Coyote Gulch

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Is the political center rising?
The Moderate Voice: "Since Tuesday's election - generally seen as a debacle for the GOP in general and President George W. Bush in particular - there have been a host of articles suggesting that a resurgence of the political center is underway in American politics. And indeed, it would seem that a backlash may be underway against base-oriented and polarization politics."

Bill Richardson Blog: "Clearly, our good friends at Western Democrat are trying to overload us with great analysis that demands comment. Their most recent post, A Southwestern Strategy, is especially good, because it refines an idea I've suggested to Andrea a number of times: ticket reinforcement would work very well for Bill Richardson."

The Moderate Voice: "PS: The argument about underming the war was also used by LBJ during Vietnam - and it didn't help the war effort or LBJ one iota. It converted no one to his side. NOT a smart strategy but it will be cheered by people who already politically support the President, not just because of the war issue but because they SUPPORT HIM already and want to see him on the ascent. People who've backed the war but aren't in GOP partisans will be less impressed with this Veterans Day speech and will view it as a squandered opportunity to try to foster national unity amid growing division over the war. And, we suspect, in coming years most non-GOP news analysts and historians will, too."

Blogs for Bush: "For the longest time we on the right have been wondering when President Bush was going to come out swinging against his critics on the war. As time has progressed and our victory in Iraq become more manifest, the drumbeat of leftwing lies and slanders about the war has merely grown louder and more strident. The endless shriek of leftwing lies have become more and more echoed in the MSM and in the senior leadership of the Democratic Party - to listen to the critics, the liberation of Iraq was begun with no justification whatsoever and has been an unmitigated failure from start to finish. President Bush, in his speech earlier today, finally answered these critics directly."

Washington Post: "The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements. But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions."

Category: 2008 Presidential Election

9:29:45 AM

Delphus E. Carpenter

Here's a nice report from the Rocky Mountain News about Delphus E. Carpenter the single greatest force behind the Colorado River Compact. From the article, "In 1920, Colorado was home to 940,000 people, California 3.4 million. Even then, the fight was on over the waters of the Colorado River. Sorting out the claims of the two states and five others in between would fall largely to one man: Delphus E. Carpenter, a Greeley native, a star in state politics and, as it turned out, a visionary water attorney. Next week, after nearly two years of painstaking restoration work, Colorado State University will open Carpenter's papers to the public. Included in the historic records is a brief document he crafted: the 1922 Colorado River Compact. It is 10 pages long and adorned with a single, red silk ribbon. It is one of the most important documents in the water history of the American West, a landmark agreement that governs a river on which some 25 million people now rely. In the 83 years since it was signed, the compact has guided water development and protection of the river from its headwaters high in Rocky Mountain National Park to its terminus in the California Delta of Mexico. The compact, along with several Supreme Court decisions and a few acts of Congress, comprises what's now known simply as 'the law of the river.'"

Read the whole article before it scrolls behind the Rocky paywall.

Category: Colorado Water

9:00:41 AM

Tweak Amendment 23?
State house Speaker Andrew Romanoff is looking at easing the burden on state funding during downturns due to the effects of Amendment 23. The amendment mandates that state funding for K-12 increase even during poor economic times. This is a direct response to critics of the recently passed Referendum C. Here's an article from the Denver Post on the subject [November 12, 2005, "Dem tinkers with Amend. 23"]. They quote Romanoff as saying, "It's a way to enable our schools to weather economic storms without imperiling other state services. And it's a way, frankly, to concede a point the opposition made."

Meanwhile here's the link to Draft Andrew Romanoff.com.

Category: Denver November 2005 Election

8:41:18 AM

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