Hick's weakness shows again

"Thank you, Miss Marie, that was beautiful. And now, since it's important to honor our country and our flag on such an occasion as this, I invite all of you to stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance." That's what Mayor John Hickenlooper could have said, but didn't, when the self-aggrandizing singer "switcheroo'd" her political message song for the national anthem on July 1. When I was Senate President in 2003-2005, presiding daily over formal ceremonies much like the Mayor's State of the State, I wouldn't have hesitated a heartbeat before reclaiming control of the proceedings with some such polite but firm words as those, had someone tried to hijack the occasion as Rene Marie did.

But not only did Hick assert no such leadership in the moment, it clearly never even occurred to him that he should have, judging from his clueless, shrugging comments to the media later on Tuesday. (Dave Logan on KOA was one recipient of those that I know of; there may have been others.)

Not until the anthem affair became a local and national storm did the Mayor finally muster up some "anger" a day later. Even then it seemed to be more about the embarrassment of finding himself out of step with an aroused public, than about the "disrespect" (Gov. Ritter's word on KOA Wednesday morning, and a good one) shown by Marie to America itself.

This blunder by Hickenlooper is much like the mess he made of Christmas a couple of years ago -- initially announcing that Yule greetings would no longer appear on the lighted City and County Building, then hastily reversing himself after an outcry arose.

Hick has shown us once again that under the boyish exterior he's a doctrinaire liberal, and in cultural matters a rather leftish one. Likable and capable as he is, the man is instinctively captive to PC globalism and secularism, tone-deaf to the deeply held patriotic and religious beliefs of most Americans.

As for Rene Marie, the only time I ever heard, or heard of, her until this week was when she performed at the Colorado Prayer Luncheon last May. She talked the Christian talk quitely glibly on that occasion, but we now know her beliefs have the same anti-American slant as those of Jeremiah Wright.

At the luncheon she sang (and, significantly, modified on the fly) Reinhold Niebuhr's famous Serenity Prayer. You know the one: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."

In this instance neither the weak-kneed mayor nor his headstrong guest lived up to those sentiments (which are as much a personal code of behavior as they are a petition for divine help). After Marie rudely arrogated to herself the role of change agent, Hickenlooper was timid and passive when he could have courageously taken command. Nor did either have the wisdom to even realize how badly they both had disgraced themselves.

Ritter strikes out on energy

(Denver Post, July 6) Where is “Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson when we need him? Two prehistoric inventors stand before the tribal elders, beaming proudly. Og has discovered fire, and Zor has invented the wheel. But the ruling Democrats turn thumbs down. “Begone,” they order. “No good will come of those things.” I exaggerate, of course. The elders would decree taxes and regulation, not a ban. Dems aren’t cavemen, after all. Yet if you follow the logic of liberals like Bill Ritter, we’re headed for a future with less fire and fewer wheels. Their distaste for the obvious energy sources that keep America rolling and the lights on is that intense.

Following a sweaty commute on Gov. Ritter’s bike-to-work plan, you can spend the day in one of Mayor Hickenlooper’s minimally air-conditioned office buildings. After dining at ethanol-inflated food prices that evening, you can join our green leaders in one of their voluntary switchoffs, a darken-the-city display of pity for the planet.

That’s the sacrificial approach, the future as guilt trip. Barack Obama has warned: “We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times, and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.” As the loyal convention host for Obama, Ritter is in a sweat himself over those bad ol’ fossil fuels. Let’s count the ways:

With gas prices at $4 and climbing, the governor wants a huge tax increase on Colorado oil and gas production. That’s one. His Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is set to impose new rules that will make it even harder to get energy out of the ground. That’s two. And he’s saying no, in concert with Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar and Senate candidate Mark Udall, to developing our oil shale. That’s three, an energy policy strikeout.

Everyone knows the alternative-energy litany. “Wind, solar, biomass, hydro,” we chant. “Fuel cells, perpetual motion, Kryptonite,” we add in hope of an extra indulgence from the Gaia priests. I have nothing against all that stuff (though I’ve sometimes rooted for Lex Luthor against Superman). It’s simply a matter of cost-benefit and timelines. That stuff is tomorrow, whereas oil and gas – and nuclear, which Ritter sidestepped on "Meet the Press" last week – are today, if Colorado keeps its backbone.

Two short summers ago, Bill Ritter took the state by storm as a pro-business Democrat. Taxpayers and consumers soon learned otherwise. Part of his soul is owned by the unions and the rest by Earth First. How else explain his ballot proposal to more than double the severance tax on petroleum, a mainstay of our state’s economy both in employment and at the pump?

The tax hike takes a divide-and-conquer angle by targeting a single industry which many currently scapegoat, and proponents say it would boost business in general by boosting higher education.

But chambers of commerce have seen through the ruse and refused their support, while university presidents are lukewarm. Their need is operating funds, not the scholarships that Ritter is vaguely promising. Nor can state bureaucrats dispel his vagueness without violating campaign finance laws.

Bottom line: the severance tax petition looks doomed with a month to go; don’t waste your time signing. Take time instead to attend one of the commission hearings on those draft regs to impede oil and gas drilling with more red tape. Big turnouts so far indicate significant citizen pushback.

Perhaps Democratic tribal elders won’t get their way after all. The dread of environmental guru Amory Lovins that it would be “disastrous for us to discover the source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it,” may not prevail. Most of us, you see, really want to keep the fires burning and the wheels turning.

Are tax dollars pushing tax hike?

If Douglas Bruce authored a ballot initiative that simply said, "Taxes shall be reduced by $300 million a year" but couldn't explain which programs should be eliminated or scaled back, pundits would ridicule his half-baked scheme and scold him for wasting the public's time. That's the treatment Gov. Bill Ritter should be receiving for his hastily proposed $300 million oil and gas tax increase - money to be showered on various programs with few specific instructions.

Perhaps because he's the Governor, some editorialists have suggested that state bureaucrats should flesh out the details of his proposal, specifically his vainglorious "Colorado Promise" college scholarships.

There's just one problem: state law frowns on commandeering government workers at taxpayer expense to do homework for a ballot campaign that hasn't even qualified for the ballot, much less been approved by voters.

After the Governor changed his tune about how the scholarships would work and whom they would benefit, higher ed chief David Skaggs, the former Boulder congressman, rode to the rescue:

"[T]he Colorado Commission on Higher Education instructed staff . . . to prepare recommended policies to implement the provisions of the scholarship ballot measure and to have them ready for the commission to consider at its next meeting, July 10," Skaggs wrote in a letter to the editor.

Didn't these state staffers have any work to do before the Governor decided to play Santa Claus to college students by raising taxes on oil and gas? If not, then perhaps he could create a few scholarships simply by eliminating unnecessary bureaucrats in higher ed.

Both Denver dailies have correctly noted that Ritter's ballot initiative is in trouble without more specific detail, but it is not proper for state employees to develop those details for the campaign.

Colorado Revised Statues (1-45-117) allow government employees to "respond to questions" but they may not spend "more than fifty dollars of public moneys in the form of letters, telephone calls, or other activities incidental to expressing his or her opinion on any such issue."

No doubt, Gov. Ritter and Mr. Skaggs will contend they are simply asking state staffers to answer questions - not using them to garner support for the initiative. But these are not technical questions, like "Will the scholarships come in the form of a reimbursement or as a credit against tuition?" These are essential policy decisions, such as "How much will the scholarships be worth?" and "Who will be eligible?"

Without these specific details - which the Governor and other proponents failed to provide - the tax increase and the Governor's vanity scholarship program are dead in the water.

Still, the courts have ruled that the purpose of the aforementioned law "is to prohibit the state government and its officials from spending public funds to influence the outcome of campaigns for political office or ballot issues."

Another court case said that even an informational "brochure mailed by (a government entity) explaining proposed improvements violated the law because it did not present arguments for and against."

On June 18, I filed an open records request to find out exactly how much homework higher ed officials and the Governor's staff are providing for the ballot initiative. Mr. Skaggs responded that his staff could not produce this material within three working days "without substantially interfering with the staff's obligation to perform other public service responsibilities."

While I await his final response, I will contemplate how it is that his staff can develop, almost from scratch, a $130 million scholarship program without compromising "the staff's obligation to perform other public service responsibilities."

Andrews does a Tocqueville

When we French need insights into American society, we can profitably peruse French historian Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1835 classic, Democracy in America. If Coloradans, and all Americans for that matter, need to find out more about moral, economic, and sociological trends in Europe today before they make a choice in November’s American presidential and congressional elections, they can confidently expect guidance from former Colorado Senate President John Andrews’ discerning comments on the subject following his recent trip there. In his latest Denver Post column, John points out at least nine European idiosyncrasies which accurately encapsulate the Old Continent’s chronic deficiencies:

- Weariness - Restricted outlook - Fewer children - Secularism - Sluggish economies - Heavy taxes - Burdensome bureaucracies - Weak defenses - Diminished freedom and responsibility

These perversions have one thing in common: The kind of big-government welfarism that Barack Obama is ominously advocating for America as the Democrat Party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

America would ultimately be sinning against Providence if it were to follow Old Europe’s lead down the primrose path to the kind of despotism Tocqueville so perceptively warned democratic nations against a century and a half ago. As Mr. Andrews so lyrically and ringingly puts it in his column, “ A torn and tired world needs the sword of [American] vigilance and the flame of [American] idealism.”

Note: “Paoli” is the pen name, er, nom de plume, of our French correspondent. Monsieur is a close student of European and US politics, a onetime exchange student in Colorado and a well-wisher to us Americans. He informs us the original Pasquale Paoli, 1725-1807, was the George Washington of Corsica.

I'll be a steward of freedom

The people no longer know what Republicans stand for. Consequently, the people no longer stand with Republicans on Election Day. Editor: Such was the blunt diagnosis of Colorado GOP woes by a bold new voice in state party politics, Leondray Gholston of Aurora. He is a businessman, Navy veteran, Catholic layman, father of seven, and former chairman of the Colorado Black Republican Forum. As a late entry to the Republican National Committeeman race at the State Assembly on May 31, Leondray upset popular conservative state Sen. Dave Schultheis and scored a respectable second to former Treasurer Mark Hillman. The final numbers were 55% to 26% to 19%. His speech, which sounded even better in the hall than it reads here, left no doubt that more will be heard from this determined young man. Here it is:

Why I am running for national committeeman? Because freedom requires stewardship. Our Republican Party is the party of freedom.

We are a freedom-granting and liberty-loving people. From emancipation to the liberation of Kuwait, civil rights to the ouster of the Taliban, the party of Lincoln and Reagan has championed freedom.

At our core, the pillars of the Grand Old Party are to:

** Strengthen the free enterprise system,

** Optimize government to the lowest practical level,

** Advance fiscal responsibility, and

** Protect the rights of the individual.

Can there be any cause more noble or worthy of our efforts?

Each of these planks has a direct corollary in freedom. Keeping government out of our pockets, away from our opportunities, and from trampling our rights have always been the hallmarks of the GOP.

Of late and especially in Colorado, we have seen a dramatic reversal of fortune. Nearly everything we once were politically has been washed away. One has to question why this has happened.

I believe… it is because we have lost sight of our most sacred charge, trust, and charter, that being to defend and extend freedom we have allowed ourselves to become the “anti” party. The people no longer associate us with liberty. The people no longer know what Republicans stand for. Consequently, the people no longer stand with Republicans on Election Day. We must regain our true title and mission as the defenders and extenders of freedom

So what does this have to do with National Committeeman? Many consider this office to be largely honorary and at its best a fundraiser.

I see this post as an opportunity to lead!

If we as a party are to return to our recent and rightful position of dominance at the ballot box, we must have leaders in and leadership from every position. The Colorado National Committeeman is no exception.

It is this leadership that must find a solution for funding every race. There are about 1.1 million registered Republicans in Colorado. If each of us were to write a check every 1st of January for a whopping $50, our coffers will burst to the tune of 110 million dollars per election cycle.

Imagine as a party being able to provide $12 million for US Senate races and $2.5 million per US House race. Now imagine $32 million for the election of Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer and Attorney General.

Picture Colorado Republicans challenging every state senate and state house seat with $500,000 and $200,000 respectively. This scenario is within our capability. The price tag… $50 a year and a love of freedom.

We must choose today a new path, a path that ever points to liberty. There is and of right should be no other choice.

Now is the time for leadership. Now is the time for vision. Now is the time for the drive to make that vision, our reality.

Every position in our party must be filled by a leader. A leader that understands our ultimate objective, above raising money or even beating the democrats, is to extend freedom.

A free society requires a constitutional, just, and limited government, a strong defense, and an educated public. As your national committeeman I will be a steward of freedom. Armed with this message of freedom I will work to fill our coffers, increase republican registration, and shape the party of tomorrow.

I am Leondray Gholston, I ask for your vote and support. May God bless you, this assembly, and our beloved Republic.