Centennial nonpartisan charade

Local elections this fall for school boards and municipal offices (the ones that haven't been canceled for lack of interest) occur in a fog of nonpartisan obscurity. In my Denver Post column this week, I likened the voter's dilemma, absent Republican and Democratic tags to help identify the local candidates, to guessing on unlabeled canned goods at the food bank. The column cited Cherry Creek schools and the city of Centennial, where I reside, as typical cases -- but space didn't allow for specifics. So here are a few of them.

The other day in our neighborhood I noticed a block jammed with parked cars. They belonged to guests at a candidate coffee for John Flerlage, the Democrat hoping to unseat Congressman Mike Coffman next year. His banner adorned the home of Centennial Ward III councilman Patrick Anderson, an activist Democrat who was able to get elected in our heavily Republican area because the ballot allows for no party ID.

Anderson's wife is Jennifer Herrera, who ran for Cherry Creek school board in 2007. She was unhappy with me for distributing an email identifying her as a registered Democrat and Jim O'Brien, the eventual winner, as a Republican.

Jennifer Herrera's brother is Justin Herrera, another Democrat who resides at the same address and ran last year for RTD Board -- nonpartisan again, do you start to see a pattern? The union-backed Herrera lost to Republican Jack O'Boyle, and I again did my bit for open government by noting their respective party identities in a mass email.

My popularity with those good folks no doubt sank lower as a result, and it may go lower still with this blog post. But come on, people, what do you have against sunshine? Are you ashamed of your political party? You want an informed electorate, don't you?

The other council seat here in Ward III is held by the ostensibly nonpartisan Rebecca McClellan. She too is an avid Democrat, having been Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman for Arapahoe County in 2008. As McClellan runs for another term this fall, incumbency will be on her side. Republican challenger Cindy Combs will have the handicap of no party labels on the ballot to guide a GOP-heavy electorate in her direction.

One more example from my idealistic little suburb, where "politics were going to be different" according to the civic founders who incorporated us in 2000, and where I once got in hot water even with fellow Republicans (naive souls) for "soiling" the process with one of my who's-who partisan email slates during campaign season...

This example is Centennial Ward I -- a midterm vacancy contest now occurring between Ron Phelps and Vorry Moon. The nonpartisan gag rule under state law prevents voters from readily knowing that Phelps is with the GOP while Moon is a leading Democrat, chairman of his party's organization in House District 37 where Dems are targeting state Rep. Spencer Swalm.

All that voters will know about Vorry Moon is his previous council service in Centennial, prior to losing a second-term bid to Betty Ann Habig in 2007, and that resume' entry with its accompanying name identification gives him an advantage when the low-profile mail ballot comes out next month.

An unfair advantage in the larger scheme of things, it seems to me -- if we really care about the competitive, accountable elections and governance that two-party politics excels at providing.

Constitution? What's that?

We all know that Barack Obama doesn't think much of the Constitution.  And he certainly won't let it get in the way of the government takeover of health care.Courtesy of  Kim Strassel at the WSJ today comes some insightful commentary about what we can now expect from Obama and the merry leftists in Congress. The Baucus Bill has been subject to Congress' death panel and is DOA. Baucus attempted to craft a bipartisan bill that would enjoy a modicum of Republican support, but he ultimately caved to enough liberal demands that it got sufficiently watered down to appeal to precisely nobody. The Republicans find it too costly and pernicious in its penalties and taxes, and the left finds it far to soft on the insurance companies and other villains of the health care industry. Max tried, but in the end he truly made "mischief of one kind...or another" and got promptly "eaten up".

In any event, Strassel makes the very good point that we should all prepare ourselves for a renewed leftward turn in the health care debate as our President caves to the demands of his leftist base:

...Our bipartisan White House grew weary of the bipartisan process and pressured Mr. Baucus to produce. He jettisoned his colleagues and pushed out a product that Messrs. Grassley and Enzi promptly condemned. The White House did such a good job of suggesting that Ms. Snowe was its GOP patsy—a Republican who'd vote for a ham sandwich, if only they asked—that even the miffed Maine senator has stepped back.

The result is two-fold. With no, or little, GOP support, the only way Mr. Baucus can pry his bill out of committee is to allow the left to have its way. The White House knows this, which is why the president—despite seizing on the Baucus legislation in his speech last week—is already abandoning the finance chief and his bill to the tender mercies of West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller and New York's Chuck Schumer. The White House wants a bill, any bill, and this bloc now holds all the votes in committee. Pity Mr. Baucus, who just got used.

Into the hands of Rockefeller and Schumer we fall. And you can bet that what comes now is a highly partisan bill that will attempt the "public option" in one form or another, and a price tag that will be (conservatively) in the Trillion Dollar range. Worse yet, it will be couched in all sorts of creative accounting and political double speak that the public will think its getting steak when it is really horse meat with lots of sauce on it. Those who were gullible enough to elect Mr. Obama may likely be gullible enough to take his latest sleight of hand at face value.

Worse yet, it is apparent that Obama wants a bill -- any bill -- and will do whatever is necessary to force it through, even if it involves using the reconciliation tool that requires just 51 votes instead of the 60 needed to overcome an inevitable Republican filibuster.

What has changed is Mr. Obama's determination to push a bill through, regardless of what his party, or the public, thinks. The White House will make the case to waverers that the political fallout of a health-care failure will be worse than backlash that comes with voting for a bill. Maybe. Behind that is the further threat that Dems will go this alone, via 50-vote reconciliation, if necessary.

Reconciliation was meant to be used only for finance bills, not for momentous, life-altering legislation like major health care reform. The Framers of the Constitution created a system where major political initiatives such as this would be subject to the normal process of debate, with the rights of the minority (in the form of the filibuster) in place. The system of checks and balances was put into place for a reason -- to slow down the system so that radical change would be difficult and would require the support of the minority party.

But no matter. In the power play now going on in Washington, the left wants its way no matter who gets trampled. Obama is already on record as saying that the Constitution "is an imperfect document", and this might as well apply to the rules around health care legislation as well. He, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and the others know best, after all -- and they clearly don't care what the people think or want.

We are in for a rough ride. Keep up the pressure on your local Congressional delegation. The only chance we have is that those in Congress will care more about getting elected than actually reforming health care.

Let's make it clear that an "aye" will result in a "nay" next November.

What the left misses in the health debate: innovation

Here's the most important question related to health care reform: if you were sick with a serious illness, where would you rather be? England, Canada or the United States?It is no accident that people who are seriously ill come from all over the world to seek treatment in the United States. Centers of excellence like the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering, Johns Hopkins and others utilize cutting edge technology and treatment protocols that continually advance the treatment of cancer and other serious problems. They do so with the full participation of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are using research and development to drive innovation. It is the reason that American health care is the most advanced in the world and works miracles on a daily basis. This system works centrally on the profit motive -- something that the left seems to think is a dirty concept. Pharma and biotech companies spend billions on R&D to advance the efficacy of drugs and treatment technology with the promise of a return on their investment. It drives innovation -- and is an aspect of our health care system that has been both misunderstood and demogogued by proponents of national health care. The left -- including our president -- has made villains of the pharmaceutical industry for daring to charge prices that allow them to recoup their massive investments and make a profit. It is as if the left thinks that all this innovation and progress should come for free, or at the very least as a public service. It might work in their ideal vision of how the world works, but it doesn't work in reality.

And herein lies the real issue related to health care reform: the real threat to innovation that makes the American health care system the best in the world. As Rupert Darwell writes today in the Wall Street Journal, what characterizes the National Health Service in Britain is a lack of investment in technology -- something that reflects the fact that the system is based on rationing -- not investment:

The case for ObamaCare, as with the NHS, rests on what might be termed the "lump of health care" fallacy. But in a market-based system triggering one person's contractual rights to health care does not invalidate someone else's health policy. Instead, increased demand for health care incentivizes new drugs, new therapies and better ways of delivering health care. Government-administered systems are so slow and clumsy that they turn the lump of health-care fallacy into a reality. According to the 2002 Wanless report, used by Tony Blair's government to justify a large tax hike to fund the higher spending, the NHS is late to adopt and slow to diffuse new technology. Still, NHS spending more than doubled to £103 billion in 2009-10 from £40 billion in 1999-2000, equivalent to an average growth rate of over 7% a year after inflation.

Darwell also writes that the NHS is inherently "ageist" -- making treatment decisions that expressly deny care to the elderly.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the NHS is institutionally ageist. The elderly have fewer years left to them; why then should they get health-care resources that would benefit a younger person more? An analysis by a senior U.K.-based health-care expert earlier this decade found that in the U.S. health-care spending per capita goes up steeply for the elderly, while the U.K. didn't show the same pattern. The U.K.'s pattern of health-care spending by age had more in common with the former Soviet bloc.

I'm quite certain that nobody in the U.S. wants our health care system to be like the former Soviet Union. But I'm equally certain that those who are promoting a "public option" haven't thought through the long-range ramifications of creating a publicly-financed system. The supporters of "universal health care" are invested in the social justice aspect of the issue -- but they ignore vital economic incentives that have made the U.S. system the best in the world.

Edgar Obama & Charlie McRitter

It's amusing to be a Republican spectator at the feverish Democratic huddle that is Bill Ritter's email list. Day after day, some revved-up copywriter churns out breathless warnings about the sinister threat posed by my side to their side, the dynamic duo of our Governor and our President. Obama hero-worship may be waning in other quarters, but the Ritter campaign still seems to view it as their lifeline for 2010. Reading these bulletins is almost like (and here I date myself) the old ventriloquism act where Edgar "Barack" Bergen threw his voice into the cherubic cheeks of Charlie "Loyal Bill" McCarthy.

My purpose here isn't to debate the merits of what the Ritter campaign is asserting, but merely to marvel with admiration at the strident sycophancy they manage to sustain. Three recent examples...

One from 9/10 entitled "Failing Us All" said in part:

America's broken health care system is failing us all. As President Obama noted last night, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage every day. It could happen to anyone....Thousands of RitterforGovernor.com activists have already emailed their Members of Congress, urging them to rally behind President Obama. But with all the misinformation circulating out there, we must do more to confront the cynics and make our voices heard throughout Colorado.

Earlier this week, the 9/8 dispatch called "A Pep Talk for Colorado's Kids" lamented:

Unfortunately some cynics have decided to use this totally apolitical pep talk to students as an opportunity to gin up fear and anger against the President. With impressively straight faces, extremists like Glenn Beck alleged that the President is trying to "indoctrinate" American children with his political ideology. It's the same folks manufacturing the so-called "birther" controversy, the "death panel" controversy, and every outrageous claim in between. They are dedicated to undermining the President -- no matter what. So I was troubled that some schools here in Colorado gave in to the calls of a very radical fringe by deciding not to allow their students an opportunity to watch the President's important speech in class this morning.

Yup, I was troubled too, Governor. It's gotten even worse than you warned us it would two weeks ago, in an 8/27 message headlined "Trashing Colorado's Progress:"

Our political opponents are courting a radical fringe here in Colorado. One of Governor Ritter's challengers has fully embraced rabidly anti-government "tea parties" and suggested Colorado should reject federal recovery funding -- funding that has already created or saved thousands of jobs in Colorado. Meanwhile another challenger recently dismissed the significance of transitioning to a New Energy Economy in an interview with the Colorado Statesman. He even added that if elected he would throw Governor Ritter's ban on expanding the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site "in the trash," a fringe position which puts him at odds with many in his own party. All this begs the question: what other key accomplishments would our political opponents throw "in the trash" if elected?... One year ago Governor Ritter stood before tens of thousands of Coloradans at the Democratic National Convention... Shortly thereafter Barack Obama took the stage to accept our party's presidential nomination...

"Radical fringe," oooohhh. Doesn't it give you the shivers? But all this does raise (not "beg," thank you) the question: With Obama's poll numbers so low, why does Ritter cling doggedly to his dwindling coattails? Maybe because Ritter's own numbers are low as well. Misery loves company, and besides, what other hero-figure is there for a Democrat in trouble these days? Little Charlie McCarthy had to stay perched on Edgar Bergen's knee and keep mouthing whatever his big pal put forth. It was that or fold up in the vaudeville trunk and go silent altogether.

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck

Polls are showing (and Town Halls and Tea Parties are reinforcing) that America may have finally woken up this summer to the error of its decision to elect Barack Obama and his band of merry socialists. But is it too little, too late?

Sadly, yes.

To those of you who are regretting your decision to put a community organizer into the White House all I can say is -- you blew it.

You ignored the obvious facts about Barack Obama that were there for anyone who would listen. That he is a radical socialist wrapped in a nice package of smooth eloquence. That he associated with a known domestic terrorist with blood on his hands and sat in a hate-spewing church for 20 years. That he studied at the Saul Alinsky institute of hard-ball community activism and believes that America is a flawed nation. That he believes in "change" -- but the kind of change he really wants is of the revolutionary variety based on racial justice. That he is a product of his radical associations with little individual accomplishment outside of his electoral successes. And that he is essentially weak -- unable (or unwilling) to control a radical Congress that wants America to look like France. Obama walked like a socialist, talked like a socialist. Surprise! Obama is a socialist.

Tonight, Barack Obama goes before Congress for yet another high-minded speech on health care -- a "crisis" of his own creation, that he hopes to use to stab the free market for health care (such as it is) in the heart. He will push for a socialized option run by Congress because he believes that government should be running our lives. He will criticize (politely, of course) the opposition for having the temerity to question his goals. He will talk in soaring platitudes about the "historic opportunity" we have to fix a system by further destroying it. It makes no sense to those of us who believe that government destroys everything it touches. But to those who believe that their "social justice" goals can only be solved by forcing government down our throats, government-run health care is the first step toward a new and better America.

Viva la America!

The election results of November, 2008 foreordained this result. Voters decided to put Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Schumer, Boxer and Obama in charge of this nation. They neutered the opposition and gave a potentially filibuster-proof majority to the left. It isn't a monolithic left, fortunately -- and there are some "conservative" Democrats who are giving Pelosi fits. But in the end the numbers will ensure that some form of government-run health care -- with individual mandates, increased regulation and fees on insurers, drug companies, medical device companies and hospitals -- will become law. It pains me to say it but it is true: more government is coming to your physician's office -- along with higher taxes, fees and rules that will govern your personal lives.

As I have said many times before, elections have consequences. The consequence of 2008 will be a tremendous amount of damage to our country. We can only hope that in 2010 and 2012 voters will restore balance in Washington and vote to limit the size and scope of government. It is the only hope we now have to keep this great country free.