Liberal and Loving It

Why can't we treat all delegates equally - Part 2

About 2 weeks ago the Boulder Obama Grassroots held a meeting for Obama delegates. First off, I want to stress that this group has no official relationship with the Obama campaign. But it is most of the Obama activists in Boulder.

The purpose of this meeting was to get Boulder to agree on a slate of 5 candidates that we would all vote for. The "cause" of this was that Adams County was doing this already and it was the only way to "wrest control" from Adams County. (Turns out this was not true - see below.)

The idea of telling people they should not run bothered me. I had my hand up the entire meeting to speak to this but was never recognized. DeAnne Butterfield tended to mostly recognize the same 7 people but many times it seems half the people had their hand up so it wasn't easy to moderate.

So I then wrote this post asking for feedback. The one comment did not help much as it didn't speak to my concerns.

I then went to the second "Grassroots" meeting and talked to several people about my concerns. This just reinforced my questions as everyone was happy to talk about why this was the only way to respond to Adams County, but no one had any reason why it mattered.

So then I wrote this post, with more information and in a more aggressive tone, asking for feedback. And there was a lot of feedback, all of which was yes, this "anointed slate" is B.S.

So I went to the convention today and passed out this flier. In it I listed my concerns and asked people to consider all candidates. Now here's where it gets even more interesting. From my live blog of the convention:

I talked to Danny T. Watson Jr. who is president of the Adams County Young Dems and a bunch of other political groups including the Obama teams in Adams county. I asked him about the Adams County list of suggested candidates and he said "there isn't one - that they had heard Boulder had one but they did not have one." In other words, the whole Boulder Obama Grassroots excuse for having a suggested list, according to Danny, is total B.S.

So the whole reason for coming up with a slate is likely a fabrication. (I say likely because there may have been a group Danny was unfamiliar with.) If so, we were not addressing an anti-democratic problem, we were creating it.

As I was passing out my flier I ran into 10+ people who were livid over the whole anointed slate issue. Across the board they felt dis-enfranchised before the vote was even taken. Disenfranchised enough that several asked for my fliers and passed them out themselves. These are people that supported Obama strongly enough that they were spending a Saturday at the convention and wanted to spend 4 days in Denver doing the same - and they felt betrayed. That is not how you build ongoing support.

Even worse, we were short 49 Obama delegates today. That could have cost us a national delegate for Obama. Almost certainly some who decided to not show were candidates who figured why bother as they had been discounted as possibilities. Here is the emergency email sent by the Obama campaign today:

If you are a delegate or Alternate that did not come today to the CD2 Convention, please come immediately!  We are 49 delegates short and are about to lose delegate seats to Senator Clinton

I almost did not hand out the flier today. In hindsight, I am very glad I did. All of my concerns turned out to be very real. And talking to many of the candidates today, I would be proud to have most (granted not all) of them represent me. And what County they are from - irrelevant.

I don't know what motivated the leadership of the Grassroots group to do this. But I don't think they served Obama or the Democratic Party well with this effort. Sending the "right" person to the convention and losing Colorado in the general election - not a good trade-off.

Why can't we treat all delegates equally - Part 1

Below is the flier that I handed out today at the convention today. Please read Part 2 for the full back story.

Yes We Can! – Include all of our candidates

The leadership in each county has an “approved slate of candidates” and are strongly suggesting that we vote for them, and only them. I ask you to ignore these “approved” slates and instead consider all candidates equally.

1. It is wrong that a campaign based on “Yes We Can” is telling delegates “No You Can’t.” The Obama campaign is about inclusion and empowerment and as such should be welcoming everyone who wants to be a national delegate.
2. This will discourage people from attending the convention. It is demotivating to tell someone they should withdraw their candidacy and some of those people will figure “why bother” and will not go to the convention. In short, this action may cost Obama a delegate.
3. We want to encourage all of these new voters to become politically active. To continue not just into the general election, but after that. A message like this tells people that their rewards are limited. We will lose some people that otherwise would become active party members.

We have this quote from the Boulder Grassroots for Obama:

Collectively we made every effort to ensure that the Boulder County process for selecting final candidates we could all support was 100% based on the Obama campaign principles of: Respect, Include and Empower.

This exclusion of people from even being considered dis-respects, excludes, and disenfranchises all of those candidates. To claim otherwise is Orwellian double-speak.

I have asked multiple party activists why it was so important to have delegates from their County. Not a single one could tell me any advantage that accrued. None. All of this damage is being done just for bragging rights.

As one blogger so eloquently said:

You need to look at the "big picture," not the immediate election at hand. Anything that might discourage newbies from participating in future caucuses and party activities should be avoided at all costs.

Both parties have an extraordinary opportunity at hand now.  Caucuses saw more turnout than activists can ever recall.  How the respective parties cultivate these newcomers is crucial.

Please, Support Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and Democracy at the grassroots level. Talk to the various candidates and make your own decision. And I ask every candidate here today, please do not withdraw your name. Campaign strongly and eloquently for votes as you are every bit as worthy as any other candidate.

CD-2 Convention Post-Mortum

Ok, so what came out of the CD-2 Convention? Here's what I think was of note today:

1. Form a personal point of view, the top item today was that the very first place you could get the Fitz-Gerald/Polis results was this blog. I camped outside the library and when they first walked out the door, I got them and immediately posted them. That was cool - beating all of the official news media.
2. Jared getting 40% is easily the biggest item today. That was better than expected, much better. Some were worried he might not crack 30%. Joan is almost certainly stronger in the convention than in the primary. And who knows who Will Shafroth hurts more (and he has strong support too). This race is totally up in the air and if Joan and Jared are dead even - that is advantage Will. 71/29 Joan would have had Joan on the expressway to victory. 60/40 means it's anyone's game.
3. Joe Neguse is truly an up and coming force. 86.4% did not come from students, there weren't that many there. And Curt Williams is a compelling speaker too. He could flame out somehow but I think he's well grounded and we'll continue to see him moving up. Joe - get a job in the private sector where you learn to manage people - that will stand you in very good stead when you are governor.
4. The presidential primary is over. Both candidates are working on bringing the party together and having Obama win the general election. Peña & Webb are both very experienced politicians that are members of each campaign team. By definition both were "on message" at the convention and that was a love-fest, by both of them.
5. Adams County does not run a meeting as well as Boulder. Of course, that is not surprising. (They weren't bad, but neither were they awesome.)

And the most important issue of the day, did I get elected as a delegate? I don't know. I handed out about 500 fliers about please consider all delegates and another 500 for me. I had people stop me and ask questions. I had 2 people ask for a bunch of my fliers to hand out. Results should be available tomorrow.

I also got to meet a lot of people that I have exchanged emails and blog posts with - but had never met. They were all very nice. I talked to Will Shafroth and Cindy Carlisle for a bit. They are both very calm and happy considering the fact that they are in very competitive races. I was less calm and all I was doing was a 1 day campaign as a delegate.

Most impressive delegate candidate? By far it was Sarah Kihm. She's earned a spot for her efforts but she also come across so very well as an advocate for Obama. And she sell's herself well. The convention is a media event and she'll be a strong asset there.

And finally we have a Razzie to hand out - to the Polis campaign. Apparently when they heard that not all delegates were there, they started calling all delegates to ask them to show up. They didn't call only the missing ones - they called all of them. So my daughter gets a call 1½ hours after I left the house saying I wasn't there. She text-ed me and I answered but she was worried I had been in an accident and was going to call the state patrol next.

Don't do this! Find who didn't show and call them. Don't call everyone. Absolutely don't call and say they did not show up - say you are just checking if they went. It loses you the votes of family members.

Live Blogging the CD-2 Convention

If you are at the convention - please vote David Thielen for National Delegate. If you want a live blog of CD-1 today, please go to SquareState.

7:20 - on my way to Ranum High School

10:19 - got here at 8:30, just got my credentials. Very long line. I think they are renaming Ranum High Joan Fitz-Gerald High - her signs are everywhere. Hundreds. A distant second in the sign contest is Joe Neguse and then a few Hillary signs. That's it. None for Obama or Polis.

Couple of Obama and Kurt Williams (regent) signs inside. Not a lot but at least it's here.

Lots of Fitz-Gerald, Polis, and Neguse people on the ground here. Also a couple of people collecting signatures for Will Shafroth. The signature collectors told me he is already way past 1,000 signatures (which is not a surprise).

Will Jared get 30%? It'll depend on who shows up. This crowd has already made up it's mind. Another interesting question is will Joe Neguse be the only regent candidate. The other two appear to be MIA.

I ran into Jessica Wittmer - she was "not pleased" about my disagreement with the Obama team's telling us all who to vote for. I ran into a couple of others on the list and they were quite gracious with one disagreeing in a very funny way.

Most interesting point so far. I talked to Danny T. Watson Jr. who is president of the Adams County Young Dems and a bunch of other political groups including the Obama teams in Adams county. I asked him about the Adams County list of suggested candidates and he said "there isn't one - that they had heard Boulder had one but they did not have one." In other words, the whole Boulder Obama Grassroots excuse for having a suggested list, according to Danny, is total B.S. I'll keep asking people about this but it looks like this was just a means to garner votes for the Boulder activists.

10:39 - Some guy is up front revving the crowd up, getting cheers, etc. And then in a Rudy Guiliani moment, his cell phone rings and he stops to answer the phone. Apparently this is a bi-partisan affliction.

10:43 - Mark Udall walked up on stage and got a gigantic spontaneous standing ovation. And this is the party activists - from Boulder County. There is not going to be any problem for Mark from the left if this is any indication.

Nice speech ending with a plea for unity regardless of the nominee. We all know Obama has it and the party, here at least, is working on coming back together. It won't be all smooth sailing but people will do it. This is not a party that is split.

About 2/3 stood for an ovation at the end of his speech.

10:53 - Short good speech from Pat Waak. Then the Pledge of Allegiance. Introducing all the office holders in the audience and we have moderate clapping for each. And then he says Andrew Romanoff and the crowd erupts and half stand. The guy has a major future in politics here (I realize that is not news).

11:03 - They are giving each CD candidate 15 minutes (Will 5 as he is petitioning), and each Regent 10 minutes. So we are facing 65 minutes of speeches that will not change anyone's mind. Why? But your intrepid reporter will bear any burden to bring you up to the date news from the source.

Jared Polis: Opposed to Iraq from the start, "my parents" were union members, "I'm a Sierra Club member", thank you educators, no to bias on any reason including sexual orientation. Thank you to mom. He said a great mother's day present would be 71% of the vote today (Jared is funny). Thank you to dad too.

Jared is a solid speaker but he's not inspirational. He rattles off the red meat better than say John Kerry, but he doesn't get everyone screaming. He ended on a couple of lines that got strong applause and it was a good speech - but it's not going to change any minds here.

Polling results: Ok, they announced Joan and based on a rough impression of people standing and signs for her vs Jared it looks roughly to be 66% / 33%. We'll know for sure in about an hour but my guess is Jared will get 30% - 40%.

Joan Fitz-Gerald: Joan's nominator's speeches & presentations are really poor. The thoughts are good but how it's phrased and spoken - yuck. Ok, got lots of cheers for saying NCLB does not work.

This is cool, Joan has a band (3 horns) leading her in. Boatloads of people standing and cheering for her. It's rough counting people in a crowd but Jared could come in under 30%. I'm worried (as a Polis supporter).

Giant cheer for stop funding the war in Iraq and force the troops home now. She's not going to let any distance exist between her and Jared on Iraq. Joan is doing a good job of getting the crowd worked up. Another giant cheer for single payer.

Wow, she is just feeding the audience red meat and they are loving it. Item after item. Definitely a strong speech that the crowd is really loving. She ends on civil rights - that definitely is a core issue for her. And the crowd loved it.

11:50 - The Obama campaign is short 40 delegates here. If you are a delegate or alternate and are reading this - get your ass down to Ranum High NOW! Close your browser, get in your car, and get down here.

12:14 - The Clinton campaign is short 10 delegates in Weld & Broomfield Counties. Same message - get off your ass and get on down here.

The Obama team has the large gym right next to auditorium. The Clinton campaign you have to go through that gym, down a long winding hallway, to the small gym. It's symbolic of the present state of the two campaigns.

1:09 - I've been handing out fliers on why to vote for me. This is hard work. But people seem to be responsive and 2 asked for multiple fliers to hand out. My handout about why the "anointed slate" is wrong has had a lot of people coming up to me and telling me that they feel the same way.

Will Shafroth is now speaking. It's a good speech. No major response though. Good clapping but nothing like Jared & Joan received.

1:37 - Federico Pena just finished his speech for Obama. It was 95% about how we need to come together as Dems regardless of the candidate and 5% about how Obama will be a great president. It was not negative toward Hillary in any way. Clearly Obama sees the primary as won.

1:42 - Wellington Webb is now speaking. The entire speech is about how we have to work together to insure our candidate wins in November. I'm not sure he actually said Hillary's name more than once. He is ending with chants of "Yes We Will!" I'd say the Clinton campaign is in exit mode. And as always, Webb gives a great speech.

1:43 - BREAKING!! 39.8% Polis, 60.2% Fitz-Gerald 39.9% Polis, 60.1% Fitz-Gerald

1:55 - BREAKING!!! Joe Neguse 86.4%, Curt Williams 83.6% Joe Neguse 86.4%, Curt Williams 13.6% - (sorry - don't know how I transposed the 1 to an 8 - and one of my majors was math) Joe's going to be a regent

3:30 - Voted and heading home!

4:58 - Post Mortum

Does anyone in the Adams County government actually work?

First we had Crystal Gray who resigned as Adams County parks and open space director after 7 News found she spent most of her work day shopping, getting her hair done, etc. Now we have a 7 News story about the Adams County directory of public works giving sweetheart deals to a friend.

The director of the Adams County Public Works Department is on administrative leave after a CALL7 Investigation uncovered millions of dollars in no-bid contracts he approved to a Henderson road construction and paving company.

And the Adams County administrator comes across as a total dim bulb:

"Until we asked questions, you weren't aware that you'd given $12 million in sole source contracts to Quality Paving?" CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia asked Robinson. "That's correct," he answered.

How clueless is the Adams County government?

Not only did county officials not know about the extent of the no-bid work Quality received, they also did not know about a state statute requiring bidding of highway work that cost more than $5,000. "So you didn't really know about this law?" Ferrugia asked. "That's correct," Robinson admitted. "That was not anything that was contained within our purchasing policies or was really part of our thinking."

Which leads to one question. Why does Jim Robinson still have a job? How inept do you have to be to get fired in Adams County. (Clearly the answer is you can be totally inept, just don't let 7 News find out.)

I sure hope in November that the Adams County voters replace the doorknobs they presently have with competent commissioners.

CD-2 Delegates - Please Read This

This race is not over. The primary will be close. The general election will be close. We need every vote we can get to elect Barack Obama. Every possible additional vote.

That is why I am asking for your vote as a national delegate at the CD-2 convention Saturday May 10. Please go to David Thielen for National Delegate to see why sending me on as a delegate will help put Barack Obama in the White House.

And please forward the link to your friends who are delegates.

My lunch with Joe

I had lunch today with Joe Neguse. He's a 2^nd year law student and is running for the 2^nd CD C.U. Regent slot. To break with the "2^nd" theme so far, he's hoping to place 1^st in the election.

Does anyone remember Michael Keaton's character in the movie Night Shift? That's Joe, so much energy he's bouncing off the wall. He's smart, got tons of energy, and has put in the work necessary to effect change. I'm not sure some of the regents are ready for a colleague who will wake them up from their afternoon naps at the board meetings.

Alexander Hamilton, John D. Rockefeller, Joe Neguse. It's the money. Joe spent the first ½ hour discussing the funding crisis C.U. faces. What causes it, what we should try to address it, how to go about doing so. And a lot of that was discussing how up till now the regents haven't done squat (other than the occasional supportive resolution) to bring in more money.

Joe went in to how as a regent he will be out there selling the school, what it does, why it is worthy of support. And in that effort, build up the support of the taxpayers to provide higher ed the funding it needs to keep the state improving.

On the one hand, this is the biggest issue facing C.U. and it is good to see a regent candidate who will actually work to effect change. On the other hand, I'm thinking "oh great, another cheerleader in an oversight position."

And then, without pausing for breath, Joe jumped in to how C.U. is an inefficient bureaucracy and the Regents need to step up and start digging in to how the University is operating and what can be done to improve it.

He sees the need to bring improvement to the school, both to make more effective use of the money the school has and so the taxpayers are more willing to provide additional funds. And as a very active student and ex student body president, he knows where a lot of the bodies are buried. On some questions he will know if Bruce Benson is feeding the regents a load of crap.

On the flip side, he has no experience managing an organization and so he will not be able to bring in the processes by which the Regents can most effectively evaluate the operation of the University. But possibly his initiative and the business experience of 1 or 2 other regents combined may be a powerful combination.

As to academics, research programs, etc., he had very little to say. He speaks of them but his passion clearly is fixing the higher ed funding crisis and improving the operation of the system. That sounds to me like the recipe for a very good regent.

Plus he'll clearly work his ass off.

BVSD - no improvement

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. But I have found that if you use numbers on basic measures, take them over a long enough period of time, and graph them out, they usually do a very good job of showing clear trends.

So I did this for some numbers on BVSD (thank you to the nice people there who answered my info request) taking a base measure of the student body and how it is doing. And from looking at this it looks like, over time, that BVSD is stuck. We can argue about exactly how "good" a job BVSD is doing. But what does seem very clear is it is not improving.

Ok, so lets look at the numbers (spreadsheet here). You can click on the graph to get a larger copy. First a couple of caveats. I think the dropout rate is way low - it may just be for people who drop out their senior year (I have a question in on that).

Second, how things are measured can change from year to year. It can also be impacted by when in the year it is measured, what is included, etc. But as a gross measure, these numbers tend to be measuring the same thing year over year.

So what do we see? Looking at the lines at the bottom, the student body's composition has stayed constant. We have seen no increase or decrease in ELL, Special Needs, or the economic status of the students. The only measure outside of the margin of error is the free lunch and that slight bump is more an indicator of the economy Bush has bequeathed us.

Now up to the CSAP score. This number is an average of all grades across all schools of students proficient and above. In other words, the 70% of our students that are passing. Again, no real change and most of the tiny increase the last 3 years is due to adding the 3rd and 4th grade math test where students have a higher average.

Bottom line - BVSD is doing as competent a job today as they were doing in 1998 (and probably before). So all the programs and initiatives and other efforts tried by the system - bukus, nada, a big fat zero. If they had done nothing new we probably would be at this exact same point. If the BVSD administration is having no effect, then by definition they are failing. Not doing poorly, they are failing.

We are also failing 30% of our students. Lets repeat that, for 3 out of 10 students we are not giving them a proficient education. And in today's economy where a college education is a prerequisite for most well paying jobs, for 30% we're not even getting them to the level of a strong high school education. That 30% is financially fucked in today's economy. Not slightly disadvantaged, they're hosed.

And our teaching staff? Like any large group it follows the Bell curve where some are fantastic, many are good, and some are awful. So what does the district due to remove the really bad teachers? Nothing. In the last 17 years not a single tenured teacher has been fired (source Veronica Benavidez plus recent info request). Not one. How on earth can BVSD deliver a quality education for all if no matter how horrible a teacher is, they keep their job?

So there you have it, a school administration and school board that are totally ineffective, a teaching staff that cannot be touched, and a system that discards 30% of our children. And with something this awful people are getting upset with the school board - OVER SELLING A SCHOOL BUILDING.

Chances of actual improvement on the issues that matter? About zero under the present system.

Update: vkberlin has commented about the increase in free lunch and tried to tie that to illegal immigration. First off, ELL is basically flat and has dropped since 2002/2003. If the recent increase in poor was due to illegal immigration, then ELL would also be increasing.

The increase in poor (free lunch) students appears to mirror the economy, as the Bush economy tanks, the poor increases slightly. As to the increase from 8.6% to 13.9%, that is an increase of 5.3% of the student body. I put this increase down not to any change in the student body, but to the change in the existing student's family's economic status.

Bill Ritter ROCKS, Bruce Benson SUCKS

From the Boulder Daily Camera (per Rocky Mountain News):

Ritter endorsed a citizens initiative Thursday to eliminate a property tax credit for the oil and gas industry unique to Colorado. Killing the tax credit would bring the state about $200 million more a year.

Under the plan, 60 percent would go toward “Colorado Promise” scholarships to help families pay for college. The other 40 percent would be divided among projects to help communities offset the impacts of the oil and gas industry, set aside wildlife habitat and develop renewable energy sources.

Ok, higher ed funding is in the toilet (flushing the state's future away with it). Governor Ritter is stepping up with a great way to get money in there. And he is doing so from a source that has had a tax-free ride from the state forever and is choking in profits.

Not only that, but Ritter is sending the dollars with the student so the better schools will see more of the money. Imagine that, schools will have to deliver to get the money.

So what is the response from our stewards of higher ed to the fact that they have to earn the bucks by pulling in the students rather than have a guaranteed stream of money regardless?

Even so, some college presidents remained critical of Ritter’s decision to back a ballot initiative to increase state revenues from oil and gas drilling to help families pay for college, instead of using the money to fill depleted campus budgets.

The real winner here is Bruce Benson, ex-oil & gas tycoon who had this to say about where the money is coming from.

“I mean, I said to him, ‘Don’t go out there and try to throw a severance tax (increase) without a quid pro quo,’ ” said Benson, who built a fortune in the oil and gas industry. “If you want oil and gas to become neutral, you have to do something that’s going to help them, and not hurt them.“

Yes, heaven forbid that oil & gas be made to pay their fair share. Benson's day job may be as president of C.U. but his heart is still clearly with his poor suffering fellow millionaires.

So kudos to Bill Ritter both for an initiative that makes a big start on fixing our funding issues for higher ed and makes college more affordable. And does so in a very equitable way.

And a big %#*$@ to Bruce Benson who has made it clear that C.U. comes second to outrageous profits and minimal taxes for his buddies. How long are we stuck with this bozo before we can hire a president at C.U. who puts C.U. first?

My lunch with Katie

I had lunch with Katie Witt today. She's a very brave woman, the first Republican who was willing to sit down with me. And except for the little detail of the [R] after her name, a terrific person.

The biggest impression I took away is she is fresh to what we need out of the legislature. Everyone else I've talked to to date has boatloads of experience. That means they know more on lots of issues, but it also tends to have people locked into the 2 or 3 alternatives that the conventional wisdom comes up with.

What I heard from Katie was a an open intelligent mind that talked through various issues and different possibilities to address them. So will she hit the ground with detailed proposals? No. But will she see that some solutions are inadequate and work to actually fix problems? Yes. So what you get with her is a fresh open set of eyes.

Education is her prime passion. She has 3 kids in public schools and so she sees the problems from the trenches. (I think the difference between those of us that have kids and those that don't is much bigger than that between Democrats and Republicans.) A lot of good observations on what needs improvement in the schools.

In addition to seeing the need for systemic improvement in the schools, she also sees the need to increase funding for the schools. Katie is a Republican who understands the traditional Republican value of investing in our future. It's rare nowadays and oh so nice to hear.

The other big topic she brought up was health-care. She sees that it is not working for way too many people, and that tying it to work ties employees to their jobs when they have health issues in the family. She also sees the proposed "fixes" for the state as a lot of money being spent to small effect (which I think is a very good point).

Again, she lives this issue and clearly stated that the free enterprise system by itself cannot provide the best solution. Again, it was refreshing to hear that all too rare nowadays Republican approach of having government get involved in the market where necessary.

That leads to the second big thing you get from Katie. She views government as a key part of society with very important roles to play. She questions where the money is going, is it being wisely spent, and how best to achieve goals. But in all of her conversation government is a part of this.

She is not the Doug Bruce revert to anarchy type. She is not the Bob Schaffer leave everything to the market type. Rather she wants to find the way to have the government most effectively and efficiently do it's part.