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Political parties must be in sad shape these days. Driving down the highway last week, I saw a handsome sign promoting Ken Chlouber for state senator. The fine print, invisible as I drove by, desperate to see anything besides the little car with the boat on top that was being towed by a lumbering motor home, might have identified his party, but even if it does, it was obvious that Ken wasn't bragging on his party affiliation.
Nor is this strange reluctance to appear partisan
confined to Republicans. Recent Tom Strickland commercials
promise an independent senator
for Colorado. The
last time I saw Tom, he was at a county Democratic
gathering across the street, and he was soliciting votes in
the Democratic primary.
Maybe he's changed affiliation since then, but I doubt
it. I bet there will be a D
next to his name on the
ballot, just as there will be an R
next to Ken.
It appear's that this year's consultants are offering
advice along the lines of The government shut-down last
year made Americans real mad about party-based posturing.
So, once you've got the nomination from the party, pretend
you never heard of them.
Where do they find these consultants?
Not in Colorado, I gather, and that may speak well for
our state. In a recent piece in the Colorado Springs
Independent, Robert D. Loevy, a political science professor
at Colorado College, writes that One unsuccessful 1994
candidate for governor of Colorado, Mike Bird, tried hard
to find a Colorado firm to write and produce his television
advertisements. He ended up being forced to use a
consulting firm based in the Virginia suburbs of
Washington, D.C.
Loevy went on to comment that The consultants use the
same national issues, such as 'crime in the streets' and
'welfare reform,' in state after state...
This may explain why Wayne Allard keeps saying a balanced federal budget -- not an education, not civic virtue, not opportunity, not air fit to breathe or water fit to drink -- is the most important thing we can do for our descendants.
The consultants must tell him that the budget resonates with voters. But if that were so, wouldn't we be hailing Richard Nixon, in 1969 the last president to operate with a balanced budget? Or Andrew Jackson, under whose administration in 1835 the federal deficit was only $38,000, the lowest at any time since the founding of the republic in 1791. Granted, both men get copious mention in our history books, but not for their financial feats.
The simple fact is that the federal deficit has never mattered to voters, no matter what the out-of-state consultants think. Franklin Roosevelt campaigned in 1932 on balancing the budget, needed red ink by the carload, and got re-elected three times. Ronald Reagan was going to balance the budget in 1980, managed to dig the deficit a lot deeper, and won landslide re-election in 1984.
Back to Colorado. Professor Loevy has obviously studied this issue more deeply than I, but I think he missed some distinctive Colorado components to elections:
· The seventh-generation rancher family. Every candidate for any office from county assessor on up is either descended from one, related to one, adopted by one or otherwise connected. Even if most Colorado voters are from somewhere else, and don't know a singletree from a clove hitch, we think it's important that our candidates have roots -- even if they're grafted.
· The Rugged Individualist Pioneer Example. Never mind that our Colorado forebears expected the federal cavalry to chase out the Indians, that they agitated for and received government subsidies for roads and railroads and silver mining, that they couldn't wait for government-financed irrigation water for their fields that were laid out by government surveyors. None of that matters. They were all rugged individualists who didn't go whining to Washington for help, except when they needed help, of course.
· The Protection of Colorado Resources. All
candidates are for this. However, the tourist industry
considers a river with water in it as a resource --
something people can fish in or raft in, spending money
here in the process. The state's water law consider a river
with water in a glaring waste of a valuable asset, since
the water is not being put to beneficial use.
No
candidate bothers to tell us which view of this resource is
more worthy of protection, but by gum, they're going to
protect it.
· Looking out for Small Business. As a small businessman myself, I can testify from experience that small businesses offer poor pay, long hours and rotten or non-existent benefits. How could encouraging this lunacy ever be construed as good social policy?
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