Libertarian guv candidate Brown welcomes The Tanc ‘with open arms’
While Republican candidates, some tea partiers and state GOP head Dick Wadhams wail and gnash their teeth over Tom Tancredo’s entry into the governor’s race, Libertarian candidate for governor Jaimes Brown welcomes The Tanc into the race “with open arms” and adds that the reaction only underlines the need to reform the electoral system so voters aren’t stuck with the limited candidate choices put forward by the two major parties.
This year in Colorado, where conservative voters saw a rich opportunity to take the top spot in the state wither for being pinned to two less than compelling candidates, the age-old call to broaden U.S. voter choices may gain traction.
Brown’s appeal, sent around in an email release today, is thought provoking and entertaining and it may give his Libertarian candidacy some extra juice.
He’s talking about “approval voting” which means basically voting for several candidates and ranking them. The candidate who ranks highest overall wins. It’s not a perfect system, but anything beats our “first past the post” system in place now.
As Anthony Gottlieb wrote in the New Yorker last week:
It’s clear that no country would pick first-past-the-post voting today. Of democracies with no significant British past, only Nepal now elects its national assembly this way.
And as Hendrik Hertzberg added:
Even some democracies with quite significant British pasts have dumped first-past-the-post. New Zealand switched to “mixed-member” proportional representation, the kind they use in Germany, in 1993. Australia switched to instant-runoff voting—where you rank your choices—way back in 1918. And the country with the most significant British past of all, Britain, has decided to decide whether it wants to do likewise.
If conservative voters, half the voters in the state, could simply vote for Brown and Maes and Mcinnis and Tancredo in order of preference, they would welcome the diversity. As it is, they have to choose one of them and the perceived effectiveness of the candidates at this point is probably a mid- or low-level consideration.
Brown’s thoughts:
As a Libertarian candidate for governor in Colorado, I have watched with amusement and wonder at the hand wringing that Republicans have gone through over the past two weeks with the entry of Tom Tancredo in the governor’s race.
Republicans have come out of the woodwork to condemn Tancredo for “splitting the vote”, being a “spoiler” or “wasting your vote”. As a Libertarian, we are typically painted with those descriptions, whether it is the perceived taking of votes from Republicans or Democrats.
The old saying “if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got” applies here. People ought to vote for the best candidate, regardless of party affiliation.
To address this issue, Libertarians have been promoting awareness of “approval voting”. Approval voting allows you to vote for multiple candidates. The candidate with the most votes wins. Pretty simple. This method allows you to vote for your favorite candidate, but also vote for the other “lesser of the evils” if you think that you could prevent the worst candidates from winning.
The whole issue of Tancredo in this race would be a moot point for the Republicans, with approval voting. Plurality voting splits the vote of similar ideologies. Approval voting would encourage the nearly 50% of eligible voters who don’t bother voting because the two parties do not represent them.
[...]
Tancredo can only raise the level of the Governor debate, which I welcome with open arms.
Brown’s platform, according to this release, is heavily focused on liberating hemp and marijuana from the war on drugs as a cost saver. Among other things, he also would work to solve illegal immigration and to switch the state’s income tax revenue to sales tax revenue.
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Another Batch of Non-#!%*@*&! Insults…
A member of Parliament to Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli:
“Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.”
Replied Disraeli:
“That depends, sir, whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
*****
“He had delusions of adequacy.”
–Walter Kerr
*****
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. ”
–Winston Churchill
-30-
Kansas fourth district poll shows tightening race with Pompeo in lead
KWCH Television in Wichita and SurveyUSA have released a poll of candidates seeking the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas.
The survey shows support for Wichita businessman Jim Anderson and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf on the rise, while the numbers for Wichita businessman Wink Hartman continue to decline. The support for Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo also fell slightly, well within the poll’s level of sampling error.
The numbers have Pompeo leading with 31 percent, Schodorf with 24 percent, Hartman with 23 percent, Anderson with 13 percent, and Latham engineer Paij Rutschman at two percent.
Undecided voters are at six percent. The poll was conducted July 26th through 28th. The margin of sampling error is 3.5 percent.
Interestingly, this poll has Schodorf at the same level of support as shown in her own internal poll released earlier this week. Her poll, however, showed her in first place with 24 percent support, with Pompeo in second place at 21 percent. That difference is within the poll’s sampling error.
The Schodorf poll had 32 percent of voters as undecided, which is — and has been the case with all of Schodorf’s surveys — several times higher than the six percent undecided measured by SurveyUSA.
State of the State KS is working on a poll that should be released today or tomorrow. This will provide another independent measure of voter sentiment as election day — August 3rd — draws near.
Some voters have already voted. At yesterday’s meeting of the Sedgwick County Commission, Election Commissioner Bill Gale said that about 13,000 mail ballots have been sent to voters, with about half being returned already.
In the 2008 primary election, 36,724 ballots were cast in Sedgwick County. With 6,500 ballots already returned, this means that at least 17 percent of voters (assuming the same turnout as in 2008) have already voted.
For the fourth Kansas Congressional district, about 71 percent of the population is in Sedgwick County.
On the Democratic Party side of this race, it appears that the television advertisements appearing for Raj Goyle are working. He trailed in the last poll two weeks ago, but now leads opponent Robert Tillman 63 percent to 19 percent, with 18 percent undecided. Two weeks ago Tillman led Goyle 40 percent to 36 percent.
Kansas fourth Congressional district poll resultsFriends in high places (and aiming higher)
An ad for Dav
idson County Juvenile Court clerk hopeful Eric Crafton in the West Meade News shows the Metro councilman with the three Republican candidates for governor. Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey stands to Crafton’s right, while U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp and Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam are on his left, all smiling. (The photo also is on Crafton’s web site.)
“No matter who your choice for governor is on August 5th, don’t forget to vote for our good friend Eric Crafton for Nashville’s next Juvenile Court Clerk!” the ad reads before going into a list of Crafton’s qualifications.
Crafton said the picture was taken at a National Rifle Association banquet in Nashville. He’s the Republican facing Democrat David Smith (which also happens to be the name of Haslam’s campaign press secretary) in next week’s Metro general election. Early voting ends Saturday.
Kansas fourth Congressional district campaign finance reports
Candidates for the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas have filed campaign finance reports for the first two weeks of July and some last-minute reports since then.
The candidates and their campaign websites are Wichita businessman Jim Anderson, Wichita businessman Wink Hartman, Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo, Latham engineer Paij Rutschman, and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf.
Here is a summary of FEC campaign finance reports for the first part of July 2010:
Kansas Fourth District Republican campaign finance reports,
July 1, 2010 through July 14, 2010
Anderson Hartman Pompeo Schodorf
Contributions 2,060 0 49,347 14,891
Candidate loans 0 289,537 0 0
Expenditures 2,240 427,872 207,830 23,172
Cash balance 4,049 40,958 286,032 8,823
Figures for Rutschman were not available at the FEC data site.
Figures that stand out in this report include zero dollars raised by the Hartman campaign from individual contributions. All money raised during this period came from the candidate himself.
Also, Hartman spent more than twice as much as the second-largest spender.
From the start of the election cycle through July 14, 2010, the numbers look like this:
Kansas Fourth District Republican campaign finance reports,
through July 14, 2010
Anderson Hartman Pompeo Rutschman Schodorf
Contributions 38,924 141,949 935,087 80 50,338
Candidate loans 3,275 1,563,137 0 30,000 29,006
Expenditures 37,301 1,664,129 649,054 24,464 70,521
(Rutschman’s figures are through June 30, 2010)
In this table we see the largely self-financed Hartman campaign outspending all other candidates. His campaign has spent more than twice as much as all other campaigns together.
This still isn’t the entire story, as candidates are filing “48 hour notice” reports of last-minute contributions (expenditures are not included in these filings). Through July 28, 2010, here are the numbers:
Anderson Hartman Pompeo
Total 5,100 348,500 35,700
(Schodorf and Rutschman have not filed any of these reports.)
In the case of Hartman, the total of $348,500 is all from the candidate himself. Overall, the Hartman campaign has raised $2,053,586, with 93 percent from candidate self-financing.
According to OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center for Responsive Politics, the average amount spent by winning candidates in 2008 for the U.S. House of Representatives was $1,372,591. Hartman is well over this figure.
Each House district has roughly the same population, although the cost of running campaigns varies widely due to the differing characteristics of districts.
Self-financed candidates
In writing about political scientist Jennifer A. Steen and her book, Self-Financed Candidates in Congressional Elections (University of Michigan Press, 2006), Bruce Bartlett wrote this:
One of her findings is that the necessity of asking people for contributions is valuable to a candidate, especially inexperienced ones. She thinks this is mainly because self-financing keeps bad candidates from being weeded out of contention by a lack of contributions. But I think it also results because once people have given someone a campaign contribution they become invested in that candidate and are more willing to vote for him or her on Election Day and to work on his or her behalf.
Voters also resent candidates who appear to be trying to buy an election. Self-financed candidates may be independent of special interests, but they also often appear aloof from the concerns of average voters. Having to ask people for money forces a candidate to take their feedback, thus learning about their concerns directly rather than filtered through pollsters and consultants.
In her book, Steen writes: “They [self-financers] are also less likely to engage in what Richard Feuno calls ‘two-way’ campaigning, or interaction between the candidate and constituency, which thus entails some degree of learning and responsiveness on the candidates part.”
Perhaps as a result, self-financed candidates don’t have a very good track record of winning elections. Steen found that for competitive U.S. House of Representative districts, candidates who are “extreme self-financers” (Hartman falls in this category) won 37 percent of primary election contests. That winning percentage falls to 31 percent in general elections.
Voters are interested in what type of representative a candidate would make. Do self-financed candidates differ from other candidates once in office? Steen writes: “These differences do not recommend self-financers as representatives. They are quite unlike the vast majority of citizens, even citizens in more affluent districts, and they are less likely than non-self-financers to confront and engage the citizens they seek to represent.”
Self-financed candidates usually claim that since they have a source of campaign funds independent from the usual sources — which these candidates usually describe as “corrupt” or undesirable in some other sinister manner — they can act in the best interests of all their constituents once in office. But Steen found differently: “However, once elected most self-financers assimilate very rapidly to the norms of fund-raising — only a small percentage continue to resist the charms of campaign contributors.”
Kansas fourth Congressional district campaign financeNorton continues to spout bogus budget lines
In a debate with Ken Buck on Sunday’s YourShow, Adam Schrager’s public affairs show on Channel 20, U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton cited Schrager’s own Truth-Test reporting to support her contentions that, under the leadership of her primary opponent Ken Buck, the Weld County D.A. budget increased by 40 percent and that, as director of the Colorado Health Department, Norton cut the general fund budget by 28 percent. She has been proven wrong on both counts, including in the Schrager pieces she cited.
Schrager immediately corrected Norton on the 40 percent figure, reminding her that his Truth Test piece determined Buck’s budget had risen by 31 percent not 40 percent.
After correcting Norton on her 40 percent figure, Schrager turned the mic over to Buck, who told Norton that the Truth Test also reported that she had not cut the health department budget.
Schrager didn’t intervene and render a verdict on whether his Truth Test supported Norton’s claim that she cut the health department budget or Buck’s claim that she didn’t. So I asked Schrager about it via email.
There’s a little more to this right off the bat, but fundamentally, I let it slip.
First of all, she approached the CDPHE point differently than I had her mention it before. Had she said she cut the budget, it would have been a no-brainer, but I heard something different and it was live TV and frankly, I didn’t process exactly what she said until I went back to the tape.
The ad says she cut budgets and for the reasons I articulated, that is incorrect. It’s a power given to lawmakers and the governor. But in the debate, she specifically phrases it differently saying the general fund, “what I had responsibility for, I cut 28 percent.” I got caught up on the general fund and the “what I had responsibility for” lines and I missed the “I cut” because that obviously brings up the same point as before. Department heads play roles in the process but they are not the end arbiters of their fate. She’s also incorrect when she says he’s grown his budget as he’s also not in control of his budget, but the Weld County Commission is.
I’ve also made clear to Buck’s folks, if they accuse her of raising her budget, I’ll disagree with that for the same reasons as above.
As I have written previously, three major news outlets have reported, based on three different readings of the facts, that Norton did not cut her heath department budget. What’s more, no budget experts have been cited supporting Norton’s position.
In ongoing reporting on this topic, Fox31 (which was the first Denver news outlet to show that Norton was misleading viewers on this issue) is pointing out to viewers that Norton did not cut her CDHPE budget. As Fox31’s Eli Stokols reported Tuesday:
On the campaign trail, Norton has continued to tell voters that she cut spending at CDPHE, even though, as Fox31 was first to report in March, the budgets she oversaw have shown that spending actually increased slightly during her tenure.
That’s the most fair and accurate way to describe what happened to the CDPHE budget under Norton.
Here’s a transcript of the exchange between Buck and Norton on YourShow July 22.
Norton: Both Ken and I have had budgets that have been entrusted to us by the taxpayers of Colorado. I have had two, one when I was head of the state health department. And the general fund appropriation, according to your fact check, what I had responsibility for, I cut 28 percent, in the four years I was in office. I was also lieutenant governor, and in the four years I cut what I has responsibility for, according to your fact check, by 10 percent. Ken on the other hand talks about being for limited government but he has grown his budget at Weld County District Attorney’s office by 40 percent over the time he’s been in office. So you can say you’re a fiscal conservative, and you can say you believe in limited government, but does your record match your rhetoric.
Schrager: Our truth test actually showed it was 31 percent that the Weld County District Attorney’s office went up, but I assume you want to speak to that anyhow.
Buck: You know, don’t let truth get in the way of a good political message. The fact check on Jane’s most recent commercial shows that she was false when she says that she cut her budget and false when she says my budget went up 40 percent. She continues to repeat those lines as if repeating them will make them true. It won’t make them true
.
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The partial return of the public option
Four months after President Barack Obama enacted the Affordable Care And Patient Protection Act, House Democrats have resurfaced a top liberal priority buried near the end of the grueling year-long battle over health care reform: the public option.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), leading the charge for a new public option. (ZUMApress.com)
Armed with a new line of attack aimed at soothing deficit fears, Democratic Reps. Lynn Woolsey (Calif.), Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) and Pete Stark (Calif.) last Thursday unveiled a bill that would offer consumers the choice of a “robust” government-run insurance plan alongside the private plans in the law’s exchanges. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill, which has gained 128 co-sponsors, will reduce the federal deficit by $68 billion between 2014 and 2020.
“As the deficit continues to grow, so does the need for a program that can save billions of dollars and improve health care while doing it,” said Woolsey, the co-chair of the progressive caucus. “We are introducing the public option now so it will be available as a ready-made offset or deficit reducer in this or the next Congress.”
Schakowsky argues that the lower overhead costs of government plans such as Medicare would allow the public option to create a better deal for consumers. “We could offer that kind of plan at a lower cost, and it would compete with private insurance companies, who would have to be more efficient and lower their costs,” she said. “It would follow the same rules as private insurers.”
The measure is unlikely to reach the floor this year, and could face even steeper odds next Congress. If nothing else, it appears part of a concerted effort by Democrats to galvanize disenchanted progressives and attack Republicans ahead of the tough November midterm elections.
“You’re the deficit hawks,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), referring primarily to Republicans, “and we’re giving you a tool to be able to deal with the deficit.” Grijalva labeled deficit-minded lawmakers who refuse to consider the public option “hypocrites,” alleging that “the excuse that it was going to be too expensive is phony.”
For Democrats in election mode, catering to liberal wishes could help bridge the wide enthusiasm gap among voters — a key predictor of midterm victories, where the main objective is to turn out the party base. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that 72 percent of Republicans were “certain” they would vote in November, compared to only 49 percent of Democrats.
“I do think this turnout issue is really going to be the crucial indicator, and the election hangs in the balance on how many of those less-committed Democrats actually turn out again,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.
“That is a very real issue that we’re focused on,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, admitted to Reuters. Apart from the public option bill, the White House on Monday strongly hinted it will choose liberal favorite Elizabeth Warren to lead the consumer protection agency. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats forced a cloture vote on the DISCLOSE Act, also a progressive priority, despite widespread expectations that it wouldn’t pass.
Republicans, who have depicted the public plan as a slippery slope to a national single payer system, derided the attempt to revive it and dismissed the CBO report. “House Democrats still don’t get it,” National Republican Campaign Committee spokesman Paul Lindsay said. “As if it wasn’t enough to vote for their party’s overreaching health care takeover that was soundly rejected by Americans, they now have the audacity to propose a government option which would put health care in the hands of bureaucrats and further bankrupt our nation.”
The CBO estimates that the public plan’s premiums would be, on average, 5 percent to 7 percent lower than the private plans in the exchanges. Providers would be paid Medicare rates plus 5 percent, a figure that would rise alongside physicians’ costs.
“Although skepticism about big government is growing, the CBO estimate gives [Democrats] an important selling point at a time of rising concern about deficits,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College.
Popular among the populace but highly controversial in Congress, the public plan has the political disadvantage of facing fierce opposition from insurance companies, which fear competition from the government. And progressives shouldn’t hold their breath for a vote. “It’s unlikely it’ll be taken up this session,” a House Democratic aide conceded, saying only that it’s “quite possible” next Congress. But is it?
“For the progressives, it’s now or never,” Pitney argues. “They know that Republicans will make big gains in 2010, probably winning the House and maybe even the Senate. The numbers favor further GOP Senate gains in 2012.”
Despite the historic accomplishment, liberals cannot help but look back on the vexing health care debate with wistfulness, if not bitterness. Even though the bill covers 30 million Americans, liberals felt short-changed by its lack of a public insurance program. While the House passed a version of a public option in its November legislation, it was removed from the Senate version due to a lack of votes, and subsequently pronounced dead. (For a few liberal activists, this was the final straw that made the legislation no longer worth passing.) One day later, a CBS poll found that six in ten Americans favored the opportunity to choose between private insurance plans and a government plan. Surveys have consistently found that a large majority of the American public support the idea.
At the time, President Obama, soothing concerns of House progressives unsure whether to back a bill without it, reportedly assured them in private that it was merely a first step and he’d be willing to return to the public option later.
But major domestic initiatives are more likely to occur early in presidential terms, Pitney noted, arguing that the measure’s chances of success during this Congress are slim – but not nil. “It’s a Hail Mary pass, to be sure,” Pitney said. “But Hail Mary passes sometimes work. And Speaker Pelosi likes the Hail Mary. And if they fail to make the effort now, they will regret it in the future. Better a Hail Mary in 2010 than an Act of Contrition in 2011.”
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Keet Criticizes Beebe on Arizona Immigration Ruling
Yesterday, a federal court issued an injunction against a significant portion of Arizona’s new immigration law. Republican Jim Keet, who is running for governor of Arkansas, issued a statement saying he supported the Arizona law, opposed the court’s ruling, and criticized Gov. Mike Beebe with the familiar line that he did not speak out enough.
“The Obama Administration claims that the Arizona law is in conflict with federal law, but is silent with respect to sanctuary cities, which are an obvious violation of federal law. This double-standard is troubling to anyone serious about securing our borders. Governor Beebe’s silence on this is another instance where he has quietly supported the Obama administration and its agenda,” said Keet.
So I asked Gov. Beebe’s campaign for a response.
“Governor Beebe supports the right of Arizona and every other state to protect their citizens and believes the federal government should enforce the immigration laws fully and fairly,” said Anne Hughes, Press Secretary for Beebe for Governor. “For Governor Beebe, this is not just political rhetoric. It’s precisely what Mike Beebe did as the chief law enforcement office of the state and it is precisely what he is doing as governor.”
Thanks For Voting Me “Best of Arkansas” Runner Up
Arkansas Times’ annual “Best of Arkansas” came out today as voted on by their readers and low and behold, you voted me runner-up on the best local blog category.
Of course, first place went to Arkansas Times’ own Arkansas Blog who you have to admit sort of had home field advantage, although honestly who can keep up with Max. The other runners up were Kat Robinson’s Tie Dye Travels and Blake Rutherford’s Blake’s Think Tank.
When I started blogging, I was amazed anyone would even read it much less would vote for one of their favorites. Thank you.
In Big Shift, Californians Oppose Offshore Oil Drilling
By Public Policy Institute of California
Three months after a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Californians’ support for more drilling off their coast has plunged, according to a survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). A solid majority of the state’s residents now oppose more offshore drilling (59% oppose, 36% favor)—a 16-point increase in opposition from last year (43% oppose, 51% favor). The PPIC survey was conducted with support from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and is the 10th in a series about Californians and the environment.
In contrast to the shift in opinion on drilling, Californians’ views on another contentious environmental policy issue have held steady since last year. Two-thirds (67% today, 66% in 2009) favor the state law (AB 32) that requires California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.