were I not pressed for time, I might expound on my criticisms of the spending habits of the Bush Admin...). The problems with Salazar's position, however, are threefold, from what I can see.

1. Salazar touts the myth of massive surpluses during the 1990s. I suppose I should clarify - while it's true that we had tremendous economic surpluses on paper, there was no "there" there, as it were. The surpluses were predicated on the sky-high predictions for tax revenue that were the result of the grossly overvalued stock market of the time. Once the dot-com bubble burst, the opportunity to realize these surpluses vanished with it. In addition, Salazar seems to neglect 9/11, and the inevitable costs associated with the increase in military-, intelligence-, and homeland security-related spending. At best, the combination of Salazar's use of the untenable, unsustainable 90s boom and his (willful?) omission of the economic realities of our post-9/11 nation is indicative of an economic view that is utterly unrealistic. At its worst, it is disingenuousness of the most glaring kind.

2. While I am encouraged by Ken Salazar's apparent support for cuts in spending, let's just say that I'm a bit skeptical of the form that these cuts would take. There has been no indication that Salazar wouldn't simply support a return to the Clinton-era policy of "Slash the military, pump the entitlements, and pray for peace". While we were able to get away with this reckless behavior in the short-term, it laid the foundation for, and left us scrambling to deal with 9/11, and the security situation that has since unfolded.

3. This bit scares me: ...tax reforms that spread fairly the pain of deficit reduction. It scares me for this reason: I'm more than reluctant to trust a Democratic Senator to determine exactly what constitutes a "fair" method of reforming the tax code to "spread fairly the pain", chiefly because of quotes like this:

Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you...We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)

I know, I know, I know. That was Hillary Clinton - not Ken Salazar. The problem here is this: like it or not, a vote to elect Ken Salazar to the Senate gets this woman (and the many in her party who share her philosophy) closer to the majority she needs to "take things away from [us] for the common good". Not a big fan of that idea, personally.

Statement:

No one likes paying more taxes. But we must have a fairer tax policy that rewards work, not just wealth. We need to be realistic: we cannot fund a strong national defense, homeland security, continue the war and nation-building in Iraq, as well as address education, health care, infrastructure and other domestic needs, at the same time that we permanently and significantly reduce our revenue base. Those who suggest we can safely increase spending while we permanently decrease taxes risk crippling the economic future of our nation.

I will also be an independent voice for agriculture and our rural economy and small towns. Economically, Colorado has become two states -- many parts prosperous, dynamic, and growing, and others poorer, stagnant, and shrinking. I want to prevent the permanent creation of "Two Colorados."

The federal government has had a long and important role in helping rural economies, from the Homestead Act designed to bring settlers west to the efforts of President Kennedy to revitalize Appalachia. The time is ripe for a similar effort today.

"We must have a fairer tax policy that rewards work, not just wealth." The intimation, of course, is that most of the wealthy didn't get that way by working, but mysteriously, by simply being wealthy. I need to sign up for that. In their 1999 book The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley and William Danko argue that 80 percent of American millionaires are first-generation. That is, they didn't inherit their wealth. They don't live extravagant lifestyles, but have slowly built up their net worth through self-discipline, planning, and most of all, saving. I'd point out that it becomes increasingly difficult to save any sort of significant portion of your income when the Federal government is busy taking things away from you "for the common good". Tax cuts of the kind that Salazar would prefer - "targeted" cuts - are completely inequitable. According statistics compiled by The Tax Foundation (referenced by The Heritage foundation here),

the top 1 percent of income earners pay nearly 35 percent of the income tax burden; the top 10 percent pay 65 percent; and the top 25 percent pay nearly 83 percent. The bottom 50 percent of income earners, on the other hand, pay barely 4 percent of income taxes.

As the piece goes on to say, it is thereby virtually impossible to create any kind of tangible tax cut that doesn't benefit the wealthy. The question bears asking, what, exactly, is the harm in benefited the wealthy? Entrepreneurs create jobs, and it is utter foolishness to cultivate a mindset whereby taxation is viewed as punitive, and designed almost solely, it would seem, to punish those in society who dare take a risk. Ronald Reagan understood this, and implemented tax rate cuts. Consequently, our nation's tax revenues nearly doubled (+99.4%). John F. Kennedy understood this phenomenon, as well. Ken Salazar, I'm afraid, has missed the boat that floats on JFK's proverbial rising tide.

Salazar spends far more time delving into specific action items than he did in his first policy paper. For the sake of (relative) brevity, I'll limit the number of items I'll look at today to one, but it's a pretty big one, at that.

He starts off pretty well, actually:

I support responsible, common-sense tax cuts for low- and middle-income workers and their families and small businesses. For example, we should make permanent the elimination of the marriage tax penalty; make permanent the expanded bottom 10% tax bracket; continue the child care tax credit for the middle class; make sure the alternative minimum tax does not reach middle-income taxpayers; and raise the estate tax exemption to $10 million to allow family farms, ranches and small businesses to stay in the family. I will fight to close unfair tax loopholes that encourage big corporations to move their headquarters overseas to avoid paying taxes, and other unfair tax breaks, while supporting corporate tax changes that encourage domestic investment.

I'm glad to see that Salazar supports a permanent end to the marriage penalty, though I admit that I'm just a bit skeptical as to how long that support would last were he elected. While I'm no economist, I think that one of his middle suggestions - make sure that the AMT does not reach middle-income taxpayers - is going to be more than prickly to put into practice. As to the rest? Here we see the primary talking point of the Dems' 2004 economic platform - that President Bush is helping "big business" to ship "American jobs" overseas (because, again, he doesn't care about you and me, right?). Salazar and the rest seem to believe that jobs are some sort of zero-sum commodity, and unfortunately, the strong sense of isolationism that runs through much of the populist movement (lots of adherents to this mindset on both sides of the aisle) resonates with this message. What about outsourcing? Is it the bogeyman we're being told that it is? One of the more common sources of fear concerning outsourcing is an oft-quoted report by Forrester Research indicating that 3.3 million jobs will be lost to outsourcing in the coming years. Scary, right? Well, it would be were it not for the fact that this number represents less than one percent of the total number of jobs lost in regular turnover. From The Heritage Foundation (citations available in the original article):

Over the past decade, America has lost an average of 7.71 million jobs every quarter. The commonly cited Forrester Research prediction of jobs lost to outsourcing estimates that 3.3 million service jobs will be outsourced between 2000 and 2015 - an average of 55,000 jobs outsourced per quarter. According to these numbers, at worst, jobs lost to outsourcing represent only 0.71 percent of all jobs lost per quarter as part of normal turnover in the economy.

Other consulting firms have jumped on the bandwagon, but the author of the original Forrester study "now says his numbers were hyped" and expresses frustration that the issue has spun out of context. The context, of course, is the net positive impact of trade and technology. America has averaged gross gains of 8.11 million jobs per quarter over the past decade - an average net increase of 400,000 jobs every quarter, swamping the impact of outsourcing.

The new interest in outsourcing is producing a wave of new research, and the overwhelming consensus vindicates the position espoused by Greg Mankiw, renowned Harvard economist and current chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, that trade-induced labor flows are a net positive for the U.S. economy.

First, the gains of trade have been shown to vastly outweigh the costs, even when job dislocations are factored into account.

Second, the U.S. economy is going through a permanent structural change, so the labor force dislocations are more severe than during normal recessions, which means the productivity gains are higher as well. The data support the theory here, with the U.S. economy experiencing record high gains in productivity.

Finally, even net jobs are gained due to outsourcing, as emphasized by a recent Global Insight study:
While global IT software and service outsourcing displaces some IT workers, total employment in the United States increases as the benefits ripple through the economy. The incremental economic activity that follows offshore IT outsourcing created over 90,000 net new jobs in 2003 and is expected to create 317,000 net new jobs in 2008.

As Daniel Drezner writes,

Believing that offshore outsourcing causes unemployment is the economic equivalent of believing that the sun revolves around the earth: intuitively compelling but clearly wrong.

Salazar's tendency toward codespeak in dealing with his economic policy suggestions is troubling, and the fact of the matter is that higher taxes, increased social spending (coupled with the requisite cuts to our armed forces), and economic isolationism do not represent visionary economic policy - they simply mark a return to the failed policies of the past. I'd prefer to look forward, thank you very much.

(Cross-posted at Exultate Justi)

Salazar and the Hispanic Vote

2004-08-15T01:22:00.000-06:00

Pete Coors was successful in the primary in part because his GOTV efforts targeted general election voters, in addition to traditional primary voters. This is why he won by the margin he did, and it's also why the Republican turnout was so high. It explains why the polls had it dead even - they polled only traditional primary voters.

Salazar will almost certainly try to do the same thing in the general election with Hispanic voters. They don't show up on the voter rolls now, and won't until much later in the cycle, when the voter registration drives take over. This means that they also won't show up in the polling, since the pollsters don't know how to find them. It's part of what will make Salazar a formidable candidate, although not, I don't think, and invincible one.

Salazar is making a much bigger deal of his Hispanicity this time than he has in the past. Barely an article goes by without mentioning it, and the Hispanic media has picked up the theme, too:

With "immense pride," state Attorney General Ken Salazar on Wednesday morning became Colorado's official Democratic candidate for the Senate.

"I'm proud to be the first Hispanic nominated as a candidate for the Senate, and I'm even prouder because my brother John is a candidate for the House of Representatives," Salazar told EFE at his campaign headquarters in downtown Denver.

...

Salazar plans to spend the weekend with his wife, Esperanza, and daughters in the ranch that has been in his family for five generations in Valle de San Luis in southern Colorado.

"And then it will be a lot of hard work until Nov. 2, when I hope my brother John and I will win to really fill all Hispanics with pride," he said.

In fact, Salazar has been slowly raising the Hispanic profile in his biography, and laying the groundwork for this, for at least 6 years. A Lexis-Nexis search turned up only 2 relevant articles in the 6 months prior to his 1998 Attorney General victory. According to the October 26, 1998 Rocky,

Salazar is campaigning in Hispanic neighborhoods and plans to run ads on Spanish-language radio stations. But, Salazar said, he is not spending more time on Hispanics than he is on other communities. Hispanic areas will get the same campaign literature as other communities, rather than a Spanish-language version, he said.

Salazar was counting on his Hispanic background, but wasn't yet willing to make a public issue of it. In fact, he ran ahead of Gail Schoettler, whom Bill Owens narrowly defeated for Governor that year. Fred Brown discussed the matter post-election (Nov. 23) for the Post:

U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Republican, made an effort to shore up his already existing appeal to Latinos, and it helped him win by a huge margin.

His Democratic opponent, Dottie Lamm, suffered from lingering suspicion of some of the views of her husband, former Gov. Dick Lamm, who wanted to discourage immigration and encourage the speaking of English.

In the governor's race, if Hispanics had voted for Democrat Gail Schoettler in the same numbers that they voted for her fellow Democrat, Salazar, she would have overcome Bill Owens' narrow 7,800-vote margin of victory.

Paul Sandoval, whom Salazar calls "the dean" of Hispanic political strategists in Colorado, notes that Salazar won 10,700 more votes than Schoettler did in four heavily Hispanic areas - the San Luis Valley, where Salazar's roots go back four generations, Pueblo, west Denver and Adams County.

In Denver, the state's most ethnically diverse large population, Schoettler won 62 percent of the vote, while Salazar won 70 percent. In every one of the state's nine most-Hispanic precincts - four in Denver and five in Pueblo - Salazar outpolled both Schoettler and Lamm.

Note the comment about Dottie Lamm. It's important, because four years later, Amendment 31 was on the ballot. Amendment 31 would have essentially ridded Colorado of bilingual education. Salazar took a very public stand against the measure:

Thursday, Attorney General Ken Salazar announced his opposition.

"I do think it's important for our children to learn English in as timely and as efficient a manner as possible," Salazar said. "But I don't think this amendment is the way to go."

He said the amendment would take away choice from parents and authority from elected school boards.

Salazar, the state's highest-ranking Hispanic politician, grew up speaking English and Spanish in the San Luis Valley. But he said he doesn't see Amendment 31 as a Hispanic issue, adding it will affect all schools.

Rocky Mountain News, September 13, 2002

A Lexis-Nexis search for 2002 reveals about 5 relevant stories before the election, specifically mentioning Salazar and the Hispanic vote. In a major story on the Hispanic vote (Rocky, August 27, 2002), Salazar is the only living politician mentioned by name, although both parties' efforts are highlighted. Other stories mention his association with Hispanic voter registration drives.

This year, he's been even more outspoken on the issue, and apparently believes that it's his ace in the hole. He also believes that, having run and won elections by appealing primarily to white voters, he can now appeal to Hispanics without threatening that success. Any Colorado Hispanic Conservatives out there who want to help us out?

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

This is Insightful

2004-08-14T23:11:00.000-06:00

Today's Rocky Mountain News contains thumbnail-type profiles of the two candidates for Senate. In sum: Coors has money, Salazar is Hispanic.

Okay, it was a little more than that, but. . . well, read for yourself.

Money, as well as more than a passing familiarity with matters political, got Pete Coors into the race. He and his family have made significant financial contributions to Republican candidates and conservative causes.

In an era when the Hispanic population is exploding - standing at 18 percent statewide in the 2000 Census - and both parties are courting the minority vote, Salazar boasts an impressive pedigree. His ancestors settled the city of Santa Fe. His family has farmed Colorado's San Luis Valley for five generations. He still speaks Spanish with his 82-year-old mother.

Pretty pointless--as if anyone in Colorado didn't know this about these two. Or, for that matter, anywhere in the country. If this is the coverage we can expect from this race, wake me up on Holloween.

cross-posted at Best Destiny

Coors and the Pollution of truth.

2004-08-14T19:21:00.000-06:00

Well this didn't take very long. As soon as Pete Coors won the Republican primary the attacks started. Coors company is the worst polluter in the state. Land, water and air. The uncaring SOB.

Of course this is Boulder but it is wise to pay attention to the shouting because it is usually a good preview of the attacks that the opposition will use during the campaign.

Over the course of the next couple of days I'll try to review the actual record.

The Coors company could not possibly be the worst polluter in a state that has the Summitville mine.

This is a superfund site. Take a look at the EPA report on it. The state of Colorado is exposed to more toxic pollution -- land,air,water -- in an afternoon here than from the Coors Brewery in a lifetime.

This is the Coors Brewery plant in Golden.

Has the Coors Brewery had some problems and been fined by the EPA? Sure. The most recent one I could find was this.

Coors Brewing Co. will spend more than $500,000 to make amends for a beer spill in 2000 that the state says killed more than 50,000 fish in Clear Creek.

An agreement between the company here and the Colorado Division of Wildlife calls for Coors to:

Construct and monitor a wetland of at least two acres to filter the brewery's wastewater before it flows into Clear Creek. The wetland should reduce nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater effluent and provide wildlife habitat.

Purchase thousands of fish for stocking in metro-area waters. The number of fish, and the species, will be determined by Coors and state officials next year.

Provide funding for two graduate students to participate in studies related to the wetlands project.

The settlement is far below the $35-per-fish ceiling set by state law -- an amount that could have brought a $1.7 million fine. But it's rare for the agency to go to court for the maximum amount, Division of Wildlife spokesman Todd Malmsbury said.

Now as a serious fly fisherman, I'm very concerned about these kinds of things but the history of Coors Brewery is that of the model corporate citizen. Over the course of the last few years they have always been up front about their problems. This accident happened when a new operator mistakenly overloaded the water treatment plant.

But even when you try to do things correctly and go above and beyond what is required, sometimes there are problems.

One man's brewsky, of course, is another man's "volatile organic compound." VOC -- that's how Colorado environmental officials classify the evaporating ethanol given off by all that spilled beer. VOCs can be harmful in large amounts, but until 1993 breweries like Coors were thought to be minor-league emitters of these naturally occurring toxins.

But then Coors did something controversial, and increasingly popular among American companies: It tested itself. The company conducted a voluntary self-audit of its operations to see whether they complied with state environmental standards. It discovered that they didn't -- regulators had underestimated the brewery's VOC emissions by a factor of 17 -- and promptly reported its infraction to state environmental authorities.

As a reward for playing the good corporate citizen and turning itself in, Coors was slapped with a record $1-million fine by the Colorado Department of Health. (emphasis added) The company protested the fine, arguing that a million bucks was too much to pay for alerting the state to pollution that neither party had known was occurring. The state legislature and Democratic governor Roy Romer agreed, and in 1994 Colorado became the second state in the nation to pass a law to protect the results of self-audits from being used against companies that voluntarily disclose and correct their environmental infractions.

More soon.

The Ad Wars

2004-08-14T01:03:00.000-06:00

In the last two days, I've seen two new ads from Ken Salazar. You know--blue jeans, a jeep, a cowboy hat. . . Average Joe rancher wants your vote so someone who fights for the little guy can represent you in the Senate.

Honestly, with the exception of the names, it could easily be the same ad that Pete Coors would run. Average Joe--not a career politician who can make the Senate work because I've made a business/AG Office run.

I'm wondering when the serious ads start. I think they've both staked credible claims to the native son/common man ground. Let's move on. Let's get serious about the issues.

I look forward to a Pete Coors ad that asks "Mr. Salazar, if elected to the Senate, how would you vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment? How would you vote on nominees for the federal bench who are rated as "highly qualified" by the ABA, though they might vote against your political philosophy? How would you vote on a judicial nominee who would act to strike the words "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance? How would you vote on the renewal of the Patriot Act? Which parts would you change/amend/alter/attempt to strike?"

It's time--the iron will be hot for a few weeks here leading up to the Republican National Convention. Don't be goaded into lollygagging by the call for a "clean campaign" (you lollygag around the statehouse, you lollygag around the courtroom, you lollygag around the campaign trail. . . you know what that makes you?).

cross posted at BestDestiny

Ken Salazar - keeping America safe?

2004-08-13T11:30:00.000-06:00

First up? Salazar’s position paper on homeland security, and the war on terror. From Keeping America Safe:

Statement:

The highest duty of any government is the protection and safety of its people. As Colorado's Attorney General, I am keenly aware of this solemn obligation. The security of our country and our citizens, at home and around the globe, is one of the most significant challenges for America. Unfortunately, although Washington talks about the war on terror, our homeland is not more secure.

Sounds reasonable, right? As the state’s highest-ranking law enforcement official, the Attorney General should be keenly aware of the importance of safeguarding our state against terrorist attack. The problem? With his final statement, Salazar has swept aside any credibility that his position had originally provided him. His statement that we are not more secure is indicative of a mindset that seems to suggest that if we’d only done this differently, everyone would have been happy with us - even the terrorists. While there’s nothing overtly specious about the statement in and of itself, it clearly neglects one massive factor in the equation: the fact that in the days following September 11th, 2001, there has not been a single major terrorist attack on the United States of America. In addition, the Taliban is gone, and the al-Qaeda network is in shambles, trying desperately to regroup from the blow dealt it by the United States and her allies. Try as they might, there is no way that the Democrats will find much success in giving their meme of an increasingly unsafe America any real traction in the absence of...well, an attack.

Statement:

Until recently, our enemies were hostile states, with governments that, however misguided, were nonetheless keen on their own self-preservation and ultimately hoped to avoid war with the United States. Today, however, our enemies include a constantly changing array of terrorists, weapons proliferators, organized crime affiliates, and shadowy individuals and organizations. Longstanding religious, ethnic, cultural or tribal conflicts and grudges form the basis for some of their hateful motivation. In the 21st century, our enemies are diverse, dynamic, unpredictable, and constantly evolving. Although there is no military power that can challenge America today or in the foreseeable future, these new enemies pose new challenges. They embrace conflict and do not care about self-preservation. Their goal is not to defeat our armed forces, but to defeat our spirit.

Yep. The Soviets. You remember them. You know... the "Misguided" Empire, right? Anyway, this, too, is standard "I understand terrorism" boilerplate that has, as is often the case of late, been liberated from its anchor of hard truth. The terrorist networks arrayed against the United States and her allies do not, as the Attorney General maintains, wish "to defeat our spirit" (except, perhaps, for the rarely seen al-Oprah segment of the terrorist community). This is straight from the "walk softly, and carry a small, carefully concealed stick (preferably a Nerf™ stick), to be used only in cases where Jacques Chirac gives the OK"-school of counterterrorism. As has been made abundantly clear by their own words, the Islamists wish to drive all Western influence from the Middle East (and Europe, and North America, etc.), establish a new caliphate, and, since they’re already in the area, stop by Israel and finish the little "project" that the Nazis began. Oh, and, since we’re aligned with those pesky Jews, we’re on the "people to kill" list, as well. They don’t want to make fun of us, to hurt our feelings, steal our Trapper-Keepers, or to cripple our self-esteem by leaving nasty notes in our lockers. They want to kill us – Democrat and Republican alike. In refusing to acknowledge this fact, Ken Salazar has ensured that there is simply no way to take the rest of what he says about terrorism seriously. If you don’t know the rules, how on earth can you hope to win the game?

Statement:

The extermination of international terrorism is our highest national priority.

We need to regather our friends and allies to this essential international goal, a goal we all share. Our foreign policy is most effective when we act as the leader of a broad coalition of nations. The free world was united in its revulsion of the September 11 terrorist attacks and in its commitment to wage war on terrorism. After September 11, the U.S. acted correctly in pursuing, with international support, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. After Afghanistan, that international unity dissolved with the invasion of Iraq. Although it was argued that the attack on Saddam Hussein was part of the war on terror, many of our closest allies doubted our intelligence and questioned the need for the invasion.

The President and his administration presented a case to Congress and the American people on the imminent danger presented by weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, President Bush committed a grave mistake in how he pulled the trigger of war. That decision was based on faulty intelligence, a failure to develop the international coalitions needed to succeed, and an underestimation of the difficulty and costs of the war in Iraq.

Here’s where the sweater really starts to unravel.

Here are the figures for international (NATO’s ISAF group) involvement in Afghanistan:

NATO Member Nations
Belgium 293
Bulgaria 34
Canada 1576
Czech Republic 19
Denmark 57
Estonia 7
France 565
Germany 1909
Greece 127
Hungary 26
Iceland 17
Italy 491
Latvia 2
Lithuania 6
Luxemburg 9
Netherlands 153
Norway 147
Poland 22
Portugal 8
Romania 32
Slovakia 17
Slovenia 18
Spain 125
Turkey 161
United Kingdom 315

NATO Partner Nations
Albania 81
Austria 3
Azerbaijan 22
Croatia 22
Finland 47
Macedonia 48
Ireland 11
Sweden 19
Switzerland 4

Non-NATO / Non-EAPC nations
New Zealand 6
Afghanistan 81

Total 6472

Here, then, are the numbers for Iraq (Courtesy the CBC):

(figures include all specialties, combat and non-combat)
United Kingdom 9000
Italy 3000
Poland 2400
Ukraine 1600
Netherlands 1300
Japan 1100
Romania 849
Australia 800
South Korea 600
Bulgaria 480
Thailand 440
Denmark 420
El Salvador 360
Hungary 300
Norway 179
Mongolia 160
Azerbaijan 150
Portugal 125
Latvia 120
Lithuania 115
Slovakia 102
Czech Republic 80
Philippines 80
Albania 70
Georgia 70
New Zealand 60
Moldova 50
Macedonia 35
Estonia 30
Kazakhstan 30

Total 24105

Spain withdrew its troops from Iraq following the election of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on March 14. Honduras and the Dominican Republic quickly followed suit. The three countries combined had nearly 2,000 troops in Iraq. Nicaragua withdrew its 115 troops at the end of March 2004 for economic reasons.

Countries that provide non-military support include: Kuwait and Qatar, which have hosted the U.S. Central Command and the invasion force; Ethiopia and Eritrea, which have given use of bases or ports; and Turkey, which has given permission for airspace use. Others countries have opted to give political support: Angola, Costa Rica, Colombia, Iceland, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Palau, Panama, Rwanda, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Uganda and Uzbekistan.

In early April 2004, the Bush administration indicated it was negotiating with another 50 countries that had expressed interest in providing peacekeeping troops.

So, essentially, Salazar’s position seems to be similar to that of much of the hard Left: if an international alliance doesn’t include France or Germany, it’s not truly an international alliance.

The hard truth here is that immediately following September 11, the United States wasn’t beloved – it was pitied. Once we picked ourselves up, chambered a round, and took aim, the reflexive sympathy of Europe was gone. We were, after all, supposed to have been humbled...chastized by the acts of 9/11 – acts that we, of course, brought upon ourselves through our cultural insensitivity and rampant McDonalds-spreading. To have “lashed out” in the way we did automatically shredded the sympathy of much of the world. Here’s the thing, though. Nothing - save for our complete and total inaction in the face of this attack - would have provoked anything but anger among much of continental Europe’s population.

And for Iraq? Given the degree to which France, Germany, and Russia were directly involved with Iraq on a investment plane, there was nothing we could possibly have said or done to get them to support military action against the Hussein regime, though their own intelligence agencies believed that Hussein possessed large quantities of WMD – created largely with French and German equipment and materiel, by the way.

Salazar misspeaks in these paragraphs, as well. Our "allies" in France and Germany didn’t doubt the WMD intelligence, as he intimates. Rather, their intel agencies confirmed that Iraq had vast quantities of biological and chemical weapons. The only difference was that they didn’t care, as they each stood to lose tremendous amounts of money should the Hussein regime (and its contracts) be nullified.

I’d like to hear the Attorney General explain exactly how the President should have reacted given the intelligence information available to him. Was he supposed to know it was faulty, when every major intelligence organization in the world said the exact same thing as did ours? Ridiculous.

Statement:

The men and women of our Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have served with bravery and professionalism, and we must do all we can to support these young men and women -- and their families at home -- as they fight to establish peace and stability in foreign lands.

Even though sovereignty has now been officially handed over to Iraq’s new leadership, the United States will likely remain there for the foreseeable future. As we work to bring greater stability to the region, we need to take a hard look at the lessons learned by acting without broad international support, and with intelligence that has proved to be faulty and misleading.

Ah, yes. Throw a bone to the troops, and then continue to gut the value of their mission. Here's a question that 've not yet seen asked of the Attorney General: Ken, is the world better or worse without Saddam Hussein in power? As to the question of "broad international support"? Again, US operations in Afghanistan are currently supported by around 6,500 troops from NATO member and partner nations – 37 of them, as a matter of fact. Operations in Iraq are supported by over 24,000 troops from 30 nations. So, if the right nations aren’t involved, we don’t have "broad international support," Ken? How else are we to take your disparagement of our allies in Iraq?

Statement:

We must also commit ourselves to fight terror without sacrificing the very freedoms we are fighting to protect. Many terrorists see our way of life and our personal freedoms as a direct challenge: We are democratic, they are autocratic; we value diversity, they demand religious, cultural or political uniformity; we look forward to a future of peace, they look back to a past of violence. If we sacrifice our freedoms and values in the name of war on terror, then we give the terrorists their first victory. By protecting the rights and liberties that define America, even as we fight terrorism, we demonstrate that our strength and justice flow from these American principles.

None of what we must do to meet the challenges of national defense and homeland security is easy or inexpensive. But failure to act aggressively and wisely will cost more in the long run, both in terms of human lives, and the impact on our economy, security, and freedom.

Ah, yes. Well, I know I’m getting tired of seeing John Ashcroft rifling through my garbage at night, but after awhile, you get used to the re-education camps and draconian public executions that were brought to bear by that accursed Patriot Act. 1984, man...1984.

Specifics, Ken. We need specifics. Platitudes are great. I mean, we all want both total security and total freedom, but how, pray tell, does one achieve this goal? In your nifty bullet points, you list support for the SAFE act as one of your key planks on national security. The Security And Freedom Ensured (SAFE) act of 2003 seeks to amend the Patriot Act by re-establishing a number of judicial "safeguards" and evidentiary standards that were removed by the original act. That’s all well and good, but can you then explain how returning to the status quo in terms of wiretaps, etc. (which is what this bill would do) will help to, in your words, "Keep America Safe"? I’m not seeing it.

There’s much more to this paper, but these are the highlights. Salazar has mastered the current Democratic techniques on terror-talk quite wonderfully. The strategies? Say a great deal without actually saying anything of substance. Attack, but provide no viable alternatives. Sound tough, while curling into a fetal position, and begging the French to forgive us and take us back. Truly winning strategies, all.

All of this and more can be yours with a simple vote to elect Ken Salazar as this state’s next Senator.

(Cross-posted at Exultate Justi)

Importance2

2004-08-13T10:01:00.000-06:00

A vote for a candidate is a vote for his/her party.

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

These two sayings represent two competing philosophies of voting strategy, with the first squaring with the notion that, whether or not you're crazy about a certain candidate, you are wise to vote for him/her if he/she belongs to the party that most closely aligns itself with your positions on major issues.

The second, unfortunately, seems to be the operating construct for many Colorado voters. Colorado is overwhelmingly Republican, with registered GOP voters holding a sizeable advantage over registered Dems. COlorado does, however, have an extremely large bloc of registered independents - throwing the ultimate calculus of the matter into chaos.

As per the second saying above, Colorado loves independence. It exalts the iconoclast. Where else but Colorado can you find a town like Boulder, where the publisher of Soldier of Fortune finds peaceful coexistence with any number of book clubs that, at any given moment, are likely reviewing I, Rigoberta Menchu - the tale of a Guatemalan lesbian marxist?

This political "bipolarism" extends to our state's voting patterns, where we consistently poll as conservatives, but seem to enjoy voting for Democrats who are willing to "stick it to the man" - including "the man" in his own party. Roy Romer successfully cultivated this image, and Attorney General Ken Salazar is moving rapidly to claim Romer's mantle as the state's favorite Democratic iconoclast.

Image and style aside, Salazar is, indeed, much like Roy Romer. As was the case with Roy Romer, Ken Salazar is a Daschle leftist in Sam Nunn's Blue Dog clothing. His campaign's own position papers - availble on the Salazar for Senate website - clearly spell out Salazar's leftward leanings, despite his best efforts to obfuscate. Both Jonathan and Guy have covered aspects of Salazar's position paper on national security, but I'd like to continue their analysis, and, over the next few days, go through each paper specifically - highlighting the differences between the impressions given, and the substantive ramifications inherent in his positions on issues ranging from abortion to the war on terror.

Colorado voters must be aware that, no matter how much Salazar declares his independence, a vote for the Colorado Democrat is a vote for continued (and increased) Democratic obstructionism in the Senate, and for the rolling back of our fight against Islamic terrorism.

First up: Salazar on "Keeping America Safe" - before noon (MST).

(Cross-posted at Exultate Justi)

Business Story On The Election Page? Not Quite

2004-08-13T09:10:00.000-06:00

When I first read the story on page 18A of today's Rocky, I thought I was on the business pages. It was a story about a shift in brewing operations of the Coors Brewery to the eastern seaboard, which might cause the loss of up to 200 jobs from Jeffco, with qoutes from both the losing county, and the receiving one, in Virginia. That's when my ears perked up. A couple of sentences down I see this paragraph:

In Colorado, Arvada Mayor Ken Fellman said the loss to the region's economy doesn't jibe with the "job creator, tax cutter" slogan used by brewery scion Pete Coors in his campaign for the U.S. Senate.

O.K., I get it now. This is a negative news story about Pete Coors. This really should have been something for the business pages, but when the man is running for Senate, anything that happens with the business must be picked over with vulture like veracity. So be it.

The article wanders back into the realm of the business world with talks about tax breaks from the courting community and then hits you with this:

On Wednesday, the day after Pete Coors won the Republican Senate primary, Virginia Sen. George Allen campaigned with him along the Front Range. Allen heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee and frequently appears with GOP candidates in battleground states like Colorado. Watson said that Allen's appearance with Coors had been planned before the expansion in Virginia was announced.

I don't know about you, but when I read that, only one thing came to mind. The reporter really wants you to believe that Gov. Allen is here to campaign for Coors as his half of a "quid pro quo" for the brewery so generously giving it's business to the state of Virginia. The insinuation is sleazy, and not based in fact at all, but it makes a good story, at least, she thinks it does. The agenda of Gwen Florio is cemented home in the final two paragraphs:

Gibson said that the roughly 35 Coors employees who will lose their jobs are indirectly responsible for another 171 jobs in Jefferson County. The total loss in salaries and wages alone would be about $8.5 million over two years, he said.

Coors employs 5,400 workers in its U.S. breweries in Golden, Shenandoah and Memphis, Tenn. That's down from 6,900 workers in 1988, when Pete Coors became president of the company.
She's asking you to do the math. When he became president of the company, there were 6,900 employees and now there are only 5,400.

Gwen wants you to believe that Pete Coors single-handedly eliminated 1,500 jobs since 1988. Do you see some parallels with the reporting on the national economy and the "jobs lost" under President Bush? Can these people not think on their own? It's shameful. Hey Gwen, we're on to you, and it's not going to work.

Cross posted at MangledCat

Salazar and Healthcare

2004-08-13T07:50:00.000-06:00

In the Friday, August 13th edition of the Denver Post, writer Mark Crouch takes a look at Ken Salazar and his stance on healthcare coverage issues.

Mr. Salazar states:

"Unfortunately, what has happened in Washington, D.C., under the gridlock we've seen in the past couple of years is that health care has been ignored," Salazar said.

Mr. Salazar, this is hardly gridlock:

* More than 4.1 million seniors are already using their cards to save money on their medicines. More than 100,000 beneficiaries are signing up every week. Studies conducted by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Kaiser Family Foundation have shown that these cards are delivering real savings to Medicare beneficiaries.
* About one million low-income seniors have qualified for extra assistance. In addition to these savings, low-income seniors struggling with high drug costs are getting a $600 a year credit - a total of $1,200 through the end of 2005 - to help pay for prescriptions. And most major pharmaceutical companies have agreed to make their drugs available for nominal fees once a beneficiary has spent his or her entire subsidy.
* Signing up for the new cards is easy. While millions of seniors already are saving on their prescriptions, millions more are eligible. Beneficiaries can call 1-800-MEDICARE, visit www.medicare.gov , or call their state's Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) to sign up for real savings.

As a strong supporter of George W. Bush and Republican policies, Pete Coors is sure to focus on his fellow American's healthcare needs.

Offer companies with fewer than 50 employees a tax credit of up to 50 percent for buying health insurance. The cost - $67 billion over 10 years - would protect coverage for millions of Americans who already get insurance and add an estimated 2.5 million who currently don't have insurance.

Mr. Salazar, where is that $67 billion dollars going to come from? Uh...perhaps increased taxes for middle America?

Expand the Child Health Plan Plus program to 100,000 of the 165,000 Colorado children who don't get insurance, and 6 million of the 8.5 million American children. The cost: $25 billion over 10 years.

Mr. Salazar, with these two proposals, you have committed American taxpayers to an additional $92 billion dollars in spending.

Help offset those costs by lifting the ban on importing prescription drugs, which he projects would save $60 billion over 10 years. Better management and prevention of disease would save $100 billion over 10 years, he said.

Vague, nebulous solutions to a huge potential budget problem. All in all, Mr. Salazar, I'd have to say that your proposals offer nothing more than increased spending and more government regulation. Thanks, but no thanks.

Cross Post at Damascus Road

"They Say This Is Where The Reception Is The Coolest"

2004-08-12T21:54:00.000-06:00

The last thing in the world that I expected today, was to be on the air less than 4 minutes after I called the show. I was like a little league baseball player who suddenly finds himself in a packed stadium facing Roger Clemons. What can I say, I stumbled out of the gate, then regrouped and finished the conversation. I was happy that I was able to get the name of the group blog out there, and even happier that Hugh promoted it.

So now that you're here, what will you find? All manner of things, frankly. There are eleven bloggers here who will be dedicating their time, energy, and laptop battery life to the cause of getting Pete Coors elected to the Senate. It's that simple. We are going to peruse the local and national rags for anything and everything that has to do with this race and serve it up for your enjoyment. We're not even going to bother asking whether or not you want fries with that, we're just going to give them to you for free. If you are at all interested in this race, this is where the reception is the coolest (for anyone who can tell me what movie that line came from, you'll get a special mention on these pages-ed.)

About 2 minutes after I ended that phone call, I made a startling discovery. Something was missing from my front yard. I'm going to mosey on down the lane of self appreciation for a moment and go so far as to say I have a great lawn. Mowing the yard is my out from everyday life. I look forward to that two or three hours a week when I can put on a freshly sharpened blade, gas up the mower line trimmer and start my therapy session. I fertilize my turf 5 times a year; go through the yard on hands and knees looking to terminate any broadleaf weed that dare attempt to germinate on my turf. I dig those suckers out with a glee that can only be described as manic, holding their limp carcasses over my head in triumph like a cave man who just bested a mastadon. I really do get almost a primal enjoyment out of lawn care, which is why I notice when something is out of place.

About 2 weeks ago, I volunteered down at the Coors Campaign Headquarters in Highlands Ranch, filling out post cards with unique hand-written messages from whoever happened to be there at the time. On my way out the door, I picked up my Coors for Senate yard sign, and it has held a place of honor on my front yard, standing proudly through rain, wind, and hail, like a beacon. It's the only such sign on my entire block, or should I say, was. Someone stole it. Try as I might to discern the footprints embedded on the blades of grass, I couldn't find the scoundrel. I can only hope that whoever took it really wanted it for their yard, but were just too afraid to go down to HQ and pick one up for themselves. I can hope for that, but that hope is a double-edged sword, because then there would be a bloody thief supporting my candidate, and that just could not be tolerated. No, I have to believe that it was a Salazar supporter, shamlessly removing the signs of his opponent in order to feel good about himself, helping out the cause.

In light of this recent development, would it be possible to get another one? Hey Coors people, give me a call.

Cross posted at MangledCat

Coors on Hewitt

2004-08-12T18:27:00.000-06:00

Republican Senate Candidate Pete Coors talked with Hugh Hewitt this afternoon. What follows is a summary of their conversation.

5:07

HH: Pete Coors, you won a resounding victory over your opponent last Tuesday. The Denver Post poll predicted a narrow margin between you and Bob Schaffer. What was your margin of victory?

PC: The final margin was 61-39%. We had an extremely large voter turnout, which goes to show that Republicans in Colorado are serious about keeping this Senate seat in Republican hands.

HH: Where does your Democratic opponent [Ken Salazar] stand – what is his platform?

PC: He’s a litigator. He’s trying to make himself the champion of the average person in Colorado. Salazar told a Denver Post reporter today that I will outspend him 3-to-1, but that means I’ll have to spend $30 million. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

5:09

HH: Pete, what’s your platform?

PC: Lower taxes, a stronger national defense, better homeland security, and strong Republican values.

HH: Is your former Republican opponent behind you now that the primary is over?

PC: I spent a full day with Bob Schaffer yesterday. He was both eloquent and gracious. I have great respect for Bob. On numerous occasions yesterday Bob publicly stated that he is 100% behind keeping this Senate seat in the Republican column. We both agree that all Republicans need to unite to keep this seat. Bob told all of his supporters that “Pete is the best candidate to beat Ken Salazar.”

5:10

HH: Will you be debating Ken Salazar between now and the election?

PC: Yes. There will probably be 6-8 debates. We’re working out the schedule. I’m looking forward to meeting up and debating him on the issues which are important to Colorado and the Nation.

HH: What is Salazar’s platform?

PC: He represents the typical views of the Democratic Party, and that is not what the majority of Coloradans want in their U.S. Senator.

5:11

HH: If Salazar were to be elected, he would fall in line with Daschle and Kennedy supporting obstructionist judges and fighting any tort reform. Agreed?

PC: Absolutely: The Senate has had 13 attempts at tort reform. We need good lawyers in the country, but we need to override the filibusters is the U.S. Senate. We need more people with Republican values to break through the logjams in the U.S. Senate.

5:12

HH: Denver is probably Salazar’s territory. Where will you focus your efforts?

PC: The Denver-Boulder area probably leans more towards the Democrats, but 35% of the voters in Colorado are unaffiliated. And lots of those are in the Denver area. Statewide, Republicans number approximately 1.1 million. Republicans outnumber Democrats by more that 185,000. We’re working to get everyone’s votes.

5:13

HH: Four years ago Senator Allard and Governor Owens put together an amazing 96-hour campaign. Is that effort still underway?

PC: Yes. Colorado’s 96-hour campaign still in effect. It’s a very strong effort. We’ve been focusing over last few months on voter registration, get-out-the-vote, and absentee voters. We want everyone in Colorado to exercise their Right under the Constitution and vote.

5:14

HH: Colorado has a large military vote. How does your message play with our military?

PC: The largest contingent of military in Colorado in El Paso County. They are predominantly strong Republicans. Our belief and messages about strengthening our defenses and increasing support for the military is welcome there. I appreciate their support. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the work our military has done in Iraq.

HH: I’ve heard of an external influence coming into the State to split the Electoral College votes. We can’t support that. We have to work against that effort. That’s a dirty trick from Californians.

PC: I agree. It’s a bad idea. Coloradans don’t want organizations from other states telling them what to do.

HH: Pete, what’s your basic platform, your message to the voters of Colorado?

PC: Ken Salazar wants to roll back the tax cuts; I want to make them permanent. Ken Salazar is supported by trial lawyers, both locally and across the nation; I am for tort reform. Ken Salazar wants the U.N. to decide what’s best for us; I believe that the strongest and proudest nation on earth should make its’ own decisions on national security.

HH: Pete Coors, thanks for joining us today.

PC: Hugh, I’m a long time listener. I always enjoy talking with you.

HH: We’ll talk many more times between now and November.

Cross-posted at: ClayCalhoun.com

Pete Coors on Hugh Hewitt

2004-08-12T17:04:00.000-06:00

Pete Coors will appear on the Hugh Hewitt show during the 5-6 PM MDT hour.

HH mentioned he invited Ken Salazar to appear, but due to lack of backbone, has not responded to the offer.

In the greater Denver area, you can listen to HH on 710 KNUS.

JOSHUA ADDS: We should have a transcript of the interview up later this evening for you.

Salazar as Attorney General

2004-08-12T13:34:00.000-06:00

Probably Ken Salazar's worst moment as Attoney General came when he joined a lawsuit against the state, in order to preserve a Democratic redistricting plan. I spent a lot of pixels on this at the time, including some analysis of why the State Supreme Court's ruling was wrong. (It's near the bottom. Go to the end and scroll up a little.)

Salazar's reasoning was of the sort that only a partisan court could love. But it raises the larger question of his willingness to run his office in a non-partisan fashion. He's currently investigating alleged voter registration fraud in the upcoming election, in which he's a candidate. And he also will still be Attorney General after November 2, should the execrable Amendment 99 be passed into law.

Some enterprising reporter should ask him about what he would do in that last case.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Hit Piece

2004-08-12T08:40:00.000-06:00

Well, it's good to see that some things never change. The Denver Post is up to it's old tricks in this hit piece on Republican Pete Coors' campaign for US Senate. Mark Couch goes out of his way to cast a nagative light on the relationship between Coors and his adversary in the primaries, Bob Schaffer.

In public, the Republicans were all smiles. But on the bus, they kept their distance.

At first, Schaffer talked on his cellphone in the back of the bus, while Coors talked strategy in the front with Sen. George Allen, R-Va., chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Coors moved to the middle of the bus to conduct radio interviews via cellphone. After those interviews, Coors joined Schaffer in the back for a handshake and brief conversation.

"Give us five minutes," Coors said, dismissing reporters who moved to sit closer to the candidate and his vanquished foe on the bus.

They spoke privately on the ride to Fort Collins and then rarely spoke a word - even when they were sitting across the aisle from each other.

I'm gonna give Couch the benefit of the doubt as to whether the above described events actually occurred. But, in light of the tone of the rest of the article, it seems as if he goes out of his way to portray the entire event in an extremely negative light. For instance:

To pass the time, Coors strolled the 16th Street Mall with Allen by his side and a gaggle of Republicans in tow. Schaffer and his wife, Maureen, walked hand-in-hand at a distance from the candidate.

At first, the beer executive in his gray pinstripe suit ambled down the street without greeting people. Then Allen began introducing political newcomer Coors to passers-by, and Coors quickly started asking them for their votes.

Mr. Couch, your blatantly obvious effort to cast Coors as a bumbling campaigner is beneath you. You really need more practice in order to refine your technique.

A few minutes later, still on the 16th Street Mall, Coors got a call from Bush.

"I'm glad you called me Pete instead of Holly's kid," Coors said, referring to his mother. He then promised to help Bush win "four more days" in office before correcting himself: "Four more years."

Mr. Couch, once again your bias is showing. All that's lacking in this piece is some "puff" regarding Ken Salazar. Maybe we'll see that next time.

Cross Post at Damascus Road

Salazar's Issue Paper

2004-08-11T15:57:00.000-06:00

Okay,...Good start Jonathan. Let me pick up the baton where you handed it off and run for awhile.

Continuing with Salazar's issue paper:

Our military strategies and programs must reflect the changing nature of the threat. While we need to continue to maintain overwhelming technical superiority on the land, in the air, and in the sea, we must be also be responsive to the threat of low-tech, high consequence attack scenarios that international terrorists and their organizations are more likely to pursue.

Duh......'scuz me, I thought that's what we've been doing since 9/11. Ken, have you been to DIA recently. Seems to me that taking one's shoes off pretty much covers many of the "low tech" options available to terrorists.

Iraq reminds us that we also need to pay attention to the needs of our soldiers in the field. High-tech gadgetry and superior weapons systems do not alone guarantee on-the-ground success or maximum safety for our troops. We must provide our troops with all the equipment they need to do the job we have assigned to them. It is simply unfathomable, and unacceptable, that our armed forces in Iraq were forced to have their families ship personal body armor or that it took almost a year before armor was applied to Humvees.

Ken, check Mr. Kerry's voting record on military spending.

It is wrong that we lavish tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans, but we wont provide assistance to our troops and their families. Military pay and benefits for those in uniform, their families, and for veterans must be increased if we are to continue with our volunteer military and National Guard system of national defense. American troops have done an outstanding job in Iraq and Afghanistan and we should rightly be proud of the men and women put in harms' way who have shown the real face of America and its priceless values. In addition, I support imminent danger pay and family separation allowance for our troops in.

See above.

We cannot abandon the Iraqi people. But we must change course. There has not been enough straight talk about Iraq both before the President committed America to the war, and in the challenges and complexity of rebuilding that nation. President Bush convinced the American people that Iraq presented an imminent threat to our national security, with its possession of weapons of mass destruction and a picture that portrayed links between Al Qaeda and Iraq. In committing us to the military invasion of Iraq, President Bush also committed us to the stabilization of Iraq, politically and economically. It is clear that the mission in Iraq has been mishandled, but we must do our best to honor our commitment as the new Iraqi leadership struggles to stabilize the country. We must constantly reevaluate the safety of our troops and the viability of our mission.

And.....just exactly would you do Mr. Salazar. Looks to me as if this is directly out of Senator Kerry's playbook.

It is right to change course and seek international input and assistance in rebuilding a safe Iraq. More international support will improve the likelihood of success and will also reduce the burden on America's troops and taxpayers. I will press to build the international coalition that should have been assembled before invading Iraq, but this effort will take time and much greater diplomatic skill than the administration has demonstrated. A broader international coalition will speed the process of stabilizing Iraq.

Mr. Salazar, let me remind you of the UN oil for food ~~program~~ scandal. Those nations not participating in the coalition have no desire to form a partnership with the US; who, by the way, holds all the cards in this scandal. It would be a much too tenuous relationship. They have no desire to play poker with someone who has just drawn to an inside straight. And this is true, whether you or George Bush is in office...fogitaboutit.

Terrorism is a world-wide threat. Our battle against them must be fought on many fronts and at many levels. We must confront them militarily wherever possible, we must use diplomatic, economic and military tools to confront governments who harbor terrorists, and we must also attack the sources of social and financial support for terrorism. We cannot succeed in these efforts without the cooperation of our traditional allies and without making many new friends. To lead and to win the war on terror, we must move away from the arrogance of power that has sometimes characterized our foreign policy these past few years, reinvigorate our diplomacy, and rebuild our international coalitions.

Ken, you said that before. The Dems keep claiming "arrogance of power". It.Is.Not. Arrogance.Of.Power. It is concern about sovereignty and our national well-being.

Cross Posted at Damascus Road

A Foreign Policy Of Death (For Us)

2004-08-11T15:21:00.000-06:00

The Salazar campaign has some crazy ideas about American security and the war on terror. Let's start with the following:

Until recently, our enemies were hostile states, with governments that, however misguided, were nonetheless keen on their own self-preservation and ultimately hoped to avoid war with the United States.

A hostile state with a misguided government keen on self-preservation and hoping to avoid war. Yeah, that works for me. If that is the way that Salazar objectively looks at the former regime in Iraq, his viewpoint is ignorant of the facts, which becomes more evident when you look at how he describes terrorist:

Today, however, our enemies include a constantly changing array of terrorists, weapons proliferators, organized crime affiliates, and shadowy individuals and organizations. Longstanding religious, ethnic, cultural or tribal conflicts and grudges form the basis for some of their hateful motivation. In the 21st century, our enemies are diverse, dynamic, unpredictable, and constantly evolving. Although there is no military power that can challenge America today or in the foreseeable future, these new enemies pose new challenges. They embrace conflict and do not care about self-preservation. Their goal is not to defeat our armed forces, but to defeat our spirit.

I take issue with that. They could care less about defeating our "spirit." They want to kill us because we are infidels. It's as simple as that. They do not care about "self-preservation" because these brainwashed psychopaths believe that they will be rewarded by allah for killing infidels. For those who have no clue what an "infidel" is, it's you and I, and everyone else in the world who is not a devout follower of 13th century Islam.

With the next passage, we can be assured that the UN will be a major player in the foreign policy of Ken Salazar.

The extermination of international terrorism is our highest national priority. We need to re-gather our friends and allies to this essential international goal, a goal we all share. Our foreign policy is most effective when we act as the leader of a broad coalition of nations. The free world was united in its revulsion of the September 11 terrorist attacks and in its commitment to wage war on terrorism. After September 11, the U.S. acted correctly in pursuing, with international support, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. After Afghanistan, that international unity dissolved with the invasion of Iraq. Although it was argued that the attack on Saddam Hussein was part of the war on terror, many of our closest allies doubted our intelligence and questioned the need for the invasion.

Here is a list of the countries involved in Iraq. The notable missings are of course, France, Germany and Canada. 49 countries are on that list, but it's not a coalition with the big 3. World IQ.com lists the definition of coalition as the following:

A Coalition is an alliance between entities, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest. This alliance may be temporary, or a matter of convenience.

Here comes the standard Democratic Talking Point:

The President and his administration presented a case to Congress and the American people on the imminent danger presented by weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, President Bush committed a grave mistake in how he pulled the trigger of war. That decision was based on faulty intelligence, a failure to develop the international coalitions needed to succeed, and an underestimation of the difficulty and costs of the war in Iraq.

Do I need to point out twice in the same post the definition of "coalition?" I suppose I do.

He tosses the bone about taking care of our troops before coming to this:

Even though sovereignty has now been officially handed over to Iraq’s new leadership, the United States will likely remain there for the foreseeable future. As we work to bring greater stability to the region, we need to take a hard look at the lessons learned by acting without broad international support, and with intelligence that has proved to be faulty and misleading.

Do I need to point out three times in the same post the definition of "coalition?" I guess I do.

On to the attack of the Patriot Act:

We must also commit ourselves to fight terror without sacrificing the very freedoms we are fighting to protect. Many terrorists see our way of life and our personal freedoms as a direct challenge: We are democratic, they are autocratic; we value diversity, they demand religious, cultural or political uniformity; we look forward to a future of peace, they look back to a past of violence. If we sacrifice our freedoms and values in the name of war on terror, then we give the terrorists their first victory. By protecting the rights and liberties that define America, even as we fight terrorism, we demonstrate that our strength and justice flow from these American principles.

Hugh's soundbite works best to sum up this post:

I don't like you 'cuz you're gonna get me killed!

That's Democratic foreign policy in action.

Cross posted at MangledCat

The People of Colorado Have Spoken

2004-08-11T14:41:00.000-06:00

The People of Colorado have spoken, and they have chosen Pete Coors to run against Ken Salazar this November. I endorsed Bob Schaffer in the primary, but now that the nod has been given to Mr. Coors, I will be doing what many Republicans will be doing. Listening a little more to Mr. Coors, and doing everything I can to help him win. It will be fun to watch this race unfold, it is truly one of the most important Senate races in the country. Hang on tight, the fun has just begun!!

Tankersley on Salazar v. Coors (the race, not the blog)

2004-08-11T13:34:00.000-06:00

One of the relatively few bright lights for the Denver media during the lead-up to yesterday's primary elections has been the News' Jim Tankersley. As has been his track record, today's assessment of the bottom line in the general election tends to be spot-on. Some excerpts:

Republicans will try to sink Ken Salazar by tagging him a lawyer, a career politician and the man who could hand control of the U.S. Senate to Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.

Democrats will try to paint Pete Coors as an empty suit - a bumbling neophyte who can't handle complex issues or name the prime minister of Canada.

Pretty much sums up the bottom line, I'd say. He continues:

National politics could be the wild card. Many analysts continue to see the presidential race shaping up as a tight one in Colorado, which likely means Coors joining President Bush onstage and Salazar stumping with John Kerry.

In a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats, control of the Senate could become an issue, too.

Coors has already said on the campaign trail that Salazar would help a Kerry administration agenda pass the Senate. Salazar has long promised not to rubber-stamp any president's proposals.

And so it begins.

Again, I'd have a hard time disputing anything in those paragraphs.

If there has been one criticism that I've heard levelled at the press (from both sides) during this race, it's that the coverage has tended to dwell in the realm of generalities, rather than on specifics and details. Such is the case with Tankersley's piece, but in his defense, it's pretty hard to see how the situation might have played out differently. The candidates in this race have positioned themselves rather clearly, and have established positions that have allowed for a great deal of generalization on the part of the press. Coors is very much a mainstream conservative - both economically, and socially. Salazar, despite his best efforts to show himself to be a moderate, is a fairly conventional liberal. Neither candidate is breaking much new ground in either his positions, or his presentation. As such, the press' coverage of the race has not engendered a great deal of originality. Tankersley's been pretty consistent in his work, though, and generally speaking, will (along with Post newcomer David Harsanyi) be one of the few "big media" guys I'll turn to in the next 90 days.

(Cross posted at Exultate Justi)

A Bit Of Wishful Thinking

2004-08-11T08:52:00.000-06:00

Today's article in the Denver Post appears to me to be setting the stage for what the Salazar campaign will be using as one of their issues. That being that the Colorado Republican party is in tatters. It starts with this opening statement:

U.S. Senate contender Pete Coors pulled through Tuesday's Republican primary more easily than expected, but uniting his fractured party may be a tougher challenge.

I have said many times that my biggest fear was the party tearing itself apart over this primary, and had I not been as involved as I have been, that perception could very well have been the prevailing one. The last few days before this vote, the Colorado Conservative Voters ad campaign was really hammering Pete Coors with more radio commercials than I've heard in a long time. It was unseemly, and I'm sure that is the opinion that the Post staff writing is trying to project.

It goes on to include something I think is a tip-off:

Still, political experts wonder whether Coors and his patron, Gov. Bill Owens, will be able to unite moderates and conservatives after four months of the most bitter - and public - Republican infighting in Colorado politicos' recent memory.

"The party is beating up on each other with an intensity I've ... never seen," said GOP activist Katy Atkinson.

Added Denver political consultant Eric Sondermann: "It'll take more than one round of "Kumbiyah" to bring this party back together."

I don't know about you, but "Kumbiyah" is not a word that I would ever have heard associated with the Republican party. I have no idea of the political affiliation of Mr. Sondermann, but I'd bet everything I have that he's a Democrat. Which is why I believe that this is an attempt to portray a small amount of division in the ranks as a major crisis. There is something that doesn't jive with that thinking, however.

This story from the other local newspaper is in conflict with the Post story. It details the campaign party for the Schaffer campaign and their resolve to keep the party together. A couple of qoutes:

"We'll take tonight to sleep on it, we'll lick our wounds and we'll go get our Pete Coors signs tomorrow and off we'll go," said Jimmy Lakey of Boulder, who runs a nonprofit ministry and was an ardent Schaffer supporter.

Well said, but the clincher is an excerpt from the concession speech:

Schaffer supporters said their man's concession speech hit the mark. Schaffer urged them to "be a big part of Pete Coors' victory, and show America that liberty and freedom are worth fighting for."

That doesn't sound like a divided party to me, Denver Post. There is no question that the Primary election was taxing, but this party is united in it's resolve to keep that Senate seat in Republican hands, and it will overlook and overcome any differences to reach that goal.

Cross posted at MangledCat

Colorado Republicans Say "Give Me a Coors"

2004-08-11T00:27:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to the Pete Coors for Senate team!

Republicans throughout the Great State of Colorado have elected Pete Coors as their candidate for the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by Ben Nighthorse-Campbell. Coors defeated Bob Schaffer in a primary race that has, at times, bitterly divided the Colorado Republican Party since their state convention in early June. Mr. Coors will now meet Ken Salazar in the November general election. Fellow RMA'er View From A Height covered the Coors Victory Celebration tonight. I called in the results to him from my County elections -- I'm sure we were the ones to put Coors over the top...

Both Republican candidates pledged at the State Convention that they would throw their full support and commitment behind him who was chosen by the voters in this primary. On Monday, State GOP Chairman Ted Halaby reaffirmed this pledge by announcing a "unity rally" which will be attended by present and former federal and state Republican officials, as well as the candidates.

It is now time for all Colorado Republicans to come together to defeat Ken Salazar so that the U.S. Senate may remain in the hands of the Republicans. I'll be attending the rally in downtown Denver on Wednesday. Details are here. Will you be there?

Cross-posted at: ClayCalhoun.com

Coors v. Salazar---GAME ON!

2004-08-11T00:01:00.000-06:00

Coors v. Salazar

In what turned out to be a not-very-close election, Pete Coors beats Bob Schaffer 61-39, while Ken Salazar beats out Mike Miles 74-26. Contrary to all expectations, neither race had much drama from about two minutes after polls closing on.

Two points about this. Again, I state that I believe there is a groundswell among Republicans/Conservatives that is completely escaping the notice of pollsters and pundits. Just the turnout for the GOP primary (as of this writing, GOP ballots number nearly 325,000, compared to Dems 222,000) indicates an enormous interest in not just this race, but this seat. Sure, in this state the GOP registereds outnumbers the Dems, but not by the 46% margin of tonight's turnout. That Pete Coors, in a closer race, still got 30,000 more votes than Ken Salazar has got to be a bit of an eye-opener for the Democrats.

Secondly, and I tip my hat to Jonathan, who blogged this earlier, I also think that the negative attacks by Bill Armstrong, the Colorado Conservative Voters and the Colorado Christian Coalition played a bigger role in this than can be measured. Bob Schaffer tried to stick to a positive message, but did not have the resources to compete; into that vacuum went an ugly underbelly of GOP politics that did not resonate with the general public. The result: a surprisingly easy victory for Pete Coors. And where Jonathan left with speculation, I declare: keep the message positive and simple, Mr. Coors, and we will soon be addressing you as Senator Coors. Go hard-core negative, and you might just give this away.
Posted by: Michael / 8/10/2004 11:41:18 PM

Primary Night Observations

2004-08-10T23:08:00.000-06:00

Pete Coors has defeated Bob Schaffer in a hard-fought Senate primary that was, in the final analysis, not all that close. At the same time, Ken Salazar won the expected victory over Mike Miles for the Democrats. It also appears that Coors, although in a closer race, will win with more actual votes that Salazar.

Coors's victory, and the size of the participation suggests that he had a couple of things working for him. First, money did make a difference, probably reaching more voters and attracting some unaffiliateds to vote in the primary. Secondly, it's possible that Bill Armstrong's strong-arm tactics may have turned some people off to Schaffer. We could argue whether that's fair to a Schaffer campaign that tried to distance itself from those ads, but they may have backfired, all the same, in the absence of a third candidate to turn to.

I was actually at Coors's campaign party for the results, and I came away with a few impressions. Coors himself is getting better as a speaker. He's not smooth, but he's increasingly comfortable, a point made by Senator Campbell. He drew a few laughs, stated the main themes of the campaign, thanked Senator Campbell for retiring, and was gracious to Bob Schaffer. (A lot will probably depends on how Schaffer conducts himself both in his concession speech, and in the days ahead.) At the same time, Coors was careful to contrast Republican and Democratic philosophies as much as personalities. I didn't hear Salazar's victory speech, but on KOA while I was driving home, I did hear him bring up a laundry list of issues without mentioning parties. If it's Coors's intent to nationalize the race, that's a good sign.

The national importance of the race was underscored by the presence of Senator George Allen of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Sen. Allen also happens to head the NRSC. During his remarks, I was half-expecting him to say, "The Future is Now," but he didn't. For some reason he also didn't think it was funny when I told him I was relieved that he hadn't. He interpreted it to mean that I thought it would put off Broncos fans. I just didn't want him trading away draft picks.

I was a little disappointed that the War on Islamicism didn't show up more obviously in either Campbell's or Owens's comments. But Coors made a point of emphasizing the sacrifices of the troops, and the lifelong scars some will bear, in defense of elections like the one just held.

Finally, and on a topic we'll see much more of, a brief anecdote. In the middle of the crowd, well before meaningful results had come in. I stood right next to a local Univision reporter doing her establishment stand-up, the little 5-second clip that will tell the viewers where she is. I had intended to ask her some questions about which campaigns had made themselves more available, when she and her cameraman were whisked away, upstairs, presumably to interview the candidate himself. In an election where the Hispanic vote will be important, access and dollars will be key, since Coors doesn't really speak Spanish all that well. This was an excellent sign.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Welcome

2004-08-10T22:59:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the Rocky Mountain Alliance of Blog's Home Blog following the Colorado Senate race. This is one of the most important Senate races in the country, vital to keeping the Senate in Republican hands for the next few years.

Alliance members will be posting their thoughts and observations on the race here, and on their own blogs, as well. Visit often, comment, and make sure you contribute here and here.