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Monday, December 15, 2003
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2004 Presidential Election
Update 5:26PM: The Washington Post is asking What will happen when a national political machine can fit on a laptop?. From the article, "Coase's insight was this: The cost of gathering information determines the size of organizations." Here's a link to an article by Yochai Benkler titled, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm. Benkler celebrates Open Source communities.
Here's an in-depth piece looking at Howard Dean's campaign from the Denver Post [December 14, 2003, "Dean camp asks doubting Dems to take leap of faith"]. From the article, "The Pew poll showed that almost half of Dean supporters in Iowa are college graduates, and twice as many describe themselves as liberal than conservative. Almost 70 percent rate their personal financial situation as "good" or "excellent." Just 11 percent of his supporters belonged to labor unions. Gephardt, who has been running neck and neck with Dean in Iowa, is far more popular among voters who have a high school education, union members, conservatives, and those who are more worried about their family's economic futures."
Walter Cronkite writes about the battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination in his column in Sunday's Denver Post [December 14, 2003, "Democrats are wasting time"]. Says Cronkite, "Instead of waiting until its platform committee meets next year, the Democrats could be using these primary months to define their basic philosophy. As it is, time and money are being wasted as the primary candidates emphasize a serious split in the party. There are those Democrats who believe the party's strength is its appeal to the farmer-labor vote. These, whom we might call the Old Democrats, include Gephardt and Dennis Kucinich. Others believe the party's strength is the vast middle class to whom Bill Clinton so successfully appealed, or the New Democrats. They include Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and John Edwards. So the issue is: Do the Democrats maintain the Clinton focus on middle-class voters or go back to the farmer-labor-oriented policies of FDR and Truman?"
Here's a recent Boston Globe and WBZ-TV poll for New Hampshire in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The news is bad for John Kerry. Howard Dean is leading by 23 points. Thanks to the Daily Kos for the link.
6:02:49 AM 
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Denver November 2004 Election
It seems likely that some modifications to the TABOR amendment, Amendment 23, and the Gallagher amendment will be on the November 2004 ballot. Here's an editorial from the Rocky Mountain News on the subject [December 15, 2003, "Frontal assault on TABOR or 23 would be fool's mission"]. The editorial maintains that any radical changes put in front of voters are likely to fail. From the opinion piece, "It's always easier to defeat a ballot initiative than to pass one, especially a proposal targeting a voter-approved law. Conservatives will sabotage any ballot measure that tries to undermine TABOR's core principles and liberals will crush any similar attack on Amendment 23. The only reforms with any chance of passing are those that attract a coalition from across the political spectrum, with each side willing to concede modest revisions in its favorite amendment in return for similar concessions from the other side."
Here's an editorial from today's Denver Post on the subject of TABOR, Gallagher, and Amendment 23 [December 15, 2003, "Coffman leads the charge"]. According to the Post editors, "Coffman's detailed plan likely will irk both Republicans and Democrats, which means he may be on to something. He wants to change all three of the voter-approved constitutional amendments whose effects combined during the recent recession to create a fiscal disaster in Colorado. He also has proposed creating a "rainy day fund" to bail out the state in future bleak years. His plan is to tweak both the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a sacred cow for many Republicans, and the education- boosting Amendment 23, a pet project of many liberals, while retaining the basic tenets of each law. He also would overhaul the Gallagher Amendment, approved in 1982 to control residential property taxes."
The redistricting fight is not over yet of course. The ongoing lawsuits in the case still cast a cloud over the district boundaries for next fall. Peter Blake discusses proposed solutions in his column in last Saturday's Rocky [December 13, 2003, "Blake: Proposals to fix redistricting fiasco varied, plentiful"].
From the Denver Post [December 7, 2003, "Spin Cycled"], "Saying he is worried about budget cuts and academic freedom issues, lawyer and former Colorado Democratic chairman Howard Gelt is throwing his hat into the ring to represent the 1st Congressional District on the CU Board of Regents. His steering committee includes former state Sen. and Denver mayoral candidate Penfield Tate;Daniel Yohannes, retired vice president of U.S. Bank; and Rick Ridder, a political consultant at the Denver firm Ridder/Braden Inc., among others."
5:42:22 AM
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Colorado Water
Here's an opinion piece written by John Lay, president and CEO of the Southeast Business Partnership, taking issue with the Rocky Mountain News over their series of articles on water planning in the South Metro Area [December 15, 2003, "Speakout: South metro water is well-managed"]. Says Lay, "While we feel that recent News analysis has been a bit one-sided, we hope that this recent series will benefit the entire community through heightened awareness of the metro region's unqualified commitment to the importance of water and the need for continued intelligent dialogue, exhaustive planning and long-term investment."
5:33:55 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/14/09; 6:36:59 PM.
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