Coyote Gulch

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

2004 Presidential Election
Dick Cheney will be in Denver on Thursday, according to the Denver Post [September 28, 2004, "Cheney to speak Thursday in Denver"].
Electoral-vote.com: "Some bad news for the polling business. Strategic Vision (R) has a new poll in Ohio showing Bush ahead 52% to 43% there. However, there is also a Lake Snell Perry (D) poll showing the race there to be an exact tie, with both candidates at 46%. It is becoming increasingly clear that the pollsters are producing the results that the people paying the bills want to hear. Even pollsters who were once thought to be above suspicion are now suspicious. Gallup, for example, is now normalizing its samples to include 40% Republicans, even though the 2000 exit polls showed the partisan distribution to be 39% Democratic, 35% Republican. There is scant evidence that the underlying partisan distribution has changed much since then. Other pollsters also normalize their data, but most don't say how. Normalizing the sample to ensure the proper number of women, elderly voters, etc. is legitimate provided that the pollster publicly states what has been done. Despite a smattering a polls today, none of these mean much on the eve of the first debate. For many people, the debates will determine their votes"
Ed Quillen looks at healthcare in his column in today's Denver Post [September 28, 2004, "U.S. pays more, gets less"]. Quillen writes, "Great Britain spends only 6.9 percent of its GDP on health care, considerably less than our 12.9 percent. Yet British citizens enjoy a slightly longer lifespan, 77.8 as compared to our 77.3, and a lower infant mortality rate, 5.5 rather than our 6.8. In other words, they spend less and get more. That's also true of many other countries. Icelanders spend 8.7 percent of their GDP on health; they live 2.6 years longer, and only half as many of their babies die before their first birthday. The Japanese enjoy the world's longest life expectancy, 80.8 years, and their infant mortality rate is only 60 percent of ours. They spend only 7.5 percent of their GDP on health care. Canada spends 9.2 percent of its GDP on health, and Canadians live two years longer than we do."
Ed Fitzgerald: "My last survey of Electoral College tracking / prediction / projection / forecast / scoreboard / map sites being a week old, it's time to plunge in again to see what the trackers have to say."
Taegan Goddard: "New polls. Zogby will begin daily national tracking, starting October 4th and running right through Election Eve, November 1st. Sign up today! Here are the latest state polls: North Carolina - Bush 50, Kerry 44 (Research 2000); Ohio - Kerry 46, Bush 46 (Lake Snell Perry - D); New Hampshire - Kerry 47, Bush 47 (Lake Snell Perry - D); Oklahoma - Bush 57, Kerry 31 (Wilson Research)."
6:45:16 AM

Denver November 2004 Election
Referendum 4A is the subject of this opinion piece from the Rocky Mountain News [September 28, 2004, "Speakout: FasTracks practical and ready to go"]. From the article, "There is a good reason the FasTracks plan enjoys overwhelming civic, business and grass-roots support. In addition to its obvious transit improvements, FasTracks is a powerful business and community development tool. New and existing businesses will gravitate to rail station locations due to excellent access and the predictability that a regional rapid transit system provides. Growth, when intelligently planned and implemented, can be a positive thing. However, we do not want to strangle on our own traffic, prompting existing businesses to move and new businesses to avoid an auto-clogged metropolis. We must be receptive and encouraging toward business growth and FasTracks is a critical part of an emerging economic engine."
Here's an article about Referendum 4B the proposed extension of the tax for the Scientific and Cultural District from the Rocky Mountain News [September 28, 2004, "Poll: SCFD is popular"]. From the article, "A poll conducted earlier this month by Public Opinion Strategies for the Rocky Mountain News and News4 indicates the measure has good support. The 279 registered voters interviewed who said they were likely to vote in November's election supported the measure 63 percent. Among voters with a post-graduate degree, 73 percent supported the measure. Interviews were conducted Sept. 12 and 13. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.87 percentage points."
The Rocky Mountain News editorial staff is urging voters to reject Amendment 37 [September 28, 2004, "Amendment 37 puts energy bills at risk"]. From the editorial, "Of course, if the amendment's authors had truly been interested in protecting consumers from rising energy costs, they'd have included a mandate that new renewable energy projects be fully cost competitive with any alternative. The fact that they didn't is the tipoff that energy bills don't particularly concern them. Their purpose is not to enhance the market for electricity but to short-circuit it with a top-down political mandate. If Amendment 37 passes (and recent polls show it comfortably ahead), utilities serving 40,000 or more customers will have to generate 10 percent of their electricity with renewables by 2015. Four percent of that renewables production will have to be in solar energy. At the moment, about 2 percent of the state's electricity comes from such sources."
The Rocky editors are opposed to Amendment 35 [September 28, 2004, "Tobacco measure has one fatal flaw"]. From the editorial, "Voters will be asked in November to consider another tobacco-tax initiative, Amendment 35, which would raise Colorado's 20 cents- per-pack cigarette tax to 84 cents, just above the national median. While the proposal has many more positive features than its ill-fated predecessor, it still incurs our disapproval because it writes new spending requirements into the state constitution."
Here's an article, from Sunday's Denver Post about Amendment 36 [September 25, 2004, "Dividing Colorado's vote"]. The amendment would change the way the Colorado allocates it's electoral college votes. The Post includes arguments for [September 26, 2004, "YES: Empower each voter"] and against [September 26, 2004, "NO: We'd be insignificant"].
6:23:36 AM

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