Bob Nemanich's Comments

A return to regular blogging and what is this Occupy all about

2011-11-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

Dysfunctional governance 2009-2011

Depressed Malaise or was it simply writer's block?
I am reconstituting my bi-weekly (or so) blog because now there really is something to say. Certainly there is the upcoming Presidential race, but until recently there wasn't much to say but be more disappointed. There has been little Change and Hope fades each day the Lessor Depression sucks the economic life out of the society. Yet there appears to be a few flickers from the President, some movement or how about this word---change instead of obstruction or legislative gridlock. Could it be the President appears to be moving off his namby-pamby compromise at all costs approach. Is that because he has rid himself of the Clintonites like Rahm Emanual or Larry Sumners. He still has Bill Daley (the banker) but I hear also he is is being pushed aside---meaning Obama's Clinton-Triangulation Advisers who have shown to provide incorrect advice are fading.

Finally truly the ones who we have been waiting for!
Two, externally there is a second, unexpected, summer spawned, grass roots uprising currently flooding America's political landscape. This time however pouring in from the unaffiliated-Independent center, made up of mostly under 35 year-old's, though significantly partnered by economically disaffected Baby Boomers. The movement has already changed the national narrative running away from government austerity beyond the bone to jobs, debt forgiveness, corporate crooks and everything real about the Lessor Depression's economic and social injustices---It is called "OCCUPY".

First Occupy Protest Sept 17th

Many of you, or possibly just a few, might be wondering what is this "OCCUPY" thing all about. Who are they? What are they actually doing? What are their aims? Their plans or agenda's? It this thing for real or another front group taking advantage of current events? Are those leading this populist grass roots cause, radicals, anarchists or worse, something we don't know? These are merely a few common questions because I know in that over the last month a number of seemingly well-informed progressives and Democratic party leaders and party activists have personally asked me about it in person or on Facebook. My question to you is, if you don't know what "MIC CHECK...MIC CHECK" is in Occupy's context you really don't know what Occupy really is all about. After reading this long blog post go and give yourself permission and get your own first-person knowledge. It truly is an extraordinary and politically spiritual phenomena. Further you are not going to get a fair or informed opinion about what Occupy is or the implications the movement holds for your future from the mainstream media or even from cable news---except for Obermann on one of those 100 numbered channels.

To start this is not your cookie-cutter political movement; it isn't crowds of "verticals"—that is, the sort of people who possess the idea of political action is to have followers march around with professionally made signs under the control of one or another in a superficial top-down protest movement. Across America and throughout the globe Occupy activists are mostly "horizontal" meaning people who are far more independent, sympathetic with anarchist principles towards organization, holding to non-hierarchical forms of direct democracy, and direct action---think the power of a town hall or church congregational meeting or politically what constitutes the caucus process in Colorado or Iowa. For many especially in today's corporatist-styled, hierarchical oriented social organizing paradigm think, a horizontal or flat amorphous model is difficult to conceive.

Just a few years back

Initially I had many of the same questions whether this seemingly spontaneous, political thing was all about, especially after the summer of 2009, when something called the Tea Party suddenly erupted onto the political landscape. I once described the Tea Party as like a flood of dandelions suddenly invading a once pristine grass lawn. Dandelions are voracious invasive species, originally brought over with the Pilgrims so they can make a salad. Ever eat a dandelion? It is worse than arugula, Dandelions are maddening, they have a tap root that dives up to a foot deep into your lawn, spreads its leaves at the base blocking out sunlight to adjacent plants, and thereby sucking in all the nutrients for itself at the expense of the surrounding species. Dandelions don't share. Once they flower things really get nasty in that if the flower is cut off, over night it quickly re-sprouts another fully germinated flower to spread its thousands of seeds to the vicinity. Getting rid of them is really a chore. You have to pry out the tap root with a special tool and also spread chemical warfare about to choke off anymore off-springs.

What we witnessed in 2010 was the their full flowering in the American political landscape where Tea Party candidates won scores of unexpected Congressional and State Races and have thrown the Republican Party into the radical reactionary right zone. The good news is that this is beginning to come to an end where the electorate, meaning the unaffiliated independents and some moderate Republicans are now expressing total displeasure for the Republican Congress. a recent poll by PPP states that:

Over the last few weeks national polling has increasingly showed House Democrats recovering from their defeat in 2010 and taking the lead back on the generic House ballot. An October 10th Reuters survey showed Democrats ahead 48-40 and an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll the same day found Democrats with a 45-41 advantage.

The national numbers point to the possibility for Democrats to reclaim a majority in the House next year, and a series of polls conducted by PPP in 12 individual Congressional districts last week backs up what the national numbers are showing.

The 12 districts we polled are all in states where redistricting has already occurred- Arkansas, California, Illinois, and Wisconsin. And in all 12 we found the same thing- voters would like to replace the Republican incumbent with someone else, and for the most part the new GOP House majority is proving to be extremely unpopular.

Beck loving Tea Bagger 2009

The Tea Party was originally identified as a reactionary political movement that manipulated a minority political opportunity and manufactured it into a psuedo-grass roots movement through an astute operative named Dick Armey. The former Texan Congressman, now political lobbyist and consultant funded by billionaire Koch Brothers and friends, partnered with FOX News changed the political landscape overnight nine months after Obama's sweeping political victory. The opportunity was made possible by two things; the fact that the Obama Presidency had miscalculated their own political strategy in trying to Triangulate with the Republican and conservative Democratic Congress, (Clinton style with Clinton folks) and two, the fact that the Lessor Depression had created such angst and confusion within the electorate. Armey prayed on unspoken racial bias as in the birthers, national debt fear and old class divisions, especially in the ex-urban and rural districts. That was then, this is now.

Adbuster's Mag Cover

Now for the rest of Occupy's story not told by the news
So what is this OCCUPY thing all about. A short history that actually few people bother to look up is that Occupy Wall Street and its U.S. and global off-shoots began when a Canadian anti-consumerist magazine called Adbusters. It is described as an anti-capitalist or opposed to capitalism and publishes a reader-supported, advertising-free activist magazine with an estimated international circulation of 120,000 that is devoted to challenging consumerism. In early June 2011 Adbusters registered a domain name OccupyWallsteet.org and a month later in July 2011 called for a peaceful demonstration to occupy Wall Street. On August 2nd the night of the Debt-Ceiling Deadline in Congress two small groups ("New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts" and a collection strategizing for Occupy Wall Street including including the NYC General Assembly and U.S. Day of Rage. The groups joined in a demonstration at the old Merrill Lynch "Charging Bull" sculpture, which stands in Lower Manhattan. After the demonstration the two groups gathered into working committees to plan for the September 17th event. Later in August the hactivist group called Anonymous encouraged its followers to join the developing September 17th Occupy Wall Street Event.

Occupy Poster for Sept 17th

On Saturday, September 17th, Occupy Wall Street gathered with an estimated 1000 persons. (NYPD) tried to prohibit protesters from erecting tents, citing loitering ordinances to no avail. Protesters marched up and down Wall Street while actress and comedienne Roseanne Barr addressed the protesters. Prior to the protest's beginning on September 17, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a press conference,

"People have a right to protest, and if they want to protest, we'll be happy to make sure they have locations to do it."

Occupy Wall St Sept 17th

Although it was originally proposed by Adbusters magazine, the demonstration is leaderless.The protests have brought together people of many political positions. Professor Dorian Warren from Columbia University has described the movement as the first anti-authoritarian populist movement in the United States. A report in CNN said that protesters "got really lucky" when gathering at Zuccotti Park since it was private property and police could not legally force them to move off of it; in contrast, police have authority to remove protesters without permits from city parks. Originally the protests were compared to "the movements that sprang up against corporate globalization at the end of 1990s, most visibly at the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle". A significant part of the protest is the use of the slogan, "We are the 99%," which was partly intended as a protest of recent trends regarding increases in the share of annual total income going to the top 1% of income earners in the United States.

That is surface story but "the rest of the story" was published in Naked Capitialism by David Graeber; here is an excerpt:

So we gathered up a few obvious horizontals and formed a circle, and tried to get everyone else to join us. Almost immediately people appeared from the main rally to disrupt it, calling us back with promises that a real democratic forum would soon break out on the podium. We complied. It didn’t happen. My Greek friend made an impassioned speech and was effectively shooed off the stage. There were insults and vituperation's. After about an hour of drama, we formed the circle again, and this time, almost everyone abandoned the rally and come over to our side. We created a decision-making process (we would operate by modified consensus) broke out into working groups (outreach, action, facilitation) and then reassembled to allow each group to report its collective decisions, and set up times for new meetings of both the smaller and larger groups. It was difficult to figure out what to do since we only had six weeks, not nearly enough time to plan a major action, let alone bus in the thousands of people that would be required to actually shut down Wall Street—and anyway we couldn’t shut down Wall Street on the appointed day, since September 17, the day Adbuster's had been advertising, was a Saturday. We also had no money of any kind.

Two days later, at the Outreach meeting we were brainstorming what to put on our first flyer. Adbusters’ idea had been that we focus on “one key demand.” This was a brilliant idea from a marketing perspective, but from an organizing perspective, it made no sense at all. We put that one aside almost immediately. There were much more fundamental questions to be hashed out. Like: who were we? Who did want to appeal to? Who did we represent? Someone—this time I remember quite clearly it was me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a half dozen others had equally strong memories of being the first to come up with it—suggested, “well, why not call ourselves ‘the 99%’? If 1% of the population have ended up with all the benefits of the last 10 years of economic growth, control the wealth, own the politicians… why not just say we’re everybody else?” The Spanish couple quickly began to lay out a “We Are the 99%” pamphlet, and we started brainstorming ways to print and distribute it for free.

Over the next few weeks a plan began to take shape. The core of the emerging group, which began to meet regularly in Tompkins Square park, were very young people who had cut their activist teeth on the Bloombergville encampment outside City Hall earlier in the summer; aside from that there was a smattering of activists who had been connected to the Global Justice movement with skills to share (one or two of whom I had to drag out of effective retirement), and, as mentioned a number of New Yorkers originally from Greece, Spain, even Tunisia, with knowledge and connections with those who were, or had been, involved in occupations there. We quickly decided that what we really wanted to do was something like had already been accomplished in Athens, Barcelona, or Madrid: occupy a public space to create a New York General Assembly, a body that could act as a model of genuine, direct democracy to contrapose to the corrupt charade presented to us as “democracy” by the US government. [emphasis added] The Wall Street action would be a stepping-stone. Still, it was almost impossible to predict what would really happen on the 17th. There were supposed to be 90,000 people following us on the internet. Adbusters had called for 20,000 to fill the streets. That obviously wasn’t going to happen. But how many would really show up? Especially since we didn't have money or time to organize buses. What’s more, we were keenly aware that the NYPD numbered close to 40,000; Wall Street was, in fact, probably the single most heavily policed public space on the face of Planet Earth. To be perfectly honest, as one of the old-timers scrambling to organize medical and legal trainings, lessons on how to organize affinity groups and do non-violent civil disobedience, seminars on how to facilitate meetings and the like, for most of us, the greatest concern during those hectic weeks was how to ensure the initial event wouldn’t turn out a total fiasco, with all the enthusiastic young people immediately beaten, arrested, and psychologically traumatized as the media, as usual, simply looked the other way. We’d certainly seen it happen before.

This time it didn’t. True, there were all the predictable conflicts. Most of New York’s grumpier hard-core anarchists refused to join in, and mocked us from the sidelines as reformist; meanwhile, the more open, “small-a” anarchists, who had been largely responsible for organizing the facilitation and trainings, battled the verticals in the group to ensure that we did not institute anything that could become a formal leadership structure, such as police liaisons or marshals. There were also bitter battles over the web page, as well as minor crises over the participation of various fringe groups, ranging from followers of Lyndon LaRouche to one woman from a mysterious group that called itself US Day of Rage, and who many sometimes suspected might not have any other members, who systematically blocked any attempt to reach out to unions because she felt we should be able to attract dissident Tea Partiers. On September 17th itself, I was troubled at first by the fact that only a few hundred people seemed to have shown up. What’s more the spot we’d chosen for our General Assembly, a plaza outside Citibank, had been shut down by the city and surrounded by high fences. The tactical committee however had scouted out other possible locations, and distributed maps: around 3 PM, word went around we were moving to location #5—Zuccotti Park—and by the time we got there, I realized we were surrounded by at least two thousand people.

Occupy Sites Oct 4

Much has happened since that mid-autumn weekend in New York City. Neutral Wikipedia states that there are over 600 communities in the U.S. alone that possess some form of chapter representing Occupy. Internationally Wikipedia estimates that there are protests in 951 cities and 82 countries. Occupy Meetup states there are 2363 communities worldwide. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com fame, the statistical political and baseball blogger now with the New York Times estimates (October 27th blog entry) that there is a signficant presence 150 cities in the U.S ---including Colorado Springs, CO. Last Saturday, October 22nd it can be documented that 70,000 persons in the U.S. took an active role in an Occupy protest.

It is now 6 weeks since the 1000 or so people descended upon Zuccotti Park and the biggest impact is that it has single handily changed the national narrative from one continued government cuts and no tax increases even for the richest among us to of jobs, jobs, jobs and economic and social justice. Think Progess published a report on October 20th demonstrating the dramatic turnout in the media mentions between debt and jobs from the end of July to mid October. Think Progress:

Correlating in part economic policymakers' failure to address the economy with the news media's failure to cover the unemployment crisis, Think Progress observed how cable news coverage of the national debt at the end of July towered over any stories about jobs. Tracking CNN, MSNBC and Fox, Think Progress found 7,583 mentions of the word "debt," compared to 427 mentions of "unemployment" on all three networks combined.

With the debt ceiling debates behind the country and thanks partly to the pressure being brought upon politicians and the media by the 99 Percent Movement and the occupations taking place all over the country, it looks as if the press is finally focusing on the jobs crisis and the behavior of Wall Street instead. A ThinkProgress review of the same three networks between Oct. 10 and Oct. 16 finds that the word “debt” only netted 398 mentions, while “occupy” grabbed 1,278, Wall Street netted 2,378, and jobs got 2,738:

When it comes to the perceived social inequity that drives the Occupy Wall Street movement, most social media users blame the government, with many also casting responsibility on President Barack Obama and capitalism, according to NM Incite. The analytics firm looked at at 12,409 tweets with the hashtag #OccupyWallstreet from Oct. 6 to Oct. 12 to see what's driving the conversation. Here's what they found:

General support for the cause was the most prevalent theme, comprising 22 percent of all #OccupyWallStreet tweets. However, 11 percent of tweets used the hashtag to voice their complaints against the movement.The majority of social media users indicate they feel the government is responsible for social inequity, although many point to the president and capitalism as other sources of the problem.

Fnding's from Web analytic's company NM Incite and Think Progress, tracking "Occupy Wall Street" in blogs, boards, groups, videos and images, NM Incite registered a drastic spike on Oct. 6, with 13,133 messages across Internet forums on that day. As the chart below reveals, a comparable spike occurred on he following Monday, Oct. 10, accompanying news that GOP candidate Buddy Roemer and Ben &; Jerry's Ice Cream stated support for the movement.

The reactionary Right reacts to direct democracy and the changing of their narrative

Cantor crying 'Mob'

All this underscores the threat that OCCUPY now poses to the establishment within the American Society, be it the government, the current power within the political parties, external political forces outside the political elite structure and especially the ex-officio political powers within the corporate world---namely the financial and banking sector. This is why the verbal attacks from numerous points on the establishment defender front, be it from elected officials, (Majority Leader Cantor calling Occupy a 'Mob'), or Rep King (R-NY) calling them a 'Rag Tag Mob and we can't let them get started'. But the propaganda smearing runs the gambit from the defenders of the status quo. Here are but a few: The fringe, lunatics, Unabombers, petulant little children, don't know what they want, Socialists, Marxists, Anarchists, anti-capitalists, Nazi's ,anti-Semitics don't pay taxes, not diverse enough, it is astro-turf, supported by Iran and Chavez, they don't shower and support the 53%'ers not the 99%'ers!

Fox News flashing Lunatics graphic

10/18/11: Protesters are "The Fringe" and "Lunatics" using a constructed flawed polling method Fox's Doug Schoen Claimed Occupy Wall Street Movement "Reflects Values That Are Dangerously Out Of Touch With The Broad Mass Of The American People."
10/18/11: Fox News' Fox & Friends, New York Post columnistMichael Goodwin said that Occupy Wall Street is a "socialist movement designed to destroy capitalism."
10/17/11: Fox News' Happening Now,co-host Jenna Lee quoted her guest, Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino, as calling the protests a "Marxist epicenter." Gasparino went on to repeatedly call the protesters "Marxist" and later called them "anti-American" and said the protests are becoming "increasingly violent."
10/17/11: From an Ace of Spades HQ post titled "Obama to Embrace Anti-Semitic 'Occupy' Movement":
10/16/11 CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, Wall StreetJournal columnist and editor Bret Stephens said the Occupy Wall Street protests are "not populism -- this is, maybe, anarchism or something entirely different."
10/15/11: Fox Nation, blogger Jim Hoft, and Glenn Beck's site The Blaze all hyped the American Nazi Party's announcement of support for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
10/14/11: RedState, Erick Erickson wrote: "We shouldn't let unwashed hippies be the only people [the unemployed] hear speaking to their concerns. ... Most of the common ground with most of these damn dirty communists is superficial."
10/14/11: Washington Timescolumn, Ted Nugent called the Occupy Wall Street protesters "hygiene-challenged, uber-lefty America-haters" and "[s]tinky hippies."
10/14/11: WashingtonTimes column, Ted Nugent derided the Occupy Wall Street protesters as"useful idiots" and "softheaded numskulls," and claimed that the movement is "nothing more than anti-American socialism on parade."
10/13/11: The Blaze promoted "abudding movement called 'I am the 53%' " whose followers, it claimed, "are not 'wealthy' people ... but they do not blame 'Wall Street.' " The post went on to claim that the "53%-ers feel a common bond with other responsible/self-sufficient citizens. They also wear their successes and failures with honor."
10/12/11: Fox News' Special Report, host Bret Baier claimed that the protests had "elicit[ed] support" from Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei.
10/11/11: Fox News' Fox& Friends, Kilmeade claimed Occupy Wall Street protesters "sit in their own squalor all day."
10/11/11: Fox News Special Edition of Special Report, Bret Baier claimed that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez "threw his support behind protesters" at Occupy Wall Street
10/11/11: Fox & Friends Morning Co-host Steve Doocy concluded the segment by citing a New York Post article to claim that the "number one reason people are -- you know the crowd is growing -- number one reason people are going to this thing: food, there is free food for everybody."
10/11/11: The Rush Limbaugh Show: Limbaugh Speculates About "Anti-Semitic Code" In Phrases Like "We Are The 99 Percent" And "Occupy Wall Street."
10/11/11: Fox &Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade hyped conservativecommentator Erick Erickson's counter protest, We are the 53 percent that actually pay our taxes and the protests are costing us millions."
10/11/11: Fox News' Fox & Friends, theco-hosts hyped Erickson's "53 percent"site. Kilmeade claimed the people posting to the 53 percent site "have jobs, and they're trying to earn a living," in contrast to the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who "sit in their own squalor all day."
10/10/11: Fox News' Your World, Fox News contributorMonica Crowley called the protesters "useful idiots who probably haven't paid much in taxes their whole life, have no concept -- and all they know is, 'Oh, profit is a four-letter word, corporations and rich folks -- millionaires and billionaires are evil, they need to be taxed more.' As if they don't pay enough."
10/10/11 Fox News' Your World, guest host Eric Bolling hosted syndicated columnist Star Parker, Bolling introduced the segment by claiming that the protesters "do seem like petulant little children ... how about going out and trying to find a job instead?"
10/10/11: Rush Limbaugh on his radio show, called the protesters "pure, genuine parasites" and said many are "bored trust fund kids."
10/08/11 Fox'sTrotta On Occupy Wall Street Website: "What You Will Read Is The Ravings Of What Sounds Like The Unabomber."
10/07/11: The Daily Caller published a story claimingto show that "a liberal organizer" said he "paid some Hispanics to attend 'Occupy DC' protests."
10/06/11: Fox News' Fox & Friends, Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. said of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, "We basically have the Little Rascals gone camping down in downtown Manhattan."
10/05/11: RedState, CNN contributor Erick Erickson wrote: hey are claiming to be the "99%" against the evil 1% of rich people who work on Wall Street. They are posting pictures to a website holding up their sob stories. Some are terribly tragic, but most? Boo-freakin'-hoo. Life is not, never has been, and never will be fair. n fact, I'm one of the 53% -- the 53% of Americans subsidizing these people so they can go hang out on Wall Street to complain. Get a job hippies!
10/04/11: Fox News' America's Newsroom, StephenHayes, a Fox News contributor and senior writer for The Weekly Standard, said of the Occupy Wall Street protests, "This is not going to amount to any kind of a serious movement."
10/04/11: DailyCaller, Michelle Malkin, published an article titled, "99% what? 'Occupy Wall Street' organizers look for minorities." The article claimed "photos and videos" of protesters "indicate they suffer from a serious lack of diversity, saying, "When Occupy Wall Street activists call themselves the '99 percent,' it turns out they mean 99 percent non-diverse."
10/04/11: Fox News' Fox &Friends, Kilmeade mocked the Wall Street protesters, claiming: Do you remember during the Bush years around 2004, 2005, the anarchists would just show up at all the G7 meetings? Lot of young people, mostly European, they would show up. This looks [like] the same thing and the same group of people who have one thing in common, they choose not to shower much.
10/03/11: Fox News' Fox & Friends, FoxNews legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. attacked the Occupy Wall Street protesters, claiming, "Clearly, I would think these folks are deluded in a lot of ways and probably provide the best argument for national service for 18-year-olds that we have ever seen."
09/30/11: Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News producerJesse Watters said of the protests: "I think if you put every single left-wing cause into a blender and hit power this is the sludge you'd get. And it's basically anti-capitalism.
09/30/11: Fox News' Hannity, FoxNews host Kimberly Guilfoyle said of the protests: "It's like Woodstock meets Burning Man meets people with absolutely no purpose or focus in life. No wonder, they have nothing but free time to be down there.

Who are they really?
Here is the problem for all these smears thrown wildly against the wall as if something was going to stick. None of it was actually true and worse, a researcher approached Occupy Wall Street to perform a survey of its following. City University of New York sociology professor the Héctor Codero-Guzmán, PhD conducted, and wrote a peer-review academicpaper where he used visitors to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s website (http://www.occupywallst.org/) on October 5th. The paper was published online on the Occupy Wall Street website on Wednesday October 19, 2011 concluded the following:

Income

>$49,999	>$24,999	$25,000-49,999	$50,000-74,999	$75,000-149,999	<$150,000
71.5%	47.5%	24%	15.4%	11.1%	2.0%

Age

18-34 yrs old	35-44 yrs old	45-65 yrs old	< 66 yrs old
64.2%	15%	20%	2%

Employment

Employed	Unemployed	Employed Full Time	Employed Part Time	Enrolled in School
71%	28%	50.4%	20.4%	26.7%

Political Affiliation

Independent/Unaffiliated	Democratic	Republican
70%	27.3%	2.4%

Education

Some College +	Graduate Degree	Some Graduate	College Degree	No Degree	H School
92.1%	21.5%	8.2%	35%	27.4%	7.9%

Gender and Ethnicity

Male Female	White	African-Am	Hispanic	Asian-Am	Mixed	Other
67.1% 39.9%	81.3%	1.3%	7.7%	3.2%	2.4%	3.0%

This was of course the first time anyone published anything but anecdotal opinion as to the make up of Occupy Wall Street or any other community Occupy protest site. Dr. Codero-Guzmán's summary stated that this was a highly educated concentration of persons identifying with a social-political cause, underscored by two age demographics that two-thirds were made up of individuals under the age of 35 and one-fifth comprising those over the age of 45, coincidentally both age groups more adversely affected by unemployment by the Lessor Depression, yet only 13% state they were currently unemployed. Furthermore the weighted gender demographic also underscores the segment of society more affected by the unemployment by the Lessor Depression.

General Assembly in Colorado Springs

What surprised him the most was how highly educated the sample was and how many were making less than $25,000 and the fact that a 28% of the sample were also making over $50,000. Just over one-in-ten were making over $75,000 and 2% making over 150,000. Finally the sample is mostly composed of political independents who are unaffiliated and possibly novices or non participates. And yet it truly is a grass roots political movement. Regardless this wipes away any notion of the smears leveled against the movement by a chorus mostly from the right-wing media machines. So then the question who or what is this Occupy Movement that has exploded on to America's political landscape.

Anonymous: "You know a revolution is just around the corner when PhD's are left to driving taxi cabs"

Colorado Springs Occupy Site Oct 8

So back on Tuesday October 4th, followed by Saturday October 8th, I personally visited our local local Occupy Site here in Colorado Springs, Colorado. First I made the visit as a quiet lurker, using modern blogosphere terms, where upon Tuesday evening on October 11th and then Saturday, October 15th I attended and participated in their General Assembly (GA).

Jason Warf holding coffee

The local group is led by a core group of passionate Thirty-Something professionals. The group maintains a strict horizontal leadership structure meaning there are no proclaimed hierarchies, each person who participates is considered a leader and each person willing to speak and volunteer has an equal voice. It is by structure and action the anti-thesis of the current corporate hierarchical structure that permeates our society regardless of any organization be it in your local church, big or small or workplace or even some social club. It doesn't matter, the modern 21st Century Industrialized America has been so indoctrinated into employing this structure that all organizations follow this footprint where the same people end up leading the and making the same mistakes with the same presumptions. That said there are naturally individuals who take up a leadership role, but let me underline role. In Colorado Springs' case Jason Warf is the chief spokesperson and he is pictured here.

Colorado Springs Occupy booths

Occupy Colorado Springs has roughly 30 or so active participates who are willing to show up each day and night, where a half dozen or so hold the fort each night on the corner of Tejon and Bijou Streets in downtown Colorado Springs adjacent to Acacia Park. Colorado Springs is only one of two communities in the U.S. to obtain a permit to Occupy a site 24/7. The underlying reason is that Occupy Colorado Springs unknowingly took up space on the public right-a-way between the wide sidewalks along the park and the street, measuring about eight feet. Therefore they are not in the park boundaries even though their GA meets in the park at Wilbur's Fountain. This precluded the city using the camping or park curfew ordinance against their gazebo shelters. The city tried to bully and interpret a stretch but if this went to court the city would lose because of earlier ACLU freedom of speech and assembly decrees and the fact that the city provides permits to other groups using the right-a-way spaces for similar shelters in the summer.

How this came about is an interesting twist of fate. Originally the police began to threaten and escalate the matter where tents were erected over night. The group led by Warf approached the city attorney about securing a permit where the city actually agreed to a meeting. Then the city attorney reneged and had the group meet with the police where that meeting was recorded and published You Tube below.

Jason told me that: "We were confronted by officers telling us that we needed to take the pop-up tents down."

"We [then] approached the city with the premise of meeting with the city attorney and police. We attended but our press was kept out. The city attorney backed out at the last minute so the meeting was just with police and sort of a waste of time."

He continued: "We were then turned over to the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). They visited us on Saturday and posted no camping signs. During this time we were trying to contact the Mayor for a meeting and the HOT was helping us."

The HOT then came back on Sunday morning and wrote 8 warning tickets. Then on Monday one of the officers returned with a city planner to offer a permit. We turned in the app[lication] on Wednesday and we were approved on Friday.

Naturally Colorado Springs is not like many other communities across the U.S., in a major way because there has been no authoritarian initiated violence on peaceful protesters. Whether it is the constitutionally protected (in theory, practice is always a relative thing) civil right in the U.S., or an insurgent cry out within despot-led dictatorship, violently attacking unarmed, peaceful petition. There would have been no shot heard around the world in Lexington and Concord Massachusetts without the Boston Massacre. Protests are a legitimate reaction to a government and its social elite who remain unresponsive and unaccountable to the needs of their people. When those voices are squelched or oppressed, especially through violent overwhelming and unjustifiable force towards peaceful, unarmed citizens, it usually results in an escalating reaction by its citizens.

Girls Peppered Sprayed

Violent reaction to non-violent peaceful protests

Mohandas Gandhi learned this as a young lawyer in South Africa and then fully employed the strategy in India following World War II. Martin Luther King Jr., copied Gandhi's strategy in leading the civil rights movement in the 1960's and so did the the students protesting the Vietnam War later that decade. Authoritarian violence immediately puts the establishment in the position of illegitimacy because already protests were calling into question the establishment's responsiveness and accountability. Thus with each succeeding violent reaction in New York City, (the pepper spraying Bologna, the mass arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge, the swinging bully club cop, the ambush in Boston, the scooter cop running over the lawyer, Oakland California's frontal assault, San Diego, Nashville, Chicago, Cleveland and our Denver CO), with each unjustified use of dishonorable force, it lights the fire on more law abiding citizens to join up and be active.

Former CO State Rep Mike Merrifield

Last Wednesday night however someone who I felt was quite informed inquired what the essence of this OCCUPY thing was really about. The person then cut in saying that the local Democratic Party leadership had told them that the local Occupy leadership was a Paul Ryan guy. When I responded that "I am certain there are Paul Ryan supporters in the midst as there are about ten people in this room right now, people you might consider to be our local "usual suspects", you know the radical always anti-establishment personalities." The respected Democratic Party establishmentarian seemed unmoved, where upon I told them that "in fact I am suspect that whomever told you that rumor knows anything genuine about the movement in that if they did they would have known that no one is actually the leader---it is a horizontal organization without any hierarchy". That seemed to get their attention, then I added that I personally had told Pete Lee (State Representative-CO, HD-18) to stop by, which he did. Furthermore, I added this to the party benefactor, "Mike Merriflield, the former State Representative forced out because of term limits was holding a placard on the corner on Saturday, October 15th." The reaction was astonishment, and he followed as he was being pulled away, "I don't understand, may I call you?"

The Conversation

Today the person who wants to remain anonymous called and we talked. His question was:

"[w]here does all this lead? What is the end game? What net effect will this phenomena have on the 2012 elections?"

These are all valid questions and as 2012 is about I am unsure. My entire beef with President Obama is that he has not unequivocally standing with the ordinary 99%'er, or politically identified with fighting not negotiating for the ordinary citizen. That was and continues to be a a political liability. Today, November 2nd the polls keep climbing to his favor as job approval is now up from 41% to 47%, a direct reflection that he has begun to tack towards aligning with the 99%'ers. Another report from Open Secrets Blog stated that members of Congress' personal wealth increased 16% despite the Lessor Depression. My conversational partner agreed, where I said, Occupy Movement is a wild card in that if a genuine 3rd Party Independent suddenly appears on the political landscape this will change the voting dynamic, just like Perot did in 1992. There was deep discontent then and there is much deeper discontent now.

But as Ari Berman, when he visited Colorado Springs last week, where he pointed out the Republicans have

"deep divisive dynamics within their own spectrum as well. In fact the same dynamics that split the Colorado Republican Party in 2010 and the gubernatorial election."

The thing is Hickenlooper was elected without much of a challenge and now we see his lack of responsiveness to issues of the 99'ers while Senator Bennet who barely scratched for every vote in a contested primary and general election, his approach has been far different. But I think the end game is a long process of actually working through our society. I said to my phone friend: "In reality Occupy is about fundamentally changing the social and economic contract with both our own nation's citizens and also the world's citizens."

This is where my phone friend had some trouble, he being a generation older and is I suspect close to the 1% class or at least part of the investor class---what Marx called the bourgeois. The 21st Century will have to deal with unregulated and unrestrained capitalism that has gone beyond its social justification, no different than how the world had to deal with feudalism and royalty. Ultimately what brought down feudalism was that the system only served the nobles and did nothing for the rest of society---it served its own selfish ends. Corporatism has befallen that fate as well. The end-game is something that has been evolving with the conscience of Global Warming and a social-economic system that understands the Earth has limited resources for all living things, one example is being called "Resource-Based Economic Model"

Political Science meets the Political Economy AKA Economics 101

A steadfast American Imperialist author and strategic consultant commentator, Geroge Friedman writing in May 2010 for John Mauldin's electronic newsletter, "Outside the Lines", a publication whose intended audience is decidingly for the 1%'ers to the 1%'ers provided a decidingly clinical assessment of the big picture of the Lessor Depression:

The financial and economic systems are subsystems of the broader political system. More precisely, think of nations as consisting of three basic systems: political, economic and military. Each of these systems has elites that manage it. The three systems are constantly interacting - and in a healthy polity, balancing each other, compensating for failures in one as well as taking advantage of success. Every nation has a different configuration within and between these systems. The relative weight of each system differs, as does the importance of its elites. But each nation contains these systems, and no system exists without the other two.

Consider the capitalist economic system. The concept of the corporation provides its modern foundation. The corporation is built around the idea of limited liability for investors, the notion that if you buy part or all of a company, you yourself are not liable for its debts or the harm that it might do; your risk is limited to your investment. In other words, you may own all or part of a company, but you are not responsible for what it does beyond your investment. Whereas supply and demand exist in all times and places, the notion of limited liability investing is unique to modern capitalism and reshapes the dynamic of supply and demand.

It is also a political invention and not an economic one. The decision to create corporations that limit liability flows from political decisions implemented through the legal subsystem of politics. The corporation dominates even in China; though the rules of liability and the definition of control vary, the principle that the state and politics define the structure of corporate risk remains constant.

In a more natural organization of the marketplace, the owners are entirely responsible for the debts and liabilities of the entity they own. That, of course, would create excessive risk, suppressing economic activity. So the political system over time has reallocated risk away from the owners of companies to the companies' creditors and customers by allowing corporations to become bankrupt without pulling in the owners.

The precise distribution of risk within an economic system is a political matter expressed through the law; it differs from nation to nation and over time. But contrary to the idea that there is a tension between the political and economic systems, the modern economic system is unthinkable except for the eccentric but indispensible political-legal contrivance of the limited liability corporation. In the precise and complex allocation of risk and immunity, we find the origins of the modern market. Among other reasons, this is why classical economists never spoke of "economics" but always of "political economy."

The state both invents the principle of the corporation and defines the conditions in which the corporation is able to arise. The state defines the structure of risk and liabilities and assures that the laws are enforced. Emerging out of this complexity - and justifying it - is a moral regime. Protection from liability comes with a burden: Poor decisions will be penalized by losses, while wise decisions are rewarded by greater wealth. Because of this, society as a whole will benefit. The entire scheme is designed to increase, in Adam Smith's words, "The Wealth of Nations" by limiting liability, increasing the willingness to take risk and imposing penalties for poor judgment and rewards for wise judgment. But the measure of the system is not whether individuals benefit, but whether in benefiting they enhance the wealth of the nation.

The greatest systemic risk, therefore, is not an economic concept but a political one. Systemic risk emerges when it appears that the political and legal protections given to economic actors, and particularly to members of the economic elite, have been used to subvert the intent of the system. In other words, the crisis occurs when it appears that the economic elite used the law's allocation of risk to enrich themselves in ways that undermined the wealth of the nation. Put another way, the crisis occurs when it appears that the financial elite used the politico-legal structure to enrich themselves through systematically imprudent behavior while those engaged in prudent behavior were harmed, with the political elite apparently taking no action to protect the victims.

In the modern public corporation, shareholders - the corporation's owners - rarely control management. A board of directors technically oversees management on behalf of the shareholders. In the crisis of 2008, we saw behavior that devastated shareholder value while appearing to enrich the management - the corporation's employees. In this case, the protections given to shareholders of corporations were turned against them when they were forced to pay for the imprudence of their employees - the managers, whose interests did not align with those of the shareholders. The managers in many cases profited personally through their compensation system for actions inimical to shareholder interests. We now have a political, not an economic, crisis for two reasons. First, the crisis qualitatively has moved beyond the boundaries of a cyclical event. Second, the crisis is rooted in the political-legal definitions of the distribution of corporate risk and the legally defined relations between management and shareholder. In leaving the shareholder liable for actions by management, but without giving shareholders controls to limit managerial risk taking, the problem lies not with the market but with the political system that invented and presides over the limited liability corporation.

Financial panics that appear natural and harm the financial elite do not necessarily create political crises. Financial panics that appear to be the result of deliberate manipulation of the allocation of risk under the law, and from which the financial elite as a whole appears to have profited even while shareholders and the public were harmed, inevitably create political crises. In the case of 2008 and the events that followed, we have a paradox. The 2008 crisis was not unprecedented, nor was the federal bailout. We saw similar things in the municipal bond crisis of the 1970s, and the Third World Debt Crisis and Savings and Loan Crisis in the 1980s. Nor was the recession that followed anomalous. It came seven years after the previous one, and compared to the 1970s and early 1980s, when unemployment stood at more than 10 percent and inflation and mortgages were at more than 20 percent, the new one was painful but well within the bounds of expected behavior.

The crisis was rooted in the appearance that it was triggered by the behavior not of small town banks or third world countries, but of the global financial elite, who took advantage of the complexities of law to enrich themselves instead of the shareholders and clients to whom it was thought they had prior fiduciary responsibility.

This is a political crisis then, not an economic one. The political elite is responsible for the corporate elite in a unique fashion: The corporation was a political invention, so by definition, its behavior depends on the political system. But in a deeper sense, the crisis is one of both political and corporate elites, and the perception that by omission or commission they acted together - knowingly engineering the outcome. In a sense, it does not matter whether this is what happened. That it is widely believed that this is what happened alone is the origin of the crisis. This generates a political crisis that in turn is translated into an attack on the economic system.

The public, which is cynical about such things, expects elites to work to benefit themselves. But at the same time, there are limits to the behavior the public will tolerate. That limit might be defined, with Adam Smith in mind, as the point when the wealth of the nation itself is endangered, i.e., when the system is generating outcomes that harm the nation. In extreme form, these crises can delegitimize regimes. In the most extreme form - and we are nowhere near this point - the military elite typically steps in to take control of the system.

Summarizing Friedman back in the late spring of 2010 he identified a growing or impending problem that a genuine political crisis might or inevitably would arise if the political elites---meaning the Obama Administration and Congress, did not affix accountability to the banks for harm done to the wealth of the nation at the expense of their gain. This apparently provides the natural introduction to the Occupy Movement that has now sprung in the succeeding summer of 2011 and now our Autumn 2011 across the U.S. and worldwide. What were his words?

"In extreme form, these crises can delegitimize regimes."

Returning back to the conversation
Back to the End-Game of this Occupy Movement and my conversation with my liberal or at least Democratic Party friend who I suspect is part of the 1%'ers or at least bordering near the 5%'ers, I know he is comfortable. When broached the subject of a new economic system he reacted as if I was re-promoting Marxism or something. Where I interjected; "I had studied Marxism quite deeply in the 1970's as part of a curriculum concentration involving the Soviet Union, my reading or theories regarding Resource Allocation is not the same, although concepts of private property for the sole sake of unbridled commerce development at the expense of the wealth and health of the planet is challenged. But let me say that outcome or some other derivative is way off for now, the issue is our current state of unregulated capitalism as it is harming our own nation, its persons and the world at large."

He replied:

"Harm is correct, I fear that right-wing is going to slash and burn my Medicare and possibly gut Social Security something I paid into for over fifty-five years!"

"Ironically the Tea Party are correct in many of their observations", I recall responding. "But their solution of adjunct, blind austerity measures is like burning down a house because you don't emotionally want to trouble yourself in repairing and fixing it up again. Problem is you won't have another house when you done burning it down."

He inquired:

"What observations?"

"Specifically, if you do the math and add up all the personal debt of Americans including the burgeoning college loans, the home mortgage, business debt, local, state and Federal government debt against the GDP projected profit it does not reconcile---not even if you take our best era. Trouble is austerity doesn't do the trick either, the only way out is debt forgiveness or wholesale debt restructuring. In short this accumulation of debt since, 1980 or so till now, has transfered wealth from the middle and working classes to the top 20%, and the biggest winners are the top 1%. The problem is this winning is now going to go into hyper drive." I concluded.

His reply is that then:

"Occupy is anti-capitalist. I knew it all along.

He replied;

"Of course not, you and I both know the little investor has always worked at a disadvantage but I look for long term growth, I believe in capitalism and just think we have to regulate it better. My question how do you see this playing out?

" Not sure, but it will take time. I actually seeing this turning into an economic-cultural civil war, possibly played out globally as well as in the U.S. Each reaction will insure the establishment is morally unjustifiable and insure its eventual defeat, that I can see."He was getting quite agitated, with many things I presume, but I think knowing me for one, or at least respecting me. So I concluded the conversation by saying: "I doubt that even the 95% of even those highly educated Occupy participates or protesters actually understand these concepts on any level, except that all they know is that they have been getting fucked for over a quarter of a century and that fucking continues unabatted. But the reality is we don't actually have a capitalist system right now---we have a monopolistic crony system that we call capitalism or it uses the superficiality of capital markets to serve a few insiders." I paused and then asked; "Your personal investment activities, when you trade, do you really think you are getting the same fair opportunity as the investment houses or hedge funds or other institutional traders who are now using micro second e-trades to game the system?"

He then asked what I meant as an economic war? "As Goldman Sachs is now causing institutional problems with the Community Bank that is servicing Occupy Wall Street's organization by dropping their corporate accounts that is economic war. When Citibank and Bank of America refuse to service demand deposit retail customers when they seeking to close their accounts and furthermore either have them arrested or threaten them by saying you can't be a protester and bank customer at the same time. That is economic war. When Occupy seeks to have people close their bank accounts at the top six banks in the U.S., (combined controlling 35% of all bank accounts in the U.S.) When Occupy Oakland is calling for a general strike that is all economic warfare. It will not deescalate either---this is a political crisis and now the people are looking to provide retribution though direct action. The banks and big corporate are not going to lay down either, they will retaliate punitively attempting to hold on to their current power position."

My friend then said thank you for the insightful perspective, and said this thing could turn out to be like the Vietnam War. My response was, "Vietnam was a symptom or colinary to this, but Vietnam was not about the very nature of our system or way of life as it constitutes assigning value to scarcity of commodities, or values of labor and work. I think it is as visereal as the moral question of slavery in 1859. Then as now the question was what society constituted a moral society, which economics were moral, slave or free, which politics were moral, pro-slave or abolishionist? Which system harmed a nation or people and which system sought to enhance and create better welfare and justice? That appears to be the same questions now, is our corporate system moral?" With that he said he had to go and said good bye.

So back to the original question posed in this blog post; "What is this Occupy all about?" It is direct political action because the political and financial elites have proven to be unresponsive to the welfare of our nation. It is that simple. Occupy has smartly found the real culprit, actually the unholy partnership pointing figures at those who benefited [greatly] for a recklessness and manipulation at the most extreme levels where we, most of the rest of Americans and Global citizens are now paying an obscene price and if nothing is done, will continue to pay a burdensome cost. It is about ordinary citizens, mostly younger, under the age of 35, many others older than 50, middle class but many making under $25,000 but most of all well educated and politically independent or even disenfranchised. Most of all, almost to a person, screwed by the current economic system. Because it is direct political action where many are beginning to perceive that the present political system is broken, fixed and systemically corrupted and therefore illegitimate, it is also legitimately calling into question the underlying economic system. And all this before I even discuss the inflammatory events regarding police or authoritarian violence that is a dynamic filling the ranks of those occupying. Occupy as it stands is the primal scream of the 99%'ers who have come to realize that:

OR is it simply Americans reaffirming what democracy actually is...the will of the people, not some artificial person.

Thoughts on 2011's EPC Democratic Party's Central Committee Meeting

2011-03-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

On Saturday February 5th I sought the executive officer position in El Paso County's Democratic Party and lost by 3 votes at the bi-annual Central Committee Reorganization Meeting. Certainly I am disappointed, regarding the outcome of the election, if I weren't I wouldn't be human. Losing 93-90 (50.8% to 49.2%) is as almost close as it comes where a flip of just 2 persons, or the participation of 4 others on my behalf, out of 10, who apparently abstained (or left), both of which would have turned the election, to my favor. But my biggest disappointment was my inability to persuade more Central Committee persons to take the big step forward so we could begin moving this political party forward towards actual consequence. Mike Maday commented later, "he was more surprised on how close the vote was", although he didn't expect for me to hve won. Others were greatly saddened.

Paradoxically following the election of officers, newly elected County Chair, Kathleen Ricker approached me about leading some kind of "task force" regarding my idea. She told me she would follow up and give me a call, to which I said I would welcome her telephone call. To date there has been no phone call.

Coincidentally, Jill McCormick also mentioned something about leading this "task force" as we assembled in our break out sessions. My deductive reasoning immediately let me to think that some kind of discussion and consensus was made beforehand. Then, the following Monday I further received a telephone call from a person who didn't want to be identified (to others), but hoped I would consider doing leading this "task force". I just wish I knew first hand what this task force idea actually is? The problem is this places a lance through the heart about the leadership not be enamored about my idea, merely the idea of me being part of the leadership and spearheading this from that stand point. Point well taken.

I don't want to spew sour grapes but some honesty must exposed. It is now evident to me that I lost to a combination of factors, personal popularity (or lack of it) but mostly because of the three (3) factors outside of unmentioned personal likes or dislikes. I would like to focus on those issues and hopefully provide some education to our progressive and liberal local activists, volunteers and central committee members, (past and present) as to the real challenges facing our local Democratic Party. Some things are not pleasant but the are real and if they are not properly addressed the greater progressive-liberal movement in El Paso County will continue to go nowhere. Let me repeat nothing will change unless these matters are addressed and changed. Recently I was accused by a right-winger in the CSIndy of being pedantic, well if you decide to read this completely you may agree, but at least it will be comprehensive---someone owes that to you.

The three items are; One, the collective view of a Democratic Party futility that has led to an almost "branded" inferiority complex. Two, the continued scourge of personal and party pettiness, which continues to "cleanse" or "expunge" motivated and capable individuals out of the party, while instituting individuals who are self-serving. We need to commit to actually developing a practice community organizing efforts seeking to create an environment of grass roots team participation, and shared activism with the understanding and purpose of promoting the greater good by seeking progressive-liberal change. And three, the lack of a full commitment towards building genuine personal relationships within our community where a voice instead of merely "marketing" that latest idea or person and therefore not actually competing for every voter in all the district within each precinct.

I am confident that some of you reading this will exclaim all forms of personal epitaphs, laden with a certain poetic use of profanities, but these are subjects that a great many Democratic and progressive-liberal activists, as well as, plenty of voters have voiced to me over the last six or seven years. Until we face these real problems faithfully and honestly, nothing is going to change much, except for the ongoing plethora of new names that are chewed up by electoral defeats from our dysfunctional party liberal-progressive movement.

Speaking of defeats I simply thumb-nailed the last decade and in El Paso County (from 2000-2010), Democrats lost 104 out of 112 races (not including non-partisan municipal or judicial races). In other words, we celebrate only 8 out of 112 races where we sustained a victory or a winning percentage of 0.0714%! That is much like my Alma Mater which still celebrates the one and only Rose Bowl entry that took place back in 1967, and yet my university still fields what is purported to be a Big Ten Football team. Even the lowly and handicapped athletic program at Northwestern University has more bowl and Rose Bowl entries than my Alma Mater. Does anyone take Indiana University football seriously, HARDLY.

Yes, many of you might think those 112 election contests went uncontested, and too a degree you are correct but less than most think, only one-third went uncontested. The remaining 84 we lost, 72 campaigns leaving a contested winning percentage of just over 11%. On the other hand if we would have won one more race, a re-election of Dennis Apuan, the effect would have been enormous, in that the Democrats would have still held both State Legislative Branches. So defeat is more than a habit or ingrained, it is a faithful institution for us Democratic voters here in El Paso County. This must change, but before even begin to get election victories we have to start thinking and believing we can and will win, even in Briargate, Broodmoor or in Monument.

Believing will take more than simply mouthing the words or cheering the next speech by a sacrificial lamb candidate. Change will take real work. Fundamental work, where we must begin to engage every voter, every potential voter in every corner of El Paso County. Doing this will begin changing our collective attitude even before we start winning what will be unexpected victories. Contacting every voter does not mean at an arm's length or virtual distance either, but personally. Phone bank telephone calls, direct mailings or even advertising will not work. What works is actually having personal conversations with each of those 380,000 voters. Sound impossible? Improbable? Unlikely? How about necessary?

Yes I have seen the data, in fact someday when I am more motivated I will continue to data mine the election results into even smaller district analysis. There are so many local myths that I am seeing dispelled. I am fully aware that currently El Paso County remains in the top 25 of the "most conservative voting counties in the U.S", but that is also changing. The data suggests that this ranking will continue to fall (or ascend, depending on your perspective) from what was the 17th, measured after 2008 election, to into the low 20's. It is a far cry from the 6th position as bestowed upon us after the 2004 election. Trends also indicate that even if the right-wing voting percentages stabilize, genuine fragmentation among Republican voters is at hand diminishing the certainty of El Paso County Republican voter majorities.

Back to reality, no matter what the first thing that must change is our collective, silent mindset where even active Democrats privately express to the futility to it all. You know the talk, there is this whispered resignation, where no matter what, any and all efforts that are made will do little, outside of providing 38 or 40% for the statewide total. Of course that is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and engineers a another defeat. This mindset was a part of why my idea and candidacy was defeated last Saturday. Sure Chuck offered an attractive, (and easy option) that was never real. Union members or participation are not going to change the attitude of Democrats winning in this county, they never have in the past, and why would they change things now? But in the minds of some, it would be nice that someone else do the hard work of organizing and campaigning.

Now let me discuss the cancerous organizational killer known as pettiness. Pettiness comes in many forms but it usually is conducted using whispers, creating self-serving silent alliances or allegiances and done so by individuals or small cadre of persons gain some "advantage" especially within any political organization. It comes in the form of seeking some form of personal revenge or blocking someone else from gaining power or influence in the name of some constituency, It is done to personally benefit the few at the expense of others and the real mission of an organization. Over the last six years of my local activism here I have witnessed pettiness as if we are some scientific experiment. Is this connected? You betcha! I call it a ghetto mentality. Few of you have actually lived close to a true ghetto but there is much infighting by those who live in that poverty clutch, especially as who benefits and who are are on the outs even in a poor environment. The same mentality that is instituted in those economically challenged neighborhoods I see here as individuals fight over the crumbs of local political power. Of course it is ridiculous and also self-defeating.

Examples of this pettiness are so many that it would take a book to account for them. But a few I will illustrate just to make the point that they are real and destructive. Infighting within our leadership eventually caused Jay Ferguson to leave as an active member of the party the same can be said for Karl Beck. Pettiness grew into an outright power struggle last year later when Jason in all good intent sought to reform the party's administrative capability by making a personnel change. Jason's haste and process should have been better but the fact pettiness erupted forcing Jason to resign. Allow me to quote an excerpt in "Herding Donkies":

"A lot of Obama loyalists who committed to the party after the election drifted away in time, leaving DeGroot to battle the party's old guard on his own. 'We were trying to move forward and modernize the party,' he said, 'but some of the people who had been involved a long time became very resistant.' Factions formed and little got done,...During a particularly contentious executive committee in February 2010---fourteen months after he became county chair---DeGroot had seen enough and resigned on the spot. He hoped his departure would remind fellow Obamacrats that unless they dedicated themselves to rebuilding the party, the people who ran things before would once again take over the show".

Yes, Jason and the leadership in 2009 sought to modernize the local party by hiring an executive director that was hoped to both better administer the party's day-to-day operation, while at the same time (as the primary purpose) raise significantly more money for the party. Unfortunately the current executive director has focused more of her efforts on administrative stuff than raising money. Worse she too is now caught up in the meddling affairs of who are to be leaders of the party (an apparent conflict of interest) since those leaders are also her bosses.

When I confronted Christy on this during the week prior to the Central Committee Meeting,whether in her role she should be engaged in this activity, she pushed back. In short, Christy is now falling into the trap where she is protecting her own professional consultancy in a political manner and not by doing the job beyond reproach----(its primary purpose was to raise money and build better the administrative functions of the party) NOT getting directly and secretly involved in the power struggles or vested Central Committee decisions of the party. This was also at the heart of "Alpha's controversy" and I fear will be at the heart of a future situation regarding Christy. These things don't go backwards. I for one would like to see Christy do her job well, meaning concentrating on raising money like $100,000 in new funds this year and more each successive year. But in all honesty I don't see this happening under the present circumstances.

But the consultancy pettiness does begin or end with a hired executive director. I had been part of other infighting situations with other professional consultants who are part of running local campaigns going back to the spring of 2008. It was then that unauthorized use of VoteBuilder became an issue behind the scenes where it remains an issue today! VoteBuilder as many of you know is the property of the Democratic National Party, as Votebuilder is a powerful tool, and something that still the Republican Party does not possess. Yet it also can be compromised or at least used in ways that are not authorized--meaning professional consultants who find a way to use it without paying for it.

In 2008 I learned that a newly formed group was using VoteBuilder in an unauthorized way for the sole benefit of their private enterprise. Their passwords were deleted and they became very mad. It was complicated in that I had volunteer and personal relationships with them. Naturally there were hard feelings, but ethics are ethics in that, their activities also posed a risk to the Obama Campaign. Not surprisingly without mentioning this sordid affair this situation played a big role on Saturday, February 5th.

Not so coincidentally this year again early in January El Paso County's VoteBuilder it was discovered that unauthorized data mining was ongoing for what was suspected to be for one of local municipal campaigns. The party decided to cancel all passwords effectively shutting down all activity. A few days later when I was speaking to oneprofessional campaign consultant that person proudly stated that he/she had many passwords and inferred this had not caused a problem. As the common phrase that goes around these days, "it is complicated", but only for those who have their own ulterior agendas.

Underneath the political undercurrent, understand that a functioning, robust, and powerful volunteer-based coordinated field campaign organization operated by a local party, would or could be a professional threat to this growing professional consultancy. Ironically, the same subject of the problems related to conflicting agendas posed by professional political consultants was raised by the out-going Democratic State Party 1st Chair, Dan Slater,in his past blog post on DemNotes. (You can read Dan's entire witness here titled "No Field Persuasion" here.)

"...He’d had a few drinks in him, and was opening talking about the campaign’s strategy. He talked about how the campaign was going to use it’s limited resources focusing on saturating (to the extent they could) the airwaves right around the primary.
I thought, okay, that’s fine. But what about field? What about the massive volunteer base the Romanoff campaign had? What were they going to do with them?
The answer: nothing. 'The only way you can win statewide is via television,' was the response. Door-to-door, he said, just couldn’t be done statewide...

...But that’s the common refrain: we just don’t have enough people.That’s just baloney. Here’s what I think is the real answer: statewide races hire fancy media consultants; legislative races don’t. The consultants hired by these folks (often from DC) plant the seed about allocation of resources. And, oh, by the way, these consultants make their money from the television buy. The bigger their buy, the bigger their fifteen percent commission will be...

...What is their incentive to push a campaign to spend more time and money on field efforts?There isn’t any. But there is nothing to say that a volunteer knocking on a door for a candidate for Congress is any less persuasive than a volunteer for a candidate for county assessor, is there? Of course not!"

To add further weight to the argument of the danger of professional political consultants Dave Sirota, AM-820's Morning Host, and author of the book "Uprising" which made it to 20th in the NYT's best seller list. Sirota's book chronicled how ordinary citizens on both spectrums (Right & Left) are marshaling their frustrations with the establishment and government into political uprisings across this nation. Sirota posted this message on his Facebook Wall on August 5, 2010, three days before Colorado's Primary:

"Colorado's 2010 Democratic primary has exposed the sad truth. A very large chunk of Colorado's Democratic Party establishment and its Professional Liberal Class are nakedly bought off % corrupt. At leas now they know, and as G.I. Joe says, 'knowing is half the battle'."

The final prosecution of this problem in the way of actually winning elections comes from the book "Herding Donkies", which I suggest everyone of you to read. As Mike Maday states "it is as much a manual about how and why to grass roots organize as it is to read about how the Democratic Party is being changed by ordinary persons turned activists across the country." In the book the author Ari Berman, and contributor for the magazine, The Nation, chronicles how Howard Dean and his movement essentially turned around a corrupted and cavorted DNC run by professional political consultants and the old-tired establishment in the party that re-took the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008.

"...In many ways, grass roots organizing dates back to the beginning of the American Revolution and formed the bedrock of political campaigns until the spread of television. But during the TV era, old-school organizing went out of style. Political consultants who made their fortunes off thirty-second ads-and politicians and pollsters who live the instant gratification of television--now dominated the landscape. Then journalist Sidney Blumenthal called these consultants the 'the new political bosses'. Paradoxically, it took the emergence of the Internet---a medium everyone thought would turn its users into antisocial automatons---to make old school organizing relevant again and reestablish the sense of community that TV destroyed..."

I wouldn't have thought much about this except that when the public vote was being cast during my election, EVERY PROFESSIONAL CONSULTANT voted for Chuck including our executive director who was holding a proxy. This was same person whom I championed for at those contentious Executive Committee meetings last year where I was one of the deciding votes on her behalf so she could get hired. But I am NOT going to play this pettiness stuff in return, merely be honest. I am still committed to changing this political landscape. So there is this local inferiority complex and our continued "soap opera-like" pettiness fighting over the ghetto political crumbs of our county. What to do about it?

In 2008 Apuan won a narrow 539 vote victory, not because of his own extraordinary independent campaign organization or strategy, but because the Obama campaign turned out new voters in a district that is one of the worst voter turnout districts in the state. In 2010 House District 17's turnout returned to its previous norms over 10% less than other house districts at 41.57%. The problem was not the percentage voter increase, (9.33% from 2004 to 2008 compared to 9.44% from 2006 to 2010), but Apuan lost by 1191 votes in 2010 as 6055 less voters cast ballots from 2008 to 2010. The real difference was that Apuan failed to employ an effective field organization because he was on his own.

If there is a prime example to show why and how a Coordinated Campaign Field Organization is needed is HD-17's experience. Looking back through the last ten years I see that Ed Raye lost HD-17 in 2001 48.62% to 47.83% (112 votes), and yet Ed did not run again, why? DH-17 17 is highly transient and difficult area, brought on by two powerful social and economic forces; demographic in that it has the highest concentration of low income families at the same time a high concentration of temporary residents because of the great number of active military personnel. Essentially any political strategy must be centered on voter registration activities finding new voters, updating other and reaching out personally to struggling families. Furthermore, Apuan's campaign organization also self-destructed early on from personality conflicts stemming from another example of petty personality conflicts.Not so coincidentally or ironically the 1100 voter turnaround experienced by Apuan was just over 13% or in the sweet spot of how much a persuasion effect a door-to-door field campaign has on a local voting electorate.

Now back to the reality of El Paso County's Democratic Party establishment. Has anyone of you actually seen a delivery votes from the constituencies of unions or environmental issue groups? The answer is no, though it is a nice myth in an echo chamber. The reality was that until 2006 when Colorado's Polis-Gill-Bridges-Stryker Gang of Four formed and combined forces with DNC's Chair Howard Dean's Fifty-State strategy with renegade new State Party Chairman Pat Waak, it was then that things began to change in Colorado. This was not the Democratic Party's establishment suddenly getting religion and unleashing of a broad powerful force of grassroots campaign activism that resulted in two successive Democratic Governors, two U.S. Senators and Obama winning the state in 2008. Well it was that insurgent force that also assisted John Morse to victory in 2006 and then hung on in 2010's re-election. Was John aided by the AFL-CIO or the environmental coalition in El Paso County? Get real.

Yet in El Paso County Democratic Party its establishment along with a small group of professional political consultants have again seized control of the party. I am not blowing smoke either. The Obama Volunteer Campaign leadership is now essentially out of the core leadership.Those who experienced and led a genuine grass roots field organization where over 2500 volunteers knocked on doors and registered voters is out.

So there it is, the present state of our local party. Reality also is I am unsure if I would have received those three votes if I could have succeeded in bringing about a successful coordinated campaign field organization in this county? The probable infighting with the inherent pettiness and resistance to doing something different would have been immense. This is why I am disappointed in myself not being able to persuade a larger number of Central Committee Members to vote for this initiative. 150-40 would have sent a message.

But if anyone wants to read the Yale political science study of how much persuasion a door-to-door grass roots campaigning has on elections you can find Green and Gerber's where the PDF article is titled "Getting Out the Vote in Local Elections: Results from Six Door-to-Door Canvassing Experiments here: In short the results average 7.1% but removing one outlier (Raleigh NC that was at .2%) five of six locales ranged from 7.8% to 14.4%, effectively creating a standard deviation somewhere above 10%. That would mean if we canvassed the entire county we could expect a change in the county's vote ranging from 45 to 51%! Also there is a cumulative enterprise with a probable rate of diminishing returns as with each election cycle the persuasion model decreases but as the election percentages fall to a 50-50% mid point. Unfortunately there are no studies looking at diminishing returns from original canvass efforts.

Yet Herding Donkies provides a few anecdotes as to the power of a coordinated countywide or regional field operations approach of actually personally canvassing every voter in two counties; one in Western North Carolina, Watauga County and the other in Dallas Texas of all places. Watauga County, nestled the Blue Ridge Mountains is about as conservative voting as one could get, (outside of North Texas or El Paso County among few other places). It is evangelical religious, mostly Southern Baptist, traditional, and resistant to change where much of the region is described as frozen in time. But in 2006 seventy-odd renegade Democrats congregated and committed to knock on every door in the county, block by block, week by week, until the Midterm elections. To them it didn't matter about party affiliation or whether they were even registered, "they believed everyone could be converted and anyone could be beat."

Their motto was simple; "No matter what the issue is, Democrats are always better than Republicans!" They didn't argue wedge issues, that wouldn't be persuasive, in turn they emphasized local concerns. If they hit upon a die-hard Republican, they moved on, but if they knocked on a seemingly soft conservative they tried persuasion. Local persuasion divided Republicans and united Democratic voters and turned out to be their stunning success. Democrats linked local Republicans to corrupted businesses and developers (sound familiar?), and they committed to standing up for the poor and defenseless. Their slogan became "Neighbors working for Neighbors". As they canvassed poor areas after poor areas, precincts that voted straight Republican for decades, caught up with abortion, guns and gay marriage. But as one canvasser said when I stood on a porch of a straight voting Republican who had voted against their interests elections after election, she would say, "I'm here on behalf of the Watauga Democratic County Party, what can I do to help?". Even though the resident was not thrilled, when the canvasser inquired, "Has the Republican Party been here?". In 2006 Watauga elected their first Democratic State Senator in three decades and elected their first county commissioner. Throughout the targeted mountain area 16 county commissioners fell into Democratic hands. leaving one Republican politician to lament:

"All over the mountain area, the Democrats were organized. They smelled blood two years out. They outworked Republicans, no question about it."

Later in 2008 Democrats swept the western state and also elected Heath Shuler to Congress and won the state for Barack Obama overwhelmingly. It was all about door-to-door relationships.

The Texan Democratic Party's revival started in the most unlikely places---Dallas Texas. Yes the city where JFK was assassinated, Dallas was always as much a base for the Texas Republicans as Colorado Springs is for Colorado Republicans. It was once said that back in the day when there were no Republicans in the state of Texas there were still Republicans in Dallas. The city had more Bush mega-donors than any other place in the U.S and is the home of the G.H.W. Bush library, let alone now the hometown of G.W. Bush. But in 2004 Dallas County elected a Democratic openly gay Latino Sheriff!. Did any of you know that! Now this description should sound even more familiar. In 2006 the following happened and excerpt from Herding Donkies.

"Campaigns tended to do their own thing, and candidates stuck to their own turf. In the process, a lot of Democrats who lived in changing or traditionally Republican neighborhoods kept falling through the cracks...'We made a decision to find Democrats where ever they are,' Hamilton said. 'It sounds simple but that was a different strategy.' It was the fifty-state strategy on an intensely local scale.

The Dallas County Democratic Party had never run a coordinated campaign before, where every candidate worked together with a unified message and pooled resources, nor had it emphasized straight ticket voting...The party printed up ten thousand blue signs that said, simply, 'HAD ENOUGH? VOTE DEMOCRATIC.' Fifteen different pieces of mail went out to the prospective voters. Candidates and volunteers knocked on doors all summer and fall including in heavily Republican suburbs...[they] thought they might win half the races. Election Day, Democrats won every single one. Almost overnight every Democrat in the state---and more than a few shell-shocked Republicans---wanted to know how the 'Dallas Model' could be transferred to their areas."

So there you have it folks the magic models, two things; a commitment to a comprehensive door-to-door canvass strategy coupled with a coordinated campaign model. I can't be any more explicit or logical. The only question for you, that means each of you individually is whether you really want to elect Democrats to local offices? The how it is done is written right here. But to do this first we will have to believe we can do by ridding ourselves of our futile, inferiority complex. Then we will have to rid the party of the burden of pettiness however it is expressed where only those truly committed to electing Democrats and progressive-liberals without the self-serving nature. And three, actually bring all efforts and focus of knocking on every door in the county as part of a coordinated campaign effort.

That is all

Essay Three: 2010 El Paso County Voter Electorate Revealed

2011-01-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

My second essay I discussed two contextual and extraordinary situations. One the realization that America is indeed in a period of great turning, when a great decision of who is America and what will America become in the 21^st Century. It is self-evident that the institutions that were devised during and after the Great Depression and World War II are now deteriorating, front and center is their financial underpinnings that propelled those institutions. In a word those institutions are unsustainable in today’s environment. That does not mean that Social Security or Medicare are not sustainable but how they are administered and thereby funded probably must be re-instituted as other trans-generational institutions need to be like public education, public health, healthcare, military, banking and tort laws and criminal and corporate laws. But even before we go there, there will be decisions as to what constitutes or who prevails in our society, even individuals or collective organizations. Will there be an instituted class system based on privilege or will society progress to be more egalitarian? I suspect our offspring will make those decisions as our generation will still be embroiled in the unraveling of our parent’s institutions.

The second situation is simultaneously a reactionary right has fully flowered arising in the electorate, which is primarily composed of white, middle-aged to retired, lower working to middle class financial, individualists who are concentrated in more rural and ex-urban areas that also are in Republican majority regions, dominated overwhelmingly by men who look at society with deep resentment that they are no longer at the top socially by a natural status. This social situation is being flamed by the faltering national and societal financial climate brought on by mindless deregulation and service providers who are owned or operate on international or non-national interests where there is a wholesale breach of contract over the previous middle class covenant of the 20^th Century. This situation makes the matter of political decisions more heightened as xenophobic and reactionary politics potentially could derail any pragmatic sensible although painful solutions to real problems.

Just recently I read that political interests are seeking to allow state and municipal governments to go bankrupt, a ploy to rewrite or renege on all long-term contracts, primarily targeting government employee pensions, medical coverage’s and even bonds. This wave of radical viewing of the world where all contract obligations including or especially social contracts makes for disastrous relativism. This all conjures up a memory when a wise scholastic mentor told me: “always examine the accuser who first accuses others of moral or ethical suspicions, for it is usually their own moral depravities that they accuse others of possessing. They accuse public employee unions as parasites on the public’s treasury and yet it is them who are willing to bankrupt treasuries by giving tax breaks to the privileged. Enough prophesizing.

Looking at El Paso County’s 2010 Midterm election returns I was able to dig deeper into more detail than afforded in the state returns because of my access to Van. The state returns merely provided context or overview of Colorado’s political landscape. What I learned there was how structured the voting electorate is specifically for Democratic candidates must form a coalitions of two different unaffiliated voting groups, U’s that mostly vote moderately left and U-centrists who are swing voters and can go either way. The good news is that as long as the right spectrum continues to go further to the right reactionary while simultaneously fragmenting their own coalitions of U’s and moderate Republicans the fewer choices moderate U’s and centrist spectrums have, and must migrate to moderate Democrats. Democratic voters they should be grateful for moderate Senators in Udall, Bennet and centrist Governors in Hickenlooper and Ritter. Again this is a fragile or flat governing majority where things can change dramatically as Terry Kennedy’s race illustrates.

In El Paso County things are totally different. The two highlighted research articles attest that Colorado Springs and its El Paso vicinity maintain one of the top 20 conservative (or right) voting regions in the entire country. Yes, it appears there has been a small movement to the center, going from the Top-6 to the bottom half of the Top-20 over the last four years. But as long as Republicans or the right can secure 60% or more of the vote, they will remain in that Top-20.

Overall what the numbers state that countywide: The Democratic active vote plus (+) the entire Unaffiliated active vote does not yet equal (¹) the active Republican vote---period (·). This comes down to simple mathematics; Republicans have more active registered voters and vote in better turnout percentages than active Democratic and Democratic leaning Unaffiliated actives voters before one even accounts for right -wing Unaffiliated voters. My analogy again goes back to Gettysburg where it is foolish for progressive Democratic candidates to run a full-scale frontal campaign countywide and holding any prospects of actually winning. This is no different than when the Confederate general, Longstreet tried to counsel General Lee against Pickett’s Charge where he stated that fully half of the 15,000 assaulting force would be killed or wounded before they even have a chance of reaching the Union lines. Where upon the remaining force would undoubtedly meet the Union forces massed with more men and firepower than the original attacking Confederate force. The same holds true for Democratic candidates in countywide elections in El Paso County.

Allow me to fully illuminate this flank on Colorado’s political battlefield: Republican active voters amass 46.97% of the entire active voter base, add in the 3^rd party right wing voters and it grows to 47.47%. (Factoring in all registered voters, Republicans percentage drops to 43.29%.) But what is amazing is that only 30.11% of all El Paso inactive voters (80,952) are registered Republicans.

This is a statistical anomaly shows how strong the Republican base is---period, and the Top-20 right -wing voting designation. Looking at it in another perspective, active Democratic voters represent only 22.35% of El Paso’s entire active voting electorate, and also represent 23.52% of the inactive registered voter pool. Meaning, Republicans not only possess an advantage with more registrations but their active voters diminish in percentage while Democratic voters who are in the minority also see their non participating registrants increase slightly. On the other hand Unaffiliated voters outnumber Democratic registrations representing 30.06% of all active voters but also represent 45.53% of the entire inactive voter base, almost half. More maddening is that it appears Unaffiliated’s seem to be voting Democratic two-to-one, therefore if Democratic or progressive candidates found the ability to increase their own registrants and Unaffiliateds who lean with them they could really cut into that 60% stone wall.

But back to reality, in El Paso County by registration and election-by-election participation of Republicans basically hold a better than two-to-one advantage over Democratic candidates and why Wayne Williams was so smug and disrespectful to Tom Mowle. Their 2-to-1 advantages in voter registrations also carries over in better urn out in better percentages is a double killer app. If you are in the minority, you had at least better out perform your opponents in efficiency if you are going to make something happen.

The 2010 Midterm election saw the GOP’s permanent mail in voters (PMIV’s) vote at an astounding rate; 88.64% to the Democrats 77.31%. Unaffiliated’s even outperformed Democrats at a slightly better clip, 77.94%. This turnout participation advantage carried over to the election-day polling as well where Republican active voter base turned out a 30.22% rate, besting the Democrats who voted at a 27.46% turnout rate while Unaffiliated’s bested them all at a rate of 32.73%.

Democrats can congratulate themselves with two small victories in voter participation; early poll voting and more one-time only mail in ballot voting. The early voting percentage is not big by any means, amounting to just 6.6% of the total vote count versus 5.95% the Republicans massed. Unaffiliated’s voted at a 5.46% rate. I am unsure as to the utility of early voting in that the same process can be served with immediate mail in voting at the Clerk’s office with only 6% of the entire vote being recorded.

On the other hand Democratic voters either increased their PMIV base or had more one-time absentee voters by both raw numbers (2302) and percentage of increase 9.31%. Republicans saw an increase of (2102) new absentee or PMIV voters at an increase of 3.28% while Unaffiliateds experienced an increase of (1008) voters at an increase of 0.37%. The thing is going through the trouble of registering for a one-time mail in ballot is not a great benefit unless those new registrants are PMIV. All said Democratic candidates are not going to win elections by expanding these small areas.

The big question is whether Democrats turned out in greater numbers than previous Midterm election cycles? Comparing 2006 Midterm numbers to 2010 it appears records to indicate that 37,732 registered Democrats voted in 2006, while 41,302 turned out in 2010. That raw number increase of 3570 votes is an increase of 9.46%. How much should we celebrate, well the 3570 votes represent 22.31% of Bennet’s margin of victory. Comparing the numbers to 2002 Midterm’s things have really changed where there were 74,028 registered Democrats (compared to 83,890 in 2010). In 2002 I don’t have precise numbers but in the 5^th CD Election Curtis Imrie got 45,587 votes (24.69%) where if participation numbers are somewhat consistent than no more than 33,000 votes came from registered Democrats. That means since 2002 we have seen over a 25% increase in Democratic votes in Midterm elections while overall it has increased over 45%.

However, remember in 2006 there were 7497 less registered active Democratic voters, therefore in 2006 there was a 65.79% Democratic active voter turnout, while in 2010 it reduced to 63.69%. One could state that because of four years of heavy active grass roots organizing Democratic vote has increased by 3600 votes in a Midterm election, a 10% increase, but at a rate of diminishing returns at a loss of 2%, at least under the dynamics in the 2010 electoral anti-incumbent environment.

What I found more fascinating is the Unaffiliated voter effect. Simply looking at the candidate voter percentages against the Republican registered voting percentages of all the votes cast in El Paso (53.27%) can be attributed to registered Republicans. Yet the Republican’s top of the ticket candidate, Ken Buck, received 60.26% in El Paso County, merely picking up 6.99% of his votes from other than registered Republicans. This ratio demonstrates that there exists a stronger than recognized coalition of Democratic voters with Unaffiliateds in El Paso County though that coalition does not equal the depth of the registered Republican vote. Therefore until or unless there is substantive changes to the make up of El Paso County’s electorate chances are slim to none that a Democrat will be victorious in a countywide direct contest, but then again there are silver linings.

The current Republican voter strength is also their inherent weakness, their vote is not diversified and also beginning fragment to a greater degree from its far right wing with 3^rd Parties consistently drawing votes from their flank and also showing their inability to garner moderate or centrist Unaffiliated votes. The weakness really appeared in a few of the ballot questions where in two cases the right wing coalition did not muster a majority. It is my view by fostering more fragmentation this 53% domination in candidate partisan vote could be reduced, eventually enough where Democratic or more probably an independent (progressive centrist) candidate could prevail in a county or citywide election in the near future.

Conversely, Democratic gains with Unaffiliated voters is something inordinate and something Democratic campaign organizations have not fully come to comprehend. If only 7% of Buck’s total came from other voting blocks than the registered Unaffiliated vote went somewhere else. Looking deeper at the U.S. Senate race one can conclude that most of the 3^rd Party and Independent votes came from Unaffiliateds, which in total amounted to 5.6% of the entire vote. Subtract the Republican vote from Buck’s total and it leaves 6.84% of the total or in other words 11.82% of the total vote was Unaffiliateds voting for Bennet. Taken another way Bennet received 48.72% of the Unaffiliated vote in El Paso County, while Buck got 28.19% and the minor candidates amassed 23.07% of that vote.

Viewed another way Bennet and the Democrats received 36.44% of their vote total from Unaffiliated voters. Some may state that some of that percentage came from RINO’s (Republican in-Name-only) but that appears to be a small percentage, (3-4%). The thing is RINO’s who secretly vote for Democratic candidates anyway are actually Republican centrists or moderates and see right wing Republicanism as more of a threat than Democratic moderates. Therefore, identifying and expanding the Unaffiliated voter base is where the effort that Democratic campaigns should focus on, not finding RINOS. This means grass roots efforts should be to better identify regular left-leaning Unaffiliated voters, and expanding their turnout. The objective should be to build the percentage to levels that mirror state percentages between 55-64% of Unaffiliateds voting or leaning Democratic as identified in my second essay. Simply moving Unaffiliateds from 49% (Bennet) to 55% would mean gaining an additional 3000 Unaffiliated votes where in turn increasing Democratic turnout would mean moving the bar over the 40% threshold we all are seeking. In turn, increasing Democratic voting turnouts to similar levels as Republicans would move the bar closer to 42-44% countywide and suddenly the county looks quite more competitive.

Examining the make up of the electorate using the Governor’s, Senate, CD-5, Clerk’s office and 2010 ballot initiatives, as done in the second essay a picture emerges where one can see the voter electorate make up in El Paso County. In essay two I established that the only motivation to vote for Maes was to protect the major party status for the Republican Party. In the state results Maes received just over 11% of the vote exposing the idea that 10% of the Colorado electorate was moderate Republican loyalists. In El Paso County Maes received 18% of the vote, merely 30% of the vote received by Buck therefore demonstrating that 70% of El Paso County’s Republican Party’s vote can be considered right wing or Tea Partiers. Actually the Governor’s race coupled with other races revealed pretty clearly the make up of the El Paso County voter electorate

Some assumptions, Bradley’s race revealed the baseline for Democratic candidate votes, about 29%, (up from 24% in 2002) in that he ran a campaign devoid of media and under $5000. Here one can extrapolate that roughly 4.68% of voters other than Democratic registrants that make up strong LEFT-leaning Unaffiliated voters. Mowle shows that contested campaigning can begin to pick up some independent swing voters where it appeared he gathered about 43% of them. Bennet’s race with its money and organizing probably picked similar numbers of independents he gathered statewide, while Hickenlooper got almost all of them in El Paso County or comprising the entire left and center voting spectrums of El Paso County. Thus, leaving what are considered RINO’s, those who might in the past have voted for Obama or Ritter, which I calculate, make up about 3.32& of El Paso’s active electorate. As you play with the numbers they eerily come together where Republicans on the right hold a 50% + polarity where it seems Obama gathered a majority of the few moderate Republicans who reside in the community. Below is a bell curve showing that great spike on the right side.

If you add all the voting percentages from the left of moderate Republicans its sum is 39.31%. Obama received 39.86% in 2008, consequently gathering all moderate Republicans, independent centrists, Unaffiliated's who vote left and Democrats/Greens. Ritter received a similar level in 2006 with 39.65% while Fawcett got 39.23%. Compare this bell curve presentation to Essay Two's bell curve of Colorado's statewide electorate.

If you add up all the percentages left of the independent center its sum is 54.54% close to what Obama received statewide in 2008 and below what Ritter received in 2006. Below is a pie chart presentation of both voting spectrum's .

As it shows right-voting Republicans hold a clear majority over the combination of all voting groups 52.19% and with the addition of Unaffiliated's who vote alongside to the right, 6.65% it amasses to 58.85%. Their 60% plus voting is a result of pulling moderate Republicans (3.23%) and independent centrists. Compare that to Colorado's statewide voting spectrum's and you can see El Paso County's progressive challenge.

Unlike the state’s electoral make up there is a very small percentage Unaffiliated centrists as well as moderate Republicans in El Paso County there is a difference of 9.5% or more. The other important item I learned from this election was that there are at least 18% of Republicans who are hard core party loyalists and based on previous elections they only lose 2-4% of their base to crossover voting. Maes returns demonstrated this clearly as Maes was a horrible candidate, flawed politically and ethically and still he got almost 1 in 3 registered Republican votes or almost 1 in 6.5 votes in the county, where he received 17.66% of this entire statewide total. I think this debunks any notion of directly campaigning to Republicans as a core activist-campaign strategy. This is akin to making a full frontal assault up a heavily fortified hill from a distance. A better strategy would be to reach out and identify the Unaffiliateds who vote left and also reach out and shore up Green Party voters. Then the real strategy is to know where flanking efforts in certain districts can be made and maintained like how Morse won SD-11.

My friend Tom Mowle’s campaign illustrates the hardship a Democratic campaign strategy of seeking out Republican votes in this county. Mowle received 60,258 votes, 8.92% less than Michael Bennet’s 66,162 returns and 16.42% than Hickenlooper’s results. Ironically Wayne Williams also received 7.39% more votes than Ken Buck and 5.4% more votes than the combination of Maes and Tancredo while seeing 8100 less votes than the Senate race or 8600 less votes than the gubernatorial contest. The 4.49% decrease in voting could directly be attributed to Unaffiliateds who failed to participate but what about the precipitous increase in the spread where Williams received more votes than his top of the ticket standard bearers. It can only be attributed to moderate leftists who either failed to show up (under vote) and unaffiliated centrists and Republican crossovers that voted for a local Republican by almost 9000 more votes.

Overlaying the Amendment/Proposition ballot initiatives provides a picture with some mixed results. For the most part the right wing vote exceeded 60% and even approached 70% It also revealed that what constituted the El Paso “evangelical-Christian” right vote at about 40% with the respective vote regarding Amendment 62 where statewide that vote was 29%. I think this underscores in bold James Dobson’s statement following the 2008 election that the culture war (regarding evangelical Christian theocracy) is over and they lost. It does not mean the culture wars continue regarding the past white-male reactionary status society versus the new modern, egalitarian non-gender society. The other note was how the propositions were defeated where moderate Republicans and Unaffiliateds with Democrats killed those proposals that would have handicapped funding for roads and restricted judges setting bonds for the accused. Yet El Paso overwhelmingly wanted their property tax approval and bonding authorities. What is obvious to me is that financial reactionaries are more in vogue than cultural reactionaries.

In conclusion indeed Democrats turned out in record numbers in 2010 Midterm elections at a rate that was almost 10% greater than in 2006 and 25% greater than in 2002. Yet it is the Unaffiliated vote where Democratic candidates are picking up more votes in that we are almost winning these voters two-to-one. Concerns are that we still do not match voter turnout rates as the larger Republican rates where before we entertain any serious ideas of winning a countywide election we need to catch and exceed Republicans in turnouts. Objectives should be to increase our PMIV base to exceed 63% of our entire active voter base. Other objectives should be to reach out and find means to communicate to our Unaffiliated voters without infringing on their stated party independence. This should increase turnout rates and also voting percentages with this voter area. Not that reaching out to Republican voters should be avoided but pinning an election strategy is foolhardy. There is a strong strain of party loyalists in this voter block as Maes returns demonstrated almost a third of registered active Republicans. That said expanding the fragmentation of the right wing voting should be undertaken by allowing 3^rd Party organizing to take place. Lastly the descent of the evangelical Christian vote appears to be a growing pattern as returns regarding Amendment 62 demonstrated even in El Paso County. In some ways I think Lamborn might be at risk down the line as this voting influence continues to wane.

Next up will be to detail some electoral districts. Naturally House Districts 17 & 18 is of interest as is SD-11. But more importantly is to map out and identify the 19 precincts that went Democratic but also finding those precincts that voted above 46% and 40% Democratic. The idea is to map out where “the Wild Things Are”. Certainly we can state that HD-18 voted Democratic, but was it a few precincts like mine that carried the torch or a broad stroke of many?

Finally it is interesting in having some conversations with Democratic or progressives about this project. This is not about pushing a political idealism political viewpoint as to how much to the left or to the center Democratic candidates and leaders should be. On the contrary it understands clearly what the voting electorate is, in Colorado, El Paso County and Colorado Springs. I am not advocating moving Democratic ideals or agendas to the center, or trying to mask Democrats as something they are not. What I am advocating understands that Democrats must remain true to their convictions but understand they must communicate to the center and Unaffiliateds so they define themselves and govern appropriately.

Colorado's Electorate's Landscape: 2010 Midterm Analysis

2010-12-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

WHY

My previous December 9^th essay, I discussed the importance of knowing Colorado’s changing political landscape, this post will detail it. In that writing I used Sun Tzu’s timeless wisdom of knowing the landscape, and therefore, all the options when engaged in a conflict. In this essay I will highlight another quote from J.R.R.Tolkein’s epic story “The Lord of the Rings”; “So do all who live to see such times,” [fretting about living during a period of great struggle or conflict] “but that is not for them to decide. All we have what to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

This had to be in the minds of our forefathers when they lived during great historic periods like the 1930’s and ‘40’s, or even among some of our ancestors who lived in the 1850’s and 1860’s. There is a growing awareness among many social and political researchers that America is again in a period of great crisis where this nation is seeking to redefine its very collective soul, coming out of an era when it was the Super-Power of the 20^th Century. Yet currently those institutions that made America into a global empire are unraveling as politically this nation is now struggling to make decisions as to what institutions and values will be reconstituted and what other new ones will emerge and take hold in the 21^st Century. Where am I going with this and why?

It is those, financial, social and political institutions that are being unraveled that are at the forefront of the current political climate and are the political battlegrounds being waged on the electoral landscape that I am speaking about. Politics is not merely a perpetual contest where winning group benefits from being in power, politics has a context where elections make decisions and have consequences regarding people’s individual lives. Politics is a social identity contest. Presently there is an extreme partisan entrenchment on one side of the political spectrum, (namely the right), where compromise is forbidden and the only political measures that they can make are within a tightly defined arena they describe as “common ground”, quoting the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

Underlying this extreme political climate is a future fundamental decision as to whom or what America will become in the 21^st Century. Comparably speaking the same question was asked leading up and during the Great Depression, as well as. proceeding and during the American Civil War. For decades prior to the Civil War, there was a simple simmering, but all-encompassing question: “Could America continue with its peculiar institution of being half-slave and half-free” [states]. All forms of State, Congressional and Presidential politics were waged under this question, where compromises were instituted to continue or forestall the peculiar institution, until three irreconcilable flashpoints took place; One, the Dred Scott Decision, two, the Kansas s Statehood that the succeeding induction ended the Missouri Compromise institution, and three, the election of Abraham Lincoln. No longer was the peculiar institution secured and a national decision ensued where civil war followed.

During the ravages and hardships of the Great Depression America this nation made a peaceful decision re-writing the social contract with its citizens. This built a new society and which also propelled it to be globally dominant during and after World War II. That decision did not cause a domestic civil war, but worldwide similar social decisions were being made regarding their own social contracts, some were in the form of Fascism and Communism where totalitarianism naturally spilled over into a global war. Therefore, the nature of our present political struggles is more than merely important---this is epic. Albert Einstein stated simply: “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

This is a political struggle between the forces on the right who are both reactionary and also radically seek to be regressive and deconstructionist, seeking to pull America back to some mythical, by-gone past, neo-antebellum-like. They are pitted against those of who continually seek to progressively move America forward. But those on the left appear to be more pragmatic in their ideals that see humans essentially as being good, where the protection and the extension of civil rights must be afforded to ever-expanding circle. In my mind, this simply is framed between those who desire to promote extra-ordinary privileged rights of the few, versus those who desire to extend equality and social justice to a larger circle of persons. This framing defines the forces now identified as “Conservative” against those labeled “Progressives or Liberals” where all these labels have now been conflated or distorted, changing their common meanings and therefore I then will use terms as in “left”, “right” and “centrist” to assign their political spectrums.

This nation has struggled before; when Americans decided who they were going to remain the English Crown’s subjects or something new. Eighty years later during the Civil War period when Americans finally decided that slavery could be part of a “free” republic any longer. And as I stated earlier, recently in the 20^th Century, when FDR’s New Deal, fundamentally changed our society and government’s social contract with its citizens. What stage we are in with another great decision, it is unknown. Uncertain times lay ahead and how we politically work through them will determine much as to what America becomes in the 21^st Century. History demonstrated the 18^th and 19^th century political processes led to civil wars, although the British Empire was able to make successive decisions without great bloodshed as we did in the 1930’s internally America worked through its decisions without a civil war. And yet when political officials make statements like, “Second Amendment remedies” or governors expressing “secession as legitimate options”, these are flashpoints that cannot go unnoticed.

Hopefully our democratic means can overcome human’s inability to make fundamental decisions without resorting to wholesale carnage and bloodshed. Only time will tell. Knowing the political landscape and therefore the political options hopefully will provide us the ability to process better our democracy. These essays will try to define clearer our local and regional political landscapes so we might do better. Colorado and El Paso County have emerged as key political battlegrounds in our democratic decisions, and in a relative way, will be inordinately determinate, that is the nature of a swing state. Your participation, reluctant or not, will be critical, in that democracy is about measuring direct participation and now we know the power of grass roots contacts and efforts, and as Tolkein wrote; how you “decide is what to do with the time that is given”.

Landscape Overview

I will start with Colorado’s 2010 electoral landscape in this essay its structure on the initial viewing is comprised by unique intra-state demographics Colorado’s is intensely divided. Two specific counties are nationally known as being some of the most conservative or right-dominate , El Paso and Douglas Counties. In a 2005 the Bay Area Center for Voting Research (BACVR), published a paper stating that ranked Colorado Springs, CO as the 6^th most “conservative” voting, or right, voting major city in the U.S. behind; Provo UT, Lubbock TX, Abilene TX, Hialeah FL, and Plano TX and ahead of Gilbert AZ, Bakersfield CA, Lafayette LA and Orange CA.

But that was a 2005 snapshot, and possibly dated. Then the criteria established then that Colorado Springs that makes up 84% of El Paso County’s active voting electorate, was voting at a 64%-to-32% right to left. We now know that El Paso County has evolved closer to a 60%-to- 39% right to left split where using BACVR’s criteria, El Paso County would now be closer to the top 20 or 25, not in the top six. Here is the complete 2005 list:

Top Twenty-Five Most Conservative [right] 2005)

1 Provo Utah

2 Lubbock Texas

3 Abilene Texas

4 Hialeah Florida

5 Plano Texas

6 Colorado Springs Colorado

7 Gilbert Arizona

8 Bakersfield California

9 Lafayette Louisiana

10 Orange California

11 Escondido California

12 Allentown Pennsylvania

13 Mesa Arizona

14 Arlington Texas

15 Peoria Arizona

16 Cape Coral Florida

17 Garden Grove California

18 Simi Valley California

19 Corona California

20 Clearwater Florida

21 West Valley City Utah

22 Oklahoma City Oklahoma

23 Overland Park Kansas

24 Anchorage Alaska

25 Huntington Beach California

Another more recent publication placed El Paso County as the 18^th most “conservative-friendly” county in the U.S. The Daily Caller stated in an article published on March 13, 2010 gave the following rankings 1-20.

1. Williamson County, Tenn.
Largest city: Franklin, TN

2. Forsyth County, Ga.
Largest city: Cumming, GA

3. Montgomery County, Texas
Largest community: Woodlands, TX

4. Shelby County, Ala.
Largest city: Alabaster, AL

5. Hamilton County, Ind.
Largest city: Carmel, IN

6. Collin County, Texas
Largest city: Plano, TX

7. Fayette County, Ga.
Largest city: Peachtree City, GA

8. Hanover County, Va.
Largest community: Mechanicsville, VA

9. Oldham County, Ky.
Largest city: La Grange, KY

10. Cherokee County, Ga.
Largest city: Woodstock, GA

11. Delaware County, Ohio
Largest city: Delaware

12. Douglas County, Colo.
Largest community: Highlands Ranch, CO

13. Denton County, Texas
Largest city: Denton, TX

14. Clay County, Fla.
Largest community: Lakeside, FL

15. Utah County, Utah
Largest city: Provo, UT

16. Union County, N.C.
Largest city: Monroe, NC

17. Warren County, Ohio
Largest city: Mason, OH

18. El Paso County, Colo.
Largest city: Colorado Springs, CO

19. Paulding County, Ga.
Largest city: Dallas, TX

20. Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Ak
Largest city: Wasilla, AK

Criteria:

How counties have voted in the past two presidential elections
Median household income, factoring in cost of living
Home ownership percentage
Married family percentage
Civilian veteran percentage
State unionization laws, whether a right-to-work state or mandatory union state
State tax burden–state income taxes, factoring in available deductions
State concealed weapons laws, ease of carrying weapon legally
State weekly religious attendance, as measured by Pew
State abortion laws, as measured by Americans United for Life
Intangibles, such things as a long conservative history, an ingrained military culture, prominent right-wing politicians

For those who are reading this essay who are not familiar with El Paso County or Colorado Springs it is home to The Air Force Academy, NORAD, US Space Command, Peterson AFB and Fort Carson, all major military installations that border or are found within the metro area. It is estimated that over 19% of the population are civilian veterans, considered to be one the highest percentages in the nation. Other significant right-wing influences located in Colorado Springs are institutions like the Focus on the Family headquarters, reputed to be Colorado Springs most visited private tourist destination, as well as, a reported 76 other major evangelical nonprofit headquarters and as also many evangelical Christian mega-churches.

And yet, El Paso County’s left voting block has developed considerable impact for statewide Colorado Democratic candidate hopes where they fortunes live or die on the El Paso’s left totals. In short, each major statewide Democratic campaign seeks to jump over the 38% threshold in El Paso County, as once Obama’s Colorado Campaign State Director, Ray Rivera, personally told me that specific objective. Expanding on my previous essay’s Gettysburg Battle analogy, El Paso County Democrats represent the Union Army’s far left flank, on what later became known as Little Round Top. In 1863 Little Round Top was the end of Union lines, anchored by the legendary 20^th Maine along with regiments from Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania. Without holding the left flank at the Battle of Gettysburg the Union lines would have been rolled up, and possibly losing the battle. This situation is no different today when if El Paso Democrats and left voting Unaffiliateds or party switching Republicans don’t deliver their vote, Democratic candidates lose the state hands down.

Data Analysis

As I stated in my initial essay, 2010’s Midterm election data has suggested that Colorado’s electorate is now voting center-left, instead of the oft-mentioned mythology that Colorado leans center-right. The accent in Colorado is firmly placed on the center. In Colorado, this change can be very historic. Since 1920 only five-of-twenty-three (5/23) Democratic Presidential candidates have won Colorado. Since 2004, Democratic candidates have won six of seven (6/7) top of the ticket statewide races. Specifically, the count is three successive democratic U.S. Senate races; two consecutive wins by democratic governor candidates, and one democratic presidential candidate.

The 2010 Midterm results also offered some enlightening statements about the characteristics of Colorado’s electorate. Let me start with the current leaning center-left leaning characteristic: It is not simply a single peaking bell curve, where one standard deviation component that bends to left of 50% center point.

Colorado’s electorate actually possesses two distinct bell curves on either side of the political centrist-middle point. The left-leaning spectrum is comprised of about 44% in total by combining Democratic, Green and left-voting Unaffiliateds. The right-leaning spectrum is estimated to be 45% of the active voters and includes; moderate Republicans, far-right Republicans, far-right Unaffiliateds and the collection of minor 3^rd Party right voters. This leaves an estimated 10% independent Unaffiliated swing voters in the center, owing to the double peak.

The following graph is generated by breaking down the 2010 Midterm election returns that uses three statewide races at the three top of the ticket; U.S. Senate, Governor, State and State Treasurer. It then looked at the statewide ballot questions where it revealed how the seven voter spectrum's cast their decisions against respective party affiliation voter registrations.

What this graph attempts to illustrate is the even distribution between left and right although via party label Republicans hold a small advantage, but if you remove 3^rd party votes from either periphery it is a virtual tie. There are anecdotal statements that the moderate left-Unaffiliated’s are actually closeted Democrats who remain officially independent “in name only”. Also this election demonstrated that voting behavior of 65% of registered Republicans mostly on the far right is shallow-rooted or also “in name only” and actually simply right. Also what is important to immediately perceive is that between the two peaking spectrums is 30.55% of voters concentrated in the center and almost evenly distributed; left-Unaffiliated’s, centrist-swing-Unaffiliateds and moderate-right-Republicans.

The graph does not demonstrate the current leaning center-left, per se, except that voting outcomes at the top of the ticket suggest otherwise. This is because the Democrats have been successful in capturing the majority of centrist–swing independents forming a coalition with the left voting spectrums, winning at ratio between 6-to-4 and 9-to-1 (in 2006 & 2008). This defines the nature of a swing state.

The data conflicts with the common misinformation proposed by the media, who fail to offer substantiated data about a center-right electorate. I interpret the center-right statement as simply being a form of propaganda, owing to the corporate and political “establishment” that is center-right. Colorado’s electorate is demonstrating otherwise and also is pushing its politicians, demanding that they move to a center-left in governing stance. In essence Democrats have secured the “good or high ground” by winning the majority of Unaffiliateds in the state.

The importance of holding onto the centrist “high ground” cannot be underestimated or overstated. But also if the Democratic-left governing coalition is to be sustained it must do so by continually capturing the majority of centrist independent voters who are currently siding with them in these times of great decision. With all do suspect respect, I have to thank Tom Tancredo who cavalierly split and therefore, exposed the right’s vote. In doing so he revealed their inherent weakness confirmed by the likes of Doug Bruce, the Hasan Family, and Collen & William Robinson where their radical efforts by placing reactionary voter initiatives on the ballot that backfired against a growing “pragmatic coalition” opposed to the far-right. This is an example of how political tactics, once considered successful in previous landscapes prove to be counterproductive in succeeding eras, similar to warfare.

Tancredo’s splitting of the Republican Party’s electorate, exposed a previously hidden coalition where the former establishment-moderate of GOP Party loyalists can be estimated to being about 11% the state electorate, or roughly 31% of active registered Republicans, less than 25% of active right active voters. This was figured by comparing returns of the Republican Party’s primary taking McInnis’s returns as representative of the GOP establishment, 190,000 votes even though he was a severely flawed candidate against a purported Tea Party candidate in Maes. Even so flawed 49% of the Republican Party primary voters cast ballots his way.

In turn in the general election, the Republican nominee, Scott Maes, who became a severely flawed candidate himself inviting Tancredo’s wrecking crew and where Maes was originally the champion of the Republican Tea Partiers, ended up receiving 199,000 votes. The logic being that the only motivation for individuals to vote his way in the general was to maintain a major party status for the GOP, in that if Maes fell short that status would have become in question.

In Colorado State Elections Statutes: 1-4-1303 , page 5 definitions:

(22) "Major political party" means any political party that at the last preceding gubernatorial election was represented on the official ballot either by political party candidates or by individual nominees and whose candidate at the last preceding gubernatorial election received at least ten percent of the total gubernatorial votes cast.

Using the Republican gubernatorial returns was only part of revealing the right’s voting spectrum. Working through this year’s ballot amendments and propositions against voter registrations statewide races a picture appeared that was consistent to the hypothesis of consistent group voting patterns. Again, thank you to the forces of Doug Bruce, and his financial backers, the Hasans and Robinsons for this better exposure. The following graph displays how various voting blocks lined up voting with the Democratic majority in this election.

Only 32.79% of Colorado’s active registered voters identified as Democrats, therefore winning statewide elections means much more than merely getting the Democratic base to the polls, it means winning the Unaffiliateds and independents that compose 31% of the electorate. Look at Amendments 60, 61, 62 and Propositions 101 and 102 where they polled between 76% and 67%. Only Amendment-63, which was about the Democratic Healthcare Reform, that fell near 50%, while even the abortion measure was close to 70%.

The above graph calculated the left vote by combing registered Democratic active voters with moderate left Unaffiliateds (9.30%) and except for the U.S. Senate race, also disgruntled far-left-liberals along with registered Green Party voters. This graph demonstrated that Michael Bennet received 5.95% of his state total from independent centrist swing voters (estimated to be 105,445 votes out of 181,650 centrist voters, 58% of this spectrum).

Governor-elect John Hickenlooper received an estimated 6.71% of the state vote total from the independent centrist swing voters, (estimated 119,957 votes out of 183,242 voters, or 65.46% of their spectrum) where his campaign also polled greater in total votes and percentage.

Yet looking at Cary Kennedy’s reelection bid, her race did not have 3^rd party candidates from either left or right spectrum's and she apparently came up short with centrist voters, estimated to be 4.97% of the state vote from independent centrist swing votes, (estimated 84,385 votes out of 174,737 votes). The under vote from the Governors totals was 82,977 votes, 4.63% less, which sealed her fate in that she lost by 24,723 votes cast.

My comment: This illustrates how important capturing the independent centrist swing voter and also maintaining turnout up and down the ticket among registered Democrats and moderate-left Unaffiliateds. Furthermore, Kennedy only captured 48% of this voter spectrum where if she had maintained Hickenlooper’s percentage, she would have won by 5275 votes.

How or why did this happen? Kennedy was an outstanding, qualified candidate, non-partisan in policies, and yet she fell below Bennet’s and Hickenlooper’s highly partisan races. Unlike the Senate and Governor’s races where 3^rd Party right wing versus Green Party votes where Democrats gained 1.15%, almost the margin of Stapleton’s win (1.46%), the difference appears to be the under vote and the lost centrist vote percentage that Hickenlooper enjoyed which was gained by a strong campaign’s ground game that did not include Kennedy.

When I added up each respective voting block by active voter registrations Colorado’s political landscape became quite clear. On the far-left are Greens Party, Leftist- Unaffiliated’s who vote Green and disgruntled or renegade Democrats comprising of 2.20 % of the total vote. When a Green candidate is not running they will vote for Democratic candidates, where then registered active Democrats measure to 32.79%. Finally there is the Unaffiliated left, silent partners of the Democratic Party that appears to comprise 9.20% of the vote and adding up to be about 44.20% of the total electorate being left.

As we know on the right there is more fragmentation. On the far-right there are a collection of 3^rd party right-wingers who voted at 3.34% rate in the Senate race. On the moderate side near the center of the right’s spectrum we previously established that 11.13% are establishment voters who cast for Maes to simply save the party status. Then there is a remainder of the registered active Republicans roughly 24.3% of the electorate, (subtracting 11.13% from 35.43%). Buck received 46.42% of the vote while Maes and Tancredo combined received 47.56%. No question the vast majority of these votes came from Unaffiliateds, but from what spectrum, far- right or centrist?

The clues come from the centrists who voted for Bennet or Hickenlooper, estimated to be between 58% and 65% that comprised 10% of the state’s active voters. Furthermore, the far- right 3^rd Party vote ranged from 3.34% and 1.41% between the Senate and Governor’s contest, 1.93%. The difference between votes above and the registered active Republicans for both those candidates was 1.14% accounting for everything but 0.79% of the entire vote. From these clues I then estimated that the right picked up between 42% and 35% of the centrists voting spectrum leaving a dynamic of about 6.33% and 6.90% to the far- right Unaffiliated’s.

Looking for another confirmation Rasmussen Reports published a poll in April 2010 that 33% of Colorado registered likely voters were identified as Tea Partiers. Adding up 3^rd Party far- right (3.34%) with registered far- right Republicans (24.3%) and estimated far- right Unaffiliateds (6.33%) is summed up with 33.94%.

The State Treasurer’s race offers a secondary confirmation to the data interpretation where Stapleton polled 14.94% of an Unaffiliated vote. Looking at Kennedy’s estimated returns she received 48% of the independent centrist swing vote, while Stapleton appears to have received 5.33% of the state’s electorate vote which apparently came from this group. Stapleton also benefited by not having right wing 3^rd party candidates siphoning off far-right votes leaving the far right Unaffiliateds.

In Tancredo’s case, 36.43% total vote; consider that 3.53% of his vote came from independent centrists, bringing down the far-right wing to about 32.9% of Colorado’s active voting electorate in that race. Not included is the 1.41% of votes that went to other 3^rd Party and Unaffiliated right wing candidates and therefore owing to at total right-wing of 34.31%. Therefore the far- right vote is somewhere between 33.94% and 34.31%, the largest minority in Colorado but not close to a governing majority. My estimates demonstrate that 65.88% of the active voters in CO’s Republican Party can be considered right wing. This projects that practically every statewide nominee will fall into this spectrum and that the Republican establishment moderates will continue to fall by the wayside.

Finally re examining how these spectrums and how they voted in this year’s ballot initiatives reveals voter behavior that deviates from traditional party labels although there are direct democracy partisan driven policy decisions. Below is a graph demonstrating the voting groups.

Amendment 60 showed the largest polarity and also demonstrated that all the independent centrists, all the moderate Republicans and even a significant portion of right wing registered Republicans and/or Unaffiliateds joined the left coalition. This distribution carried through on the other ugly threes, Amendment 61 and Proposition 101. The effect that the Republican establishment had when it aggressively joined leftist forces is now fairly clear and possibly carried over to Amendment-63 and Proposition 102. Ironically Amendment 63 is eerily close to Obama’s statewide polarity in 2008, 53.07% to 2008’s vote for the President, 53.66%.

Conclusions

Colorado’s political landscape is made up of two competing major party coalitions; on the left is far more moderate coalition where its Unaffiliated wings moderate-lefts combined with the centrists swing voters keep the Democatic far-left more balanced than on the right. Furthermore, I suspect a large portion of the left -Unaffiliateds are actually closeted Democrats who for a variety of reasons choose to register Unaffiliated but vote primarily Democratic. Democratic Party objectives should be to better identify them as to include them in GOTV and communication efforts will be an important chore going forward towards the 2012 election. The other note regarding the left spectrum is the smaller but still significant bleed that goes to the often-unmentioned Green Party where disgruntled Democrats or Unaffiliateds express themselves with larger vote totals than registrations. Fortunately, their counterparts on the right with a multiple collection of right 3rd Parties have had a greater impact on the state totals than the Greens, providing Democratic candidates a slight advantage.

More importantly is the impact that centrist independent swing voters have in determining who wins and who governs. Democrats and Republicans along with their Unaffiliated coalitions are practically tied, 44%-45%, remove the 3^rd Party peripheries and you have a 42.09%-to-42.33% Democratic coalition to Republican Coalition virtual tie. Merely getting each respective base out will not succeed in contested elections. Winning the majority of the independent centrists is the key to winning closely fought statewide races. Since 2006, Democrats have been winning this spectrum in every top of the ticket race starting with Ritter and now with Bennet and Hickenlooper.

What this is saying is that Democratic governing must hold on using centrist- oriented policies while simultaneously bending or leaning to the left. This is the center- left governing stance. A significant deviation from this tacking will cause the independent centrists to pause and possibly vote in their only alternative, far-right Republicans or Tea Partiers. It is also telling me that the Republicans will continue to tack further to far-right as a large majority exists within their nominating electorate. This will cause the establishment moderate Republicans to either in-fight and continue to erode towards centrist independents. This could lesson some statewide financial resources for lesser races in the legislature and other more local races for Republican candidates.

Furthermore, this could accelerate the apparent fragmentation that is taking place within the Republican Party and the right spectrum. Tancredo receiving 36% of the vote under the American Constitution Party, which now appears to designate the ACP as a “major political party” under current Colorado statutes? These implications could be enormous in that ACP might have to hold its own caucuses and primaries, possibly siphoning off more registered

Unaffiliateds and possibly previous registered Republicans. For Democrats having a strong right-wing 3^rd Party only strengthens their political positions as the Kennedy’s race demonstrated. Republican candidates who fall short in Republican caucuses could go to the ACP and still get on the ballot. Below I have put together a rounded pie chart showing the respective voting groups.

With the present governing majority the Democrats now hold the high or “good ground” as in the Gettysburg analogy. By no means an assured winning position, the Democrats now are constituted to govern pragmatically and as long as they govern from a centrist-left position, they appear to box the right wing into a corner. One-third of the electorate identifies themselves as Tea Partiers, which will dominate Republican candidate nominations and political narratives, and yet 67%-70% of the remaining electorate has rejected that vision if one removes party labels as in this year’s amendments.

The “high ground” also invites the Democrats to employ an offensive political strategy using defensive tactics. Knowing the nature of the opposition, I am certain they will politically attack even it is futile against the high ground where they see government and society as the enemy; something 70% of the electorate does not. Having them do so will continue to clearly illustrate how ill conceived they are to govern the whole.

Ultimately, the Democratic Party must look at this period as an opportunity to reach out and secure the moderate unaffiliated left leaning voters and shore up those unaffiliated and Democratic voters who cast for Green Party candidates. Communication is the key with unaffiliated voters, clear, straightforward messaging that is void of partisanship will be the key. This will also invite the independent centrist swing voters to pay attention in that they seek to look past party labels and also judge more from actions and not rhetoric.

Options

Politically Democrats must pragmatically seek to demonstrate effectiveness in growing a stable economy and job market. Making government services work with less will be a key competency and continually win over centrists and Unaffiliated-lefts and possibly establishment-moderate Republicans. Strategically, Democrats should pursue the designation that the ACP be identified as a “major political party” under Colorado Statutes. This will force the ACP to conduct caucuses and primaries and more importantly, natural party building activities. In doing so, they will field more candidates and siphon more votes away from the Republicans and possibly deeply crack the GOP by structural fragmentation.

Finally, Democratic organizers need to better identify and make coalitions with their Unaffiliated voters while not overtly seeking to change their registration. Simply finding a way to identify them and then directly communicate to them centrist-left political initiatives will do more to solidify their turnout and vote than being too aggressive to register them.

Post 2010 Election Thoughts; Knowing the new Landscape and Options

2010-12-09T19:41:00.000-08:00

If you are acquainted with the translation of Sun Tzu’s timeless body of work titled, “Art of War”, you would immediately grasp the significance of “knowing the competitive landscape and all its options”. The art of options is a science of understanding all current and previous options, understanding their possible outcomes, and then creating new options, then choosing among them. Politics is akin to war, though hopefully without the bloodshed, is a perpetual conflict, representing society’s contest over power and privilege. As in warfare there are political strategies and tactics, reacting to the dynamic and chaotic nature of the political arena, where both unpredictable and unanticipated outcomes are the result. Good intentions are assumed by all sides in the political spectrum's and vilified by their competing interests, but the fact remains that who holds power, rules.

I am publishing a series of essays this month that will seek to examine in detail November’s 2010 election returns in Colorado and locally El Paso County. Unlike polling data that only takes a small sample predicting outcomes or measuring voter’s likes and dislikes. But elections are real; they are the big poll, not merely a sample, but also a final decision until the next election. It is the real data. In other words it is the landscape to which competing political options clash and where conflicts over power and privilege is decided. 2010’s political landscape was different than the battlefield terrain in 2008 or 2006 and 2012’s landscape will be different than 2010. And yet, they are all connected by context and trends of those elections and also the dynamic changes brought on by governing policies and power politics.

In my mind the Battle of Gettysburg offers an apt analogy to today importance of knowing the landscape and all the options regarding a dynamic series of political events. In 1863 the Union Army had experienced two previous fateful and unsuccessful summer campaigns losing a series of battles on landscape of the Confederate’s choosing where General Lee possessed the local knowledge and intelligence in advance as to the Union’s strength’s and weaknesses’. Most importantly he fought on “good ground” for his army. At Gettysburg however, Lee had led his army into Pennsylvania, an aggressive offensive strategy in the attempt to draw out the Union Army out into the open, simultaneously leaving Washington DC exposed where by first besting the Union Army and then planning on suing for peace or threatening Washington. On the other hand, the Union’s leadership, especially its corps commanders, had fully recognized the past failures, one of which was rarely occupying “good ground” and therefore sought a tactical advantage as the primary objective in the summer of 1863.

Those three fateful days in July 1863, turned the tide of the war and the Union’s fortunes in that war and throughout the Republic. Gaining the high “good ground”, or “the better landscape” left Lee with even fewer options. The few options also exposed the Confederates’ own inflated mythology believing in their own invincibility and superiority causing them to foolishly attack even though they were blind falling into their own trap exasperating an already negative situation.

Similarly, knowing and understanding today’s changing political landscape in Colorado and especially El Paso County, will reveal current options and also better expose what political options for Democratic and liberal activists. This is a critical time in our nations and state history. We are simultaneously dismantling old, tired and obsolete social and government institutions and looking to rebuild a new foundation for the future generations. There are big decisions that are being made and why the nation’s consciousness is so troubled and heightened. That being said what the 2010 said, is not what the media narratives and politicians are saying.

A. The majority voting electorate is more left of center than right of center. But the present left political establishment is more centrist or right of center. This conflict shows up where political leaders are not in front of the electorate, but behind, reacting to events and wills of the electorate---ON BOTH SIDES OF THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM. This includes President Obama, most of the U.S. Senate, as well as most pundits featured on television or radio, be it cable or not.

B. Democrats in Colorado have emerged with an unstated but fairly stable winning coalition with the majority of unaffiliated or independent-swing centrist voters where they hold a consistent 48% plus base statewide, owing to the fact that merely gathering one-third of the truly swing independent voters offers them an electoral majority. This winning coalition has resulted in consecutive gubernatorial wins, three successive U.S. Senate wins and a Presidential electoral college win.

C. Republicans are trending towards greater fragmentation and apparently losing their brand identification among right wing voters as after the recent period of working over social evangelical conservative voters who appear to now abstaining or becoming again disenfranchised as a viable voting group is now being overrun by a new right wing cause célèbre, called the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement once liberally polled to be about 1/3 of the Colorado electorate by the friendly Rasmussen Polling Services was actually demonstrated electoral polling of 28-29%. More startling is the exposure that about 11% of the Republican voting electorate who are actually traditional GOP Party loyalists. This group of voters tend to be more moderate when voting without party labels and combined with the Tea Party right wing movement captures about 40% of Colorado’s participating electorate.

D. A strong and resolute voting block of 10-12% of the remaining electorate could be categorized as independent-swing voters where participation or joining either of the two major party candidates is a discriminating decision.

F. The right wing 3rd Party influence continues to grow and was especially decisive in tightly contested races like the U.S. Senate and SD-11. The influence is that the Republican Party is bleeding votes to right wing flanks in the name of Libertarian, Constitutionalist or Reform Parties at a rate of 2-to-1 as opposed to Democrats losing votes to its liberal flank the Green Party. The largest losses are not to registered voters but from unaffiliated or even registered major party voters who have silently become discontented with their party’s choices.

G. Turnout: Since the 2002 Mail in Ballot Amendment passed turnout in Colorado as well as, in El Paso County, has precipitously increased all voters, the increase identified as an increase in active voter participation. Midterm elections have different turnout percentages than Presidential election years. 2010 witnessed a turnout of 72% among active voters and 55% among all voters. Previous Midterm election years; 2006, 63% among active voters and 53% among all registered voters and in 2002’s Midterm elections 49% among active voters and 40% of all registered voters. Turnout statistics among voter methods is not available yet but in El Paso County I was able to capture the following: Republican registered active voters as permanent mail in voters turned out at 88%, Democratic permanent mail in active voters at 82% and Unaffiliated mail in active voters at a rate of 78%.

H. El Paso County Effect: It has recently been stated that the magic number for Democratic statewide candidates is to capture 40% of El Paso County’s vote. Actually Obama got the closest with 39.89% in 2008 but he did not punch over the 40% barrier. The weekend after the DNCC Ray Rivera, Obama’s Colorado Campaign Director told me personally that then the goal was actually 38%. In 2010 both Governor-elect Hickenlooper received 37% and Senator Bennet 34% and both won but Cary Kennedy lost with 35.84%. Historically Bill Ritter won with 39.6%, Senator Udall reached 38.5% while Ken Salazar narrowly won with 34%. The real number to watch is actually the percentage spread and not simply Democratic voting percentages. Hickenlooper’s spread was 23.98 (against both Maes & Tancredo combined), Bennet was 26.12 and Kennedy was 28.32. In 2008 Obama had a spread of 18.83 while Udall was even better with 18.2. Ritter recorded the all-time best with 17.43 and I am still trying to figure out how Salazar prevailed with 29.32 in 2004. The bottom line is that it appears to be 24-25 as the red line, anything more and a Democratic candidate is in the danger zone.

As in war, most political presumptions are based from previous contexts, inherently obsolete by the very nature of the dynamic element of competition and changing tactics and circumstances. Looking back to the Gettysburg at my Gettysburg analogy, Gen. Lee made two fateful presumptions based on previous contexts; One, he believed the Union Army remained disorganized and therefore militarily passive or at least deliberately conservative because of another of series of high command changes. Two, he felt his army was uniquely superior where by them pressing an attack the Union’s lines would always break and run. What he failed to comprehend was that the Union Army historically broke and ran because Lee held “good ground” to first, repulse the Union’s initial attack, and press a counterattack. At Gettysburg this was the converse. Made worse in that Lee was essentially fighting blind without his normal local intelligence and knowledge of the terrain to make tactical maneuvers or in this vernacular, recognize options or create new ones.

Similarly, I often feel that working political campaigns in El Paso County we are often probing the electorate without knowing the proper intelligence about the actual political landscape. Outside the obvious, we really don’t know all the options that are available (if any) or how to best create them. My objective is to compose and publish seven essays about this election cycle looking to discover the old false presumptions, myths, and emerging opportunities to find the “good ground”.

The next essay will be about detailing the present Colorado landscape, specifically how the center or independent-swing was determined as well as the six other peripheral spectrums (left and right), and how they determined 2010’s statewide elections and ballot initiatives. Subsequent essays will detail turnout trends by registration and voting methods, dispelling myths like big spikes for Democrats on election days. Later I will drill into El Paso County and even into election districts and precinct clusters. Hopefully when this is completed a clearer picture of the political landscape will emerge for policy maker and activist alike.

Tea Party Revolt in Full Swing, what it really is.

2010-09-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

My favorite 20th Century History Professor, George Mosse stated that "there can be revolutions on the left and correspondingly, there can be revolutions on the right". Last night a confused political punditry and insider gaggle of commentators tried to make sense of Delaware's Republican Senatorial Primary alongside with New York's Gubernatorial Republican Primary where strange even personally flawed candidates won. Chris Matthews said, "How could we be so wrong"? This morning Washingtonian Insider Michael Balz said that it is a "purity of message".

They don't get and neither do the politicians, their handlers and campaign professionals who keep to their own companies and are still well compensated and unaffected by the current economy---except maybe for the abstract measure of respective investment portfolios. What they don't get is at least on the political right many have found that indeed Norm Chomsky and now Andrew Bacevich are correct, the US political system has been compromised by a one-party system divided in two names and two camps who divide up the riches. Therefore at least to the right now, the political establishment made up of Republicans, career politicians of decades or generations are no longer viable to them. They want fruitcakes, and nutjobs to get into Washington and shake things up. Unfortunately reactionary right candidates are extreme in that they do not believe in things like equality or democratic processes unless it benefits their cause. Namely think of the phrase "2nd Amendment Remedies if conservatives don't win this time around." Meaning if Engle and her ilk are not elected they will then turn to a armed revolt---forget democracy.

But democracy has been compromised by the established oligarchy that has kept the US in a semi-war state since World War II. This oligarchy is composed of central financial interests global in nature and reach but centered in NYC, that is how they were able to successfully raid the US Treasury without even pulling a gun. The other arm of this oligarchy is the military, what Eisenhower called the Military-Industrial Complex, now known as the neo-cons and other global interventionists who use our military to expand and maintain our economic empire. The final corner of this triumvirate is the political wing that is an extension of corporate interests, none of this serves the US populace and now the chickens have come home to roost.

The same seeds are sprouting in the left spectrum as well. It is just that the timing is behind a bit but as the Democrats now in power (seemingly) but impotent in serving those who elected them face the music similar political revolts will begin across the country. We saw it here in Colorado with Romanoff challenging Bennet where Romanoff scored 46% of the vote outspent 5 to 1 and also challenging the incumbent.

Post Primary Colorado 2010, we are still motivated

2010-08-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

“Tip” O’Neil’s famous quote “All politics is local” was also political wisdom, in that what happened in Colorado was all about Colorado and not Obama. Yesterday, locally in our fair State of Colorado, 338,537 Democratic voters mailed in and/or cast their ballots in what as supposed unmotivated, depressed electorate. 338,537 represented 41.37% of what are categorized as active voters but also 35.88% of all registered Democrats. This is unprecedented, the largest turnout ever for a Democratic primary. Ignore all that “bull stuff” that is on TV over which party has more energy; Democrats are indeed quite motivated and interested this election cycle.

Even more locally, 20,043 El Paso County Democrats cast votes; meaning 29.50% of our active voters, or 24.69% of all registered voters. A bit of background to gain perspective, back in 2004, the last contested Senate race, 15,643 Democrats voted in El Paso County, 21.73% of all registered voters, and in 1998, 9,541 cast votes in the other recent Senatorial contested primary. Therefore from 2004 to 2010 it is a 28% increase and measuring it from 1998, it is an astounding 110% increase!

Most of the state was mail in only, although 18 counties including El Paso joining only Weld County as the two Front Range urban corridor counties that opened polling locations. That said, 82.84% voted mail in here in the Pikes Peak region while only 3134 voted traditionally at the polls, and a mere 281, voted early at a Balink voting center the week prior to Tuesday. I think the path is clear that Colorado will eventually go all mail in (Oregon style) in the near future. Cost, convenience and turnout are all attributes.

Okay, I supported and even volunteered for Andrew Romanoff. As I stated last November my reasoning was that I am seeking a fundamental change in our political system, the end of corporate personhood and the effort to greatly reduce corporate and corporate special interest from our political process and electoral system. Andrew represented that effort with his campaign, but Andrew and his campaign came up short. This morning I symbolically placed a Bennet yard sign in our front yard (see attached) and my wife picked up a few Bennet bumper stickers to put on our car. I am visibly uniting behind the Democratic nominee who has now earned the standard bearer by winning the primary---solidly.

My analysis indicates that Bennet gained the Democratic vote 3-to-2 over the final and fateful ten days of the primary, where if the polls were correct, the race was tied back on July 31st, where 22% was estimated to be undecided, roughly 75,000 of the 338,000 who voted. That means 46,000 votes fell to Bennet, while Romanoff gained 28,000…or 62% went to Bennet in the final stretch. The electorate in El Paso went 58% for Bennet and statewide it was 54%. I will wholeheartedly support Michael’s candidacy.

Some of you might think that the race turned ugly but I subscribe that in reality the differentiation was rather tame as Dan Slater wrote yesterday in his blog, DemNotes.com. In effect the flaws that Bennet had in his political resume are now out there and vetted where they will not prove significant in the general election, that is how contested primaries are supposed to work.

Now, let us talk about our neighbors who vote Republican. There is a big schism in their midst between the Tea Partiers (far right-wing economic voters) and the old guard of the regular Colorado Republicans, (social conservatives or evangelicals and the traditional Club for Growthers). Yes, indeed the Tea Partiers are quite energized and a survey finds that Colorado actually has a greater percentage of them than any other state, and also, they got their guys in. Then there is Tom Tancredo. The path to win in this year’s general election is quite simple: There are roughly the same numbers of registered Democrats as Republicans, but the independent unaffiliated voters actually have more registrants than either party affiliated registrants, win the moderate independent middle and we will win the election. Formula---expand the electorate.

Tonight I am going to a Hickenlooper for Governor affair. I have also volunteered to help Tom Mowle who has an unique opportunity to win the County Clerk. Will you join me? I hope so. If you want to win the general get involved, stay involved and contact voters. Yes, We Can!

America's New State of Normal: Frugality

2009-08-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

Much is now being written that the U.S. economy (and thereby society's undercurrent) is now in a state of realignment where the "consumer" or the bearer of 70% of the GDP has re-discovered frugality. NY Times published an article this week that said:

Even as evidence mounts that the Great Recession has finally released its chokehold on the American economy, experts worry that the recovery may be weak, stymied by consumers’ reluctance to spend.

One of my favorite Hedge Fund e-newsletter authors, John Mauldin, stated the same thing in this week's edition:

Frugality is the New Normal

Reality is staring back in the mirror at the American consumer, and especially the Boomer generation. The psyche of the American consumer has been permanently seared...

...Frugality is the new normal. We are resetting the underpinnings of a consumer-driven society to a new level. It will require a major overhaul of our economy. The normal drivers of growth - consumer spending, business investment, and exports - are all weak, and it is only because of massive government spending that the second quarter was not as bad as the two previous quarters and that the coming quarter will be positive.

So let me tell you our state of normal. We received money that was seven weeks in coming, back pay we were able to go to the grocery store and actually shop. What did we do? We shopped at eight venues carefully calibrating our driving and frugally spending out money. If you want to see how to stretch your grocery shopping just ask us, we have been doing it for years.

Today before church, Sue and Anna went to "The Sunshine Market" at Academy & Dublin, the best priced large natural/organic food store in town and purchased apples and grapes, at $0.88 a pound for crisp Gala apples it is a bargain for us, where King Sooper the price is $1.59. Furthermore they found grapes on sale for $0.69 lbs where recently Sue saw grapes priced near $2.00 lbs or more. At that price $3.52 for 4 lbs versus $6.36 along with the grapes and we saved save $4.46.

After church we traveled to the "Wonder Bread Outlet Store" on El Paso north of Filmore near the old greyhound track. There we like the Brawny Multi Grain 100% Whole Wheat bread at $1.44 a loaf every day. Normally at King Soopers the price again is almost $2.89 for a comparable loaf. That stop we saved $5.80! Just two stops and we have saved $10.26 while purchasing high quality food.

Now onto the Extreme Bargains Outlet Store off of Stone and Fourth Avenues, again just north of Filmore and east of Nevada near the Waste Mgmt Recycle America Center. This store is more disorganized than the other bargain outlet store located on the west side on Colorado Avenue, but here we found Seltzer Water in 2 liter bottles selling for $0.49 a bottle. This is what Sue and I like to drink instead of bottled water or pop where at King Soopers the price currently is $0.80 a bottle. We bought 6 of them and saved $1.86. Anna found some granola that normally priced at $5.00 (and out of her reach) for $1.99 plus there was Quaker Oats Granola bars for $1.69 (normally priced at $3.00), plus a bag of Pepperidge Farms Bagels from for $1.25, again usually priced at least $2.50. Then I found Hunt's diced tomatoes in 28 oz cans (twice the normal size) priced at $0.99 a can where in the grocery store cans like this as a Kroger Brand is priced at $0.69 for 14 oz. a savings of $2.34 All told we figured we saved $9.77, currently savings at $20.03.

Now onto King Soopers off at Unitah Gardens on the west side where Sue works the aisles expertly. Here we do not normally purchase brand names except when there is a sale and possibly coupons. One thing of note is that I like Half & Half in my coffee and we have found a pint of organic for $1.49 while regular King Soopers 1/2 & 1/2 is 1.69, go figure. Here Sue found whole chicken for $0.88 lbs where we can make three dinners out of that purchase of $3.08 or save it for entertaining Sue's folks. She also found Hillshire premium hot dogs $2.59 where she had a $1.00 coupon. All told she spent $85.00 on a weeks worth of groceries for a family of four, plus stuff for other weeks. Also we used eight environmental bags getting $0.40 and had other coupons from King Sooper and manufacturers for $5.25.

Now at Unitah Gardens they also have the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores where Sue and Anna went in to get laundry detergent at Family Dollar that she likes for $3.25 and Anna went into the Dollar Tree to get zip lock bags for a buck. Both trips probably saved $2.50 on two simple items. I also purchased 10/30W oil for $2.25 where it normally is $3.00 or more. Total savings $3.25 where now we at $23.28 plus the coupons and it amounts to $28.53.

Now off to the Bargain Mart on West Colorado Avenue just west of 31st Street where our hunt was again focused, premium whole bean coffee, this time I found Millstone French Roast for $4.00 for 12 oz while a grocery store has it at $8.00. We also bought 28 oz extra virgin olive oil at $5.00 where in the store the same brand will cost $9.00 and picked up four rolls of premium Costco toilet paper at $0.65 a roll, saving at least $0.35 or $1.40. This trip we saved $9.40 making the savings $37.93 and we still had one more stop to make.

Our last store was Mountain Mama's the natural and organic local food purveyor on the west side. Our mission was simple, a variety of spices from their bulk containers. Savings here is almost immeasurable where we purchased 5 spices for $2.39 when just one spice container at the grocer would cost three times that much, plus the spice is fresh.

Total set back was $130.82 while we saved more than $40.00. That is just the start of the new state of frugality, working at buying. Up next making this stretch well into the following week!

In the "belly of the right-wing beast", Town Hall Meeting at Woodland Park

2009-08-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten what fear, anger and resentment looks like as it is expressed by those who are so smitten with the "authoritarian" pathology. Sure I have seen it before, even lived with it, especially during my childhood. Even my mother whom I loved dearly, was often so smitten by some misguided fear and misinformation where she felt so threatened she said she wanted to kill all those radicals and deviants, even though I was one of them. All these old memories and feelings came flooding back yesterday up in Woodland Park CO as we waited and then attended our Congressman's Town Hall Meeting, (see the news report here).

It was my college-aged daughter, the political science major (and soon to be double major in public policy) at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) who comforted me by saying "She was used to it. This is the predominate school of thought in her poli sci classes." WOW, what a learning environment she is in!

Standing in line, near the front and purposely dressed as a nondescript Republican, (I know how to look the part) I was able to listen to all forms of unabashed, but veiled and practiced hate speech expressing mostly fear anger towards change. Often it was also tinged with some sort of expression that "they" wanted to "get our country back". In my mind I would say from whom or what? Then there were those who inquired "who is defending the constitution", like the Supreme Court has been dissolved and yet I noted that these deep-seeded resentments were much more than policy questions and debates or even politics there was a conscience being exposed, but one I was trying to figure out. That said my daughter and I realized we were in the "belly of some beast" and it was safer to observe instead of engage.

As we waited in line, a self-described overly opinionated guy openly boasted to strangers that he would not allow his children to go to "Boulder" (meaning the U of Colorado at Boulder) because he believed they would be contaminated by the "liberal environment" there. I thought that he and his children would be awfully impressionable if simply going to a city would contaminate him. But then he expressed everything liberal was anti-American and a threat to America---geesh! Yes I realized he can vote but should he be taken seriously? Only in that crowd of course.

Another person who was waiting and quite agitated, much younger than most, possessing the scary eyes of a psychotic, dressed in a loud stylistic shirt sporting patriotic themes like the American Flag and Declaration of Independence; "Declared that the entire country was threatened going all the way back to 1933 when FDR changed our currency." He held that he was libertarian and didn't like Lamborn or Republicans. Did anyone ever tell him that whenever he placed his soiled shirt in the hamper it could be a form of flag desecration? Mostly these people felt safe to be belligerent making bullying and mocking remarks among strangers to what or whom they all seemed to oppose.

After getting into Woodland Park's City Counsel Chambers with an attendance that had to break every fire and safety ode, we got lucky to be seated, but we were among mostly rabid right wingers. It was then I came to realize that most of them had failed to grasp that their conservative movement and the Republican Party that represented it, was now in the minority and what that meant politically. Was this the underlying cause for their outward expressions of fear and anger? They often demanded that Lamborn do something about it but then again they screamed about protecting the Constitution. Was I in some "Opposite World of Reality" like in some parallel universe or fairy tale "rabbit hole"? Then last night it all came together---yes this was some "opposite world", I am calling the "beast".

Research 2000/Daily Kos August 10-13 conducted a study on the attitudes and beliefs regarding health care reform which the findings were broadcast last night on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Here were their results:

"Are there Death Panels in the Health Care Plan?"

Republican Respondents

YES = 26%
No = 43%
Not sure = 31%

More than 1 in 4 GOP'er said there were death panels in the bill! 57% more than half said yes or they were sure. This is absolutely NUTS and a myth that is purely propaganda, but that is part of our electorate.

Among Independent Respondents

YES = 8%
No = 76%
Not sure = 16%

Or less than 1 in 12 independents believe the propaganda and 24% are yes or not certain. Now this is better, those who are unaffiliated seem to be able to discern fact from fiction.

Among Democratic Respondents

YES = 5%
No = 88%
Not sure = 7%

Or less than 1 in 20 Democrats and only 12% think there are death panels or are not certain. Again is this partisan trust or the ability to discern mythology and disinformation from the truth?

What it all is saying is there is an enormous divide of conscience, trust, rational thought and even ignorance essentially discovering that there is an enormous gap to what a majority of Republicans, actually think and believe is to what the rest of America thinks and believes.

Now the question is how come? Could it be where they are getting their information?Possible and plausible of course. (This is why whenever there is a coup d'état one of the first things that is targeted is the broadcast stations and newspapers.) In this case, they don't need a take over for Research 2000 found that Republicans overwhelmingly got their news/information from just one source FOX NEWS.

Question: Cable News Habits among Republicans

Fox News = 59%
MSNBC = 8%
CNN = 23%

Now the most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll asked their respondents about the FOUR MAJOR reported "myths" in the health care reform debate where the follow up they asked what was their primary source of news/information. This was quite revealing or at least confirming:

Question: Do you think Healthcare Reform gives coverage to Illegal Aliens

Fox News Viewers = 72%
MSNBC Viewers = 41%

Question: Do you think Healthcare Reform will lead to a government takeover?

Fox News Viewers = 79%
MSNBC Viewers = 39%

Question: Do you think Healthcare Reform will pay for abortions?

Fox News Viewers = 69%
MSNBC Viewers = 40%

Question: Do you think Healthcare Reform could stop care for the elderly?

Fox News Viewers = 75%
MSNBC Viewers = 30%

Therefore if there is going to be any form of rational discussion and debate there must be some sort of consensus of what are the facts. Yet it appears certain that in this case there is no consensus on the facts and therefore no ability to have a rational discourse and discussion.

Bottom line is that the majority of Republicans believe in a different set of facts than the rest of the country. Are there two virtual nations out there, the truthiness GOP and the factual Democratic-Independents?

Now this makes sense as to what is causing this emotional anger within the right-wing. If they view the world in a totally different manner, in this case not a reality that actually exists, but what they delusionally think it is, of course they are going to be angry. They are like any person who just doesn't understand what is happening if they believe something else. (Remember when someone told you there was no Santa Claus? My brother in elementary school punched the kid.)

People become confused or scared and will react defensively. They strike out as if being threatened, then becoming hostile to both those informing them of what is the new reality, especially to those who they view as causing this new reality. By essentially believing in the wrong things cognitive dissonance forms and either they have to accept the new reality or deny it, thus is this about health care reform or the desire to exist in their own universe.

This goes deeper than differing opinions, it goes to the heart of what is reality in the U.S. The question then is whether Republicans actually care what the truth actually is or whether they are more consumed by what they are feeling "the truth should be". It is what Corbert coined:

"Truthiness". Defined as: "The quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts."

Three examples of what Lamborn presented to his friendly angry assemblage.

1. He stated the 45.7 million uninsured was over blown composed of unlawful immigrants (aliens), those who freely chose not to have insurance and then the few who wanted it but couldn't afford or be accepted in it---totaling 6 million. Of course this feed their view of reality that there is not a problem by marginalizing it.

Fact Check.org states that the Kaiser Family Foundation stated that 79% are citizens that is 36.1 million and that the remaining 21%, (9.6 million) are both legal and illegal immigrants. Now Kaiser also acknowledges that both legal and illegal immigrants probably do not have health coverage since they are most likely in low-paying jobs with firms that do not offer health insurance. In this mix the Census Bureau states that 43% (4.1 million)of non-citizens don't have health coverage while 12.7% native born (4.58 million) and 17.6% (8.04 million) naturalized citizens don't have coverage, (12.62 million).

Furthermore the research showed that 80% of citizens (28.88 million) are of people who work and 70% have an adult that possesses a full-time employment. In this realm of uninsured 66% (19 million) are of families near or below the poverty line and half are those below the age of 30 (14.44 million).

In every analysis this did not reach 6 million persons who are citizens and disenfranchised. But what he didn't touch was the trend lines and the affordability issues.

The second area of Lamborn's disinformation was referencing that universal care in Canada and England had a 70% disapproval rating. I just didn't know where Lamborn was referencing since the two most recent polls, Gallup and Harris offered these findings:

Gallup January & February 2003, "How do Americans, Canadians, and Britons compare in their views of the availability and quality of healthcare in their respective countries? Gallup asked residents of these three nations identical questions regarding the availability of affordable healthcare and the quality of medical care.

44% of USA respondents very dissatisfied and 72% are somewhat or very dissatisfied with affordability and availability to healthcare.

17% of Canadians are dissatisfied with their availability and affordability to healthcare.

25% of Great Britain's subjects are dissatisfied with availability and affordability to healthcare.

Harris conducted a poll in 2008 where they asked identical questions to cross-sections of adults in ten developed countries about their own health care systems. This research finds that the United States has the most unpopular system.

33% of Americans believe that the American system "has so much wrong with it that we need to completely rebuild it", and a further 50% think that "fundamental changes are needed to make it work better"

Nine countries those who believe they need to completely rebuild their systems vary from only 9% to 20% all well below the 33% in this country.

Canada = 12%
Great Britain = 15%

So no where is there 70% of Brits or Canucks looking to shuck their system Lamborn stated, there isn't anything like this just Lamborn feeding the mythology with some unattributed factoid.

The third item he tried to place into the debate was the cultural war idea that abortions would be covered with taxpayer money. This is naturally false;

ABC News: Current law says federal funds cannot be used for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. The president has said it is not his intention for the government to pay for abortions. "I'm pro-choice, but I think we also have the tradition in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care," Obama said on CBS July 21.

Did he offer this in response to these questions. No on the contrary Lamborn offered this view in his handout.

Here is the political situation. Feelings, the emotion inside a humans psychological makeup is a stronger motivator than rational thought. It is why I heard the expressions at the Town Hall Meeting that was supposed to be about healthcare reform, were more about "wanting their country back". What they were actually saying was they wanted their truthiness reality back.

In reality is the country any different than before Obama? Only in the illusions propagated by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly.

So the gist of this experience is that in a policy development standpoint I consider them to be irrelevant. The Democratic Party will have to do it alone, they are just too psychotic for any rational imput. The GOP has completely sold out to this fruitcake mentality that has embedded and warped itself into our society. But I also understand that politically the liberal and moderates must also stay united and isolate what I am calling "the beast" that is in our society for the sake of saving our society.

There is no rationalizing with this consciousness. Their conscience is almost some sort of civic religion, it is fanatical, mythological, truthiness and fiction. And they are dangerous, for those who really feel threatened will lash out and do harm.

Conflict in results and economic projections by the FED

2009-08-13T12:24:00.001-07:00

Today the government released some sobering economic news on July and consumer spending that dropped unexpectedly, or at least to them. New York Times:

Retail sales fell unexpectedly in July, the government reported on Thursday, chilling hopes that consumers are ready to lead the American economy out of recession.
The Commerce Department reported that retail sales fell by a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent from June, and were 8.3 percent lower than a year ago.

Economists, who had been expecting an increase of 0.7 percent, called the numbers a sobering reminder of the persistent weakness in consumer spending, which has made up 70 percent of the United States economy in recent years.

“This is only a little piece of what is a huge seismic shift — a return to savings by American consumers and a shift away from spending,” said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics. “Without the consumer, the economy will not have any kind of a typical recovery, and will grow very, very slowly for a long time.”

Then MSNBC Reports that unexpectedly (again), jobless claims rose last week.

The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week and retail sales disappointed in July. The latest government reports reinforced concerns about how quickly consumers will be able to contribute to a broad economic recovery in the U.S.

"There is really no positive spin to put on these numbers," Jennifer Lee, an economist with BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a research note. "The U.S. consumer remains very weak. The jobs situation, while slowly improving, is still dismal."

The Labor Department says initial claims increased to a seasonally adjusted 558,000, from 554,000 the previous week. Analysts expected new claims to drop to 545,000, according to Thomson Reuters.

So what did I tell you yesterday as the cheerleaders performed the latest best cheer when the FED Reserve didn't move rates but stated they expected the recession to be over soon. This is no garden variety post WW II recession, or correction, this is a fundamental economic realignment---like the Great Depression or the Panic of 1870. It is what it is, tough times.

Looking ahead, the new state of normal---between a rock and a hard place AKA the 'Great Recession'

2009-08-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

There are good times and there are hard times. There are boom times and there are bust times. Yet for America since World War II our nation, culture and economy has pretty much been insulated from the wide swings that history and people's of other countries, seemingly less stable have come to know.

But the reality is that the current 'Great Recession' and that is my coinage already 19 months in length and the longest since the Great Depression of my parent's youth still has a ways to go. If you actually read and just not receive spoon-fed information from the tube or newsprint than there are astute and truthful economists who have been providing individuals pertinent information for some time. Nouriel Roubini is one of my favorites; he is a professor of economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University and chairman of RGE Monitor, an economic consultancy firm. His resume goes far on from there but his nickname bestowed to him by CNBC as "Dr. Doom" before the 2008 crash as he was warning of a deep crisis way back in 2005-'06. Roubini recently stated on his blog:

“I have said on numerous occasions that the recession would last roughly 24 months. Therefore, we are 19 months into that recession. If, as I predicted, the recession is over by the end of the year, it will have lasted 24 months with a recovery only beginning in 2010. Simply put I am not forecasting economic growth before year’s end."

So in short he is saying no recovery or GDP growth until Christmas this winter or January. In turn he is projecting that next year will not be "happy days are here again".

“I have also consistently argued – including in my remarks today - that while the consensus is that the U.S. economy will go back close to potential growth by next year, I see instead a shallow, below-par and below-trend recovery where growth will average about 1% in the next couple of years when potential is probably closer to 2.75%.

“I have also consistently argued that there is a risk of a double-dip W-shaped recession toward the end of 2010, as a tough policy dilemma will emerge next year.

Well here he is predicting more DOOM as a 'W' recession is of course twice as worse as a 'U' shaped recession which is worse than 'V' shaped recessions of 1990-'91 and 2001. A 'double U' recession, that is what happened in the 1930's. And why? Roubini answers it without partisan thoughts.

"On one side, early exit from monetary and fiscal easing would tip the economy into a new recession as the recovery is anemic and deflationary pressures are dominant. On the other side, maintaining large budget deficits and continued monetization of such deficits would eventually increase long-term interest rates (because of concerns about medium-term fiscal sustainability and because of an increase in expected inflation), thus leading to a crowding out of private demand.

“While the recession will be over by the end of the year the recovery will be weak given the debt overhang in the household sector, the financial system and the corporate sector. Now there is also a massive re-leveraging of the public sector with unsustainable fiscal deficits and public debt accumulation."

Oh the proverbial between 'a rock and a hard place', metaphor. No easy fix. This is not like fine tuning a watch or old tube TV, (that is for those who are over 45 years old). The fine-tuning of the economy is from the out-going underlying paradigm world understanding that our world is like a giant machine, which we are finding out it is not, it is a natural eco-system and it is not well.

Now to what really counts jobs, Roubini discusses this also:

"Also, as I fleshed out in detail in recent remarks the labor market is still very weak. I predict a peak unemployment rate of close to 11% in 2010. Such a large unemployment rate will have negative effects on labor income and consumption growth; will postpone the bottoming out of the housing sector; will lead to larger defaults and losses on bank loans (residential and commercial mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, leveraged loans); will increase the size of the budget deficit (even before any additional stimulus is implemented); and will increase protectionist pressures."

But don't just take his word for it there are others as astute making similar measurements and calculations. John Mauldin is a well respected Hedge Fund Manager and e-newsletter publisher who sounded the oncoming housing credit crunch alarms as early as late 2006. His latest newsletter states:

"As explored in detail in pastInsights, six forces will promote slow long-term growth in the U.S. and, indeed, on a global basis -- U.S. consumer retrenchment, financial sector deleveraging, weak commodity prices, increased government regulation and involvement in the economy, protectionism and deflation."

Continuing:

"We continue to forecast that the recession will extend into early 2010. Only by then is enough fiscal stimulus likely to be pumped out to stabilize consumer retrenchment. By then, most of the global financial woes should be at least stabilized. And by then, enough excess house inventories may be absorbed to end the downward pressure on prices...After the recession ends as the economy stops falling, a weak recovery is likely to follow, one so tepid and with such high unemployment that you may not know it has arrived...A chronic 1 percentage point annual rise in the consumer saving rate for the next decade or so will knock around 1 percentage point off real GDP growth after its effects work their way through the economy. "

What about jobs?

Throughout this decade, the emphasis has been on producing more with fewer people the top of the expansion in 2007, job openings were fewer than in 2000 at the peak of the previous expansion, despite the growth in the economy in the meanwhile. And since 2007, job openings have collapsed. Unemployment will also remain high since many of the people who have lost jobs were in construction and finance, two areas that will probably do little net hiring for many years. Normally, a 2 percentage point drop in real GDP causes a 1 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate. But June's 9.5% rate is 1.5 percentage points higher than this rule of thumb would predict, given the drop so far in real GDP.

Back to Roubini on jobs:

"Recent data suggest that job market conditions are not improving in the United States and other advanced economies. In the U.S., the unemployment rate, currently at 9.5%, is poised to rise above 10% by the fall. It should peak at 11% some time in 2010 and remain well above 10% for a long time. The unemployment rate will peak above 10% in most other advanced economies (especially Europe and Japan), too, where social safety nets are broader and thus leading to less short term job losses and pain, but where the effects of the crisis on growth have been even more severe than the U.S.

But these raw figures on job losses, bad as they are, actually understate the weakness in world labor markets. If you include partially employed workers and discouraged workers who left the U.S. labor force, for example, the unemployment rate is already 16.5%; even temporary employment is sharply down...

Other indicators are suggesting a protracted period of job losses and a persistently high unemployment rate even after the recession is over. The average duration of unemployment is not at an all time high in the U.S. Many manufacturing sectors are on a secular decline (autos, etc.) and employers are shedding jobs on a permanent basis; employment in the previously bubbly sectors (housing and related housing/real estate services, banking and financial services) is falling sharply and will not recover for a long time. The process of offshore outsourcing of both blue collar and white collar jobs is still in full swing. A lot of the job losses in the U.S. and in other advanced economies are structural rather than cyclical; many jobs will never come back."

And therefore the 'Great Recession'.

"Random Short Thoughts" today

2009-08-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

Future change of the headlines and talk shows category:

LA Times: Insiders say Atty. Gen. Eric Holder is close to naming a prosecutor to look into reports of excessive waterboarding and other unauthorized methods. Convictions could be hard to get. Reporting from Washington -- U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said.

A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned an inquiry that would be narrow in scope, focusing on "whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized" in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.

Now this will get the right-wing all up in arms saying we are prosecuting those who simply followed orders.

In a related headline grabber:

A series of shocking and lurid charges have been made against Erik Prince and Blackwater, the defense contracting behemoth he founded, in sworn statements filed in federal court Monday. Prince and or his company are variously accused of being motivated by an apocalyptic Christian worldview which glorified killing Muslims; of "encourag[ing] and reward[ing] the destruction of Iraqi life;" of illegally smuggling weapons into Iraq; of destroying incriminating evidence; of using child prostitutes; and even of murdering government informants.

This kind of buries the idea of privatizing the armed forces doesn't it?

Think this might lead to a Congressional Investigation as to some form of "Insider Bailout" department? Blockbuster stuff; Co-Treasury Secretary Paulson And Goldman Exec Lloyd Blankfein talked 24 times in the week of the AIG bailout, the stunningly frequent contacts during the height of the financial crisis!

NY Times reports: The then-Treasury Secretary and Blankfein spoke by phone two dozen times in one week in September 2008 when AIG was bailed out -- a deal that handed Goldman, a key counterparty of AIG, $13 billion in federal money.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Times' account of the contacts between the two men, for which Paulson belatedly sought and received an ethics waiver, is that the phone calls were often coming from the Treasury Secretary.

Could in be that Paulsen was protecting himself and his old club here?

And finally now after Palin got her shot in denouncing President Obama for supposedly wanting to create a "death panel" that would condemn her Down Syndrome son to go without health care she is now calling for civility at town halls, and to not diminish our political discourse on her Facebook page

There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to rush through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment. Such tactics diminish our nation's civil discourse which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters' passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying. Let's not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us.

Now that I incited the world let us try to talk nicely but only if you agree with me.

SPECIAL COMMENT: Healthcare: 'We' or 'me', practical or cultural, inciting a firestorm of political violence

2009-08-08T08:36:00.000-07:00

What really is the issue of healthcare reform? Is it a practical effort to solve a growing system wide societal problem through public policy, OR is it a societal value question that defines our culture and nation?

On practical terms you cannot make much of a defense when the U.S. spends 50% collectively on healthcare against the other modern industrialized nations, but then there still is the resistance where ultimately people express themselves in either a ‘we’ or ‘me’ value.

But now the issue has morphed into a debate….err rhetorical conflict. Remember the legal axiom:

"If you have the facts on your side, argue the facts----if you don’t pound the table, scream, delay, discredit and disrupt.”

So in that analogy, what is actually will be expressed? Has a serious public policy debate been hijacked back into the cultural war? Of course! Healthcare is very personal, not unlike education or marriage in that connects with each and every person in this land, and of course all the future generations regardless of their respective lots life, so it is natural to define it as what is America and much as what government does for America. Therefore it also is perfect to ignite the long smoldering brush fires of the American Cultural War that have come before into a full-fledged wildfire, a kind of Cultural Battle of Gettysburg, so to speak. You can see all those simmering flashpoints from the last two generations; racial civil rights, American militarism, feminism and woman’s rights, abortion, reaganomics, and no doubt soon we will soon see guns, gays and even god intertwined in this fracture.

In this mix, there is the fuel of a deadly period through the now present irresponsible political incitement by those who have special interests against the 'we's' who are moving this nation forward through practical solutions. I could even frame this unleashed discourse in the terms of 'discrimination against the sick', (or future sick), which we will all eventually be but that is to, too 60’sish to be effective. And yet like the '60's this society is at the proverbial fork in the road. We can turn ugly and destructive or we can turn to a new beginning into the 21st Century. We have been there before and ultimately as our history suggests, and ultimately we have always got it right, though with a big cost to humans and property, and this I truly do fear.

At our founding, what seemed apparent to most after the fact, the only choice left to the colonies by the British was to revolt against the tyranny of the crown, forcing America into its Revolution, even then there was not a solid consensus. Eighty years later, the new democracy unable to confront its unsustainable conflict of harboring two nations, two economies, and two cultures under one government, the young nation was flung into its own horrific Civil War. And again some eighty years hence, upon seeing its economic and social institutions destroyed by false beliefs the nation again regrouped and reconstructed itself with a New Deal. Only the New Deal forged a new nation without much bloodshed or property destruction.

Now we are there again; eighty or so years from the last Great Depression, eerily facing an almost similar fork in the road. On many more fronts we are again seeking a new deal, change we can believe in, encompassing more than just economics; but now healthcare for all. America is now at that point where the decay of the last thirty years the full flower of the "me" generation is facing the music of outcomes reality, where a society that lives believing that 300 million "me's" cannot take care of itself too well.

Society is little different than what happens often in nature. For instance a national forest under a long term ecological imbalances caused by humans and exacerbated by a long period of drought where recently it is subjected by a number of windy hot days. The forest is dried out, a giant kindling mountain range, where its floor is laden with fallen old growth timber and deep underbrush. My example is the "Haymen Fire". All that was needed was a spark set it off, most feared a lightening bolt igniting a perfect firestorm. But the Haymen Fire was not started by natural causes, but by human intervention! In fact, it was a ranger who knew better, where she started a small fire to burn her love letters, caught up in her own emotional discourse. And as the saying goes---

"play with fire and you will get burned---play with fire on a 60MPH day in the dried out Rocky Mountain Forest and you burn down the mountain!"

In this human metaphor, the GOP and its financial and corporate big business partners are playing with fire creating this now coined 'astroturf-roots faux citizen movement. Organized by "M Street" lobby firms using GOP communications and databases and funded by big businesses of Big Oil, Pharma and Insurance, where they have sought out, what 'they' purport to be ordinary citizens who are opposing the 'change' America voted on overwhelmingly last November. The fire they are playing with is by inciting these folks, those who are anxious or scared of change, prejudiced or ignorant and misinformed, and led by by the few who have personal interests in keeping the economic status quo or gain from political power.

In simple terms they are inciting the beginnings of the "authoritarian dynamic", a reactionary revolt where pandora's box is opened unleashing propaganda that fosters greater intolerance and then hate speech. We know then what follows; hate speech turns to political violence, first destruction of property both public and personal and then killings.

By seeking out and inciting the types of individuals; those emotionally who are against anything liberal, people psychologically fixated with social authoritarianism, those who have personal interests in the current system, and even finding those so confused and caught up with the discourse and disagreements they grasp for something to understand, falling back on what they feel is the safer status quo.

By carefully targeting and further stoking those elements, the GOP and its big business partners seek to “delay, discredit and disrupt”, like how a trial lawyer does by and confusing the courtroom, screaming

"the glove doesn't fit, you can't convict!"

Fixated on stopping the process of change at any cost they are willing to unleash the dangerous and destructive forces of political violence. Like the ranger who believed she can put out the fire before it overran her starting the Hayman Fire, those politicians, lobbyists, and business executives are mindlessly inciting America to passionately engage in chaos beyond their control.

This was all captured in a foreboding voice mail message left on SEIU Oregon headquarters:

“I suggest you tell your people to calm down, act like American citizens, and stop trying to repress people’s First Amendment rights,” the caller says. “That, or you all are gonna come up against the Second Amendment."

Translated the threat is saying to the union hosting the healthcare town hall meetings that one they are un-American, and if they don't let in them in to disrupt these meetings be it because of fire codes or what not, leaving them on outside, unable to disrupt these events they are saying it is infringing on their right of free speech that supercedes everyone else's, and they will use the right to bear arms and use them against their perceived political enemies who they view as un-American. This is not isolated either. In another state an anti-health care reform protester called on hundreds on his list to bring firearms to town halls, and to 'badly hurt' counter protesters.

Thus what started out as a practical public policy debate has now turned into a full fledged cultural war discourse. In practical terms healthcare reform is a no-brainer; Like how a prosecutor shows the court overwhelming physical evidence on top of a confession. But the healthcare debate is not much about practicality anymore, it is how America will be defined going forward. In short the "we" versus "me" conscience that we lived through since the '60's.

You can see the wedge issues used previously in the cultural wars all over the place now, as if this is a Gettyburg of the cultural war. There is abortion, death, socialism, classism, god, guns, liberalism, reaganomics, racism as in the birther's, and even immigration all wrapped in this discourse.

Will America return to its ‘we’ roots or fall back into the abyss of the ‘me’ mantra? Of course ‘me’ is all about dividing the country, and for 40 years "been there, done that". Don't back down and don't fear the intimidation tactics, but be careful for once this moves int the destruction stage if indeed it is ignited than like the '60's we will see property burned down and lives lost, it will be dangerous. But rest assured the GOP and big business will take more of the political and social fall by playing with this dangerous fire.

The entire Bush Tax Cut Job Growth now wiped out

2009-08-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Remember the Bush Tax Cuts meant to grow the economy and create jobs? Well the Bush economy grew the job creation to about 6.126,000 jobs by November 2007. Well last month that was wiped out where by all counts we are now 150,000 below the Non Farm payroll of January 2001. Evaporated, puff, expelled and for what some rich guys speculating in the markets? We are now cutting into the job growth leftover by the Clinton Administration that left us with a 23,000,000 growth and budget surplus, remember that.

Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly report that measures actual payroll data and not the unemployment claims data and it found a further decline of jobs at 247,000.

"decline in July (247,000) and the unemployment rate is little changed at 9.4 percent...The average monthly jobloss for May through July (-331,000) was about half the average decline for November though April (-645,000). In July, job losses continued in many of the major industry sectors"

I always like taking a big view of this jobloss destruction and like to go back to last year to see the job loss data and the then ensuing panic how we have started becoming immune to these enormous suffering statistics. Last July 2008 the job loss was estimated to be at 60,000 after a larger than expected job loss in June of 81,000 and 75,000 in May. Ironically the summer months this year have a similar short term pattern where in final revision May say a decline of 303,000, then there was a jump in June to 433,000 and now a decline to 247,000 less than May just like last year. The problem is no matter what kind of rose colored glasses you want to wear 983,000 jobs in just three months is still a disaster, where back in 2008 losing 216,000 jobs changed the presidential campaign's primary issue.

To date the total job loss for the recession is now over 7.5 million jobs and this year 3,623,000 lost jobs roughly 48% in the seven months of a now 20-month recession, seven months represent 35% of the time so this job loss situation is enormous.

Now this should make for a sobering perspective. The recent earnings of companies were made because they have slashed expenses primarily through payroll reductions of draconian measures. The problem is this is now further exxacerbating the overall economy as retail consumer spending continues to erode causing a further downward spiral for industrial demand and output, which in turn will put more pressure on companies to slash payrolls and expenses even more. Astute economists are now saying we will see another Wall Street sell off possibly causing a deeper panic than last fall.

Based on these trends we might see job loss continue to marginally decline until October or November when the stock markets get wise to a false rally in a bear market environment and see numbers again climb into the panic areas of 1/2 million per month.

Sobering unemployment data

2009-08-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

Yippy! The weekly unemployment new claims dropped by 28,000 from the expected 588,000 to 550,000 for the week of July 18th, as reported by the Fed;s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today. That is a drop of 1.06% HOLY COW! What the headlines and news industry cheerleaders are not telling you is that 550,000 new claims is 250,000 higher than the norm when the economy is good or not mired in a deep recession. Just to put a perspective on this sobering statistic of misery, in the beginning of 2007 the new weekly job claims averaged less than 300,000 a week.

Buried in the report is a much more foreboding figure----is this quote from the AP through Talking Point Memo:

When emergency extensions of unemployment are included, the total rolls climbed to a record 9.35 million for the week ending July 18, the most recent data available. Congress has added up to 53 extra weeks of benefits on top of the 26 typically provided by the states.

The increase in the number of people continuing to claim benefits is a sign that jobs remain scarce and the unemployed are having difficulty finding new work.

At the height of the George Bush presidency he had created only 6.1 million jobs in his eight years, by the time George was finally "birded" out of office, (a reference to the one-finger salute the millions in attendance on the ground gave him as the Presidential helicopter ushered unceremoniously from Obama's inauguration festivities), 2.8 million jobs were created. Just to finish that trend in June of this year the total job created number since January 2001 is now somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000, so it is reasonable to state that sometime last month this nation has lost all the jobs it created under the "Bush Rich Get their Tax Cut Years".

To further the trend analysis, Bush's father created only 2.1 million jobs while Bill Clinton was credited with an economic model that created 23.1 million new jobs, running about 11.5 million each term. Reagan's gloomy eight years brought in a respectable 16 million, 11 million in his second term. Carter didn't fare badly with over 10 million jobs created in just 4 years. Meaning----to rebound Obama must perform the same magic that Carter, Reagan's 2nd term or Clinton's terms just to put most of us who were displaced in this last year and a half and that is not counting the 150,00 plus new entries each month from our off spring.

Sobering isn't that.