Being yourself

An important piece of advice I give every candidate for public office, is be yourself. Naturally we try as best we can, to recruit candidates who fit Democratic Party ideals and values. These values are clear enough: you can read all about them in the links at right. But once we've decided on a candidate, we want that candidate to be authentic, meaning that the ideas, approach, and leadership style they project come from their whole lifetime of experience and learning. We don't want candidates to change their approach or priorities to fit the audience of the day. Voters won't — and shouldn't — trust someone who would do that.

On that count, Hillary Clinton lost me this week.

I've been staying neutral throughout this primary season, partly because of my responsibilities in the nominating process, and partly because I really like both Sens. Clinton and Obama. Sure, I've disagreed with both of them occasionally. I disagreed with Clinton on Iraq, for example. But I respected her approach on that issue because it fit her. All her life she has been tough, everyone knows it, so when she talks tough she has credibility. We have a lot of fearful people in this country today, most of them Republicans, and Clinton's approach is comforting to them. She can bridge the partisan divide because of this ability to make people feel safe. As a Democrat I have not been too worried about her sabre-rattling because I also know another basic thing about Clinton, that she is extremely smart and resourceful. Unlike Bush and McCain, who have only one tool in their toolbox, if Clinton ever takes us to war we'll know beyond a doubt that she has exhausted every other possibility first.

But that's where Hillary lost me. All her life she has been smart, and has surrounded herself with other smart people who are the best at what they do. Sen. Clinton never signed on to the current scourge of anti-intellectualism, the attitude that the world is too complex and therefore let's cast our lot with anyone offering simplistic answers. When she said this week, regarding the short-sighted notion of suspending the Federal gas tax for the summer, that she doesn't listen to economists, my jaw just sank. She must have been misquoted, I thought, or was suffering from temporary insanity. But she repeated it, emphasized it, convinced surrogates to carry the same message. Not one person in this vast nation believed it, because it just wasn't her.

Clinton's campaign has been under pressure, there's no doubt about it. She needed to make some adjustments. But this was one gigantic adjustment. If it was her best option, then her campaign is doomed.

Sen. Obama has an entirely different approach to bridging the partisan divide. What his opponents call "vagueness," is actually a deliberate effort to avoid pouring salt in old partisan wounds, to instead challenge all of us to work together on shared problems, and to be ambitious and fearless in doing it. He has worked steadily to change the framing of the debate, to get us out of the dead ends that we've been stuck in. It's an authentic approach: it fits the way he has operated through his entire life, and it fits the character of a smart, youthful candidate. What's more, it's obvious that people are ready for Obama's way forward, that they like it more than the incrementalist approach of Clinton. This is why his campaign is doing so well.

Both Clinton and Obama have a legitimate claim to being the ideal candidate for these times. That's what has made it so hard to choose. I want them both. But events are showing us that Obama has the stronger claim to be the transformational leader we need. That's why today I'm endorsing Barack Obama for president.

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And further, I think it's essential at this point that we put this primary contest to bed. It's done. There is nothing good that can come from a fight over Michigan and Florida delegates. We need to help make the delegate margin big enough, that it won't come to such a fight.

My part of the nomination process is completed, I won't be there next Saturday, so I'm free to speak out. I am urging all delegates, pledged to any candidate, to recognize where this is going and vote for Obama and Obama delegates at next weekend's State Convention. Specifically, I urge a vote for Susie McMahon, one of the people who has been indispensable over the past few years in helping move Douglas County out of the "safe Republican" column.

We need to get ourselves unified and refocused on the big contest ahead. Now is the time.

Setting the pace

This week the Pew Research Center updated its study on the party leaning of young voters, age 18-30. Its findings would not surprise those of us who have been talking with voters recently. Pew has noted a trend, since 1992, of young people becoming more sympathetic to the Democratic Party. This trend has accelerated dramatically over the past four years.

In surveys conducted between October 2007 and March 2008, 58% of voters under age 30 identified or leaned toward the Democratic Party, compared with 33% who identified or leaned toward the GOP. The Democratic Party's current lead in party identification among young voters has more than doubled since the 2004 campaign, from 11 points to 25 points.

In fact, the Democrats' advantage among the young is now so broad-based that younger men as well as younger women favor the Democrats over the GOP — making their age category the only one in the electorate in which men are significantly more inclined to self-identify as Democrats rather than as Republicans.

While more women voters in every age group affiliate with the Democratic Party rather than the GOP, the gap is particularly striking among young women voters; more than twice as many women voters under age 30 identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party as favor the Republican Party (63% vs. 28%).

In Colorado and Douglas County, we've been tracking these statistics and recently completed the 2008 update. The gender gap and age gap have been large for as long as we have been tracking them. While all age ranges have been moving toward the Democratic Party, the effect is largest among the youngest voters. The gender gap declined between 2004 and 2008, even though women have continued to move toward the Democratic Party. The difference is that men are moving toward the Democratic side even faster.

In Douglas County, even more striking is the marriage gap, which is among the largest of any county in Colorado. Not only has there been a large influx of single people into the county in the past four years, but these new residents are significantly more likely to be Democrats, than the general population.

Our challenge this year comes from the fact that these new voters — young and single people — tend to have the lowest turnout. They just haven't been very interested in politics. I think the apathy of the youngest generation in the past three decades, is a good part of the reason for the decline in leadership quality we have seen as a nation. The intense energy and sharp, open minds of younger people — the ability to fearlessly confront a complex world on its own terms — could be an antidote to the ideological, fearful lazy-mindedness that has given us ineffective misguided politicians. I'm convinced that well-informed young people would never vote for a Douglas Bruce, Tom Tancredo, or George W. Bush.

This is where your local Democratic Party is going to play an essential role. It's up to us, and no one else, to make sure young people think about the issues, and vote.

No cake for me, thanks

In an all-too-common display of bipartisan stupidity, the Congress Friday morning took time off from its busy schedule to celebrate the imminent launch of yet another failed attempt at supply-side economics. Yes, economic stimulus checks will start coming out on Monday. Once again the government is asking you to take some hundreds of your children's dollars and go shopping. The vast majority of taxpayers, being smarter than that, are planning to return it to their kids by saving it or paying off a little bit of their debt, something the government should think about doing.

Consumers have known about the impending windfall since February, and have not been impressed. The latest survey of consumer sentiment sagged to the lowest level it has seen since the start of supply-side mythology in the early 1980s. President Bush, a reliably poor student of history, protests that the checks will boost the economy, that people shouldn't be so glum, that they should eat cake. Never mind that this gimmick didn't work for Reagan, and hasn't worked any previous time Bush has tried it. For Mr. Bush, the best remedy for failed policy is to do more of it. The Congress, Democrats included, love his mindless fantasies and jump right on-board.

If our esteemed Congress have a brain among the bipartisan 435 of them, events in the airline industry this week should be pointing them to a stimulus policy with a much more successful track record.

Last week Northwest and Delta announced that they would merge, forming the world's largest airline. Shortly afterward, speculation grew around United and Continental. This week, it was rumored that American is talking with Continental and US Airways. At the same time, Frontier's investors and suppliers learned that they'll be getting pennies on the dollar for their trust of this shaky industry.

Predictably, airline executives appeared before Congress to make their case for industry consolidation. Predictably, Congresspeople sanctimoniously complain that the mergers will mean less competition, higher fares, worse service, and less innovation. Predictably, Congress will let the deal go ahead anyway, because they can't think of any other option.

The Congresspeople are right that airline consolidation is bad news for the public. But the economics of the situation are powerful: network effects in the airline industry do indeed mean higher profits if airlines merge; and will undoubtedly drive more airlines out of business if they don't merge. The economic structure of the industry isn't going to give us the level of competition we need.

But airplanes aren't the only technology capable of getting us from one city to another. And that's where the airline story meets the economic stimulus story. The airline industry's customers badly need another mode of intercity travel: a competitor that isn't dependent on oil; that doesn't periodically rob gullible stock- and bond-holders of their investment, and employees of their pensions; that offers a significantly different range of services; that makes it less harmful for airlines to go ahead and merge. And the government needs an economic stimulus that creates jobs far more effectively than a small check in the mail.

What our leaders would do, if they had any imagination, is build a high-speed ground transport network across the United States: A 300 mph network for maglev trains, like the ones already operating in Germany, Japan and China; but faster and connecting far more cities. This would spur a new wave of innovation and economic growth, and finally give intercity travelers a real choice. Fifty-four years ago the interstate highway system, spearheaded by the Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, launched the United States into a new generation of growth and prosperity. Seven years later, Democratic president John F. Kennedy compounded and prolonged the expansion by challenging us to go to the moon. Today that kind of bipartisan ambition seems unimaginable. Why?

He's ba-a-ck

Just so we don't forget the embarrassment that apathy can cause, Tom Tancredo came out this week from several weeks' vacation under his rock. The occasion was the visit to the United States of Pope Benedict XVI, the first visit by a Pope to the White House in 30 years. The Pope and president Bush discussed a variety of matters, but one of them was immigration. Furious that someone from another country would dare utter a word about his pet issue, Tancredo lashed out. It is not in the Pope's "job description to engage in American politics," he said in a press release.

What stirred Tancredo from his slumber? The Pope spoke some fighting words, saying we should,

continue to welcome immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home.

Naturally Tancredo got right on the case. He said the Pope's words

may have less to do with spreading the Gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the Church.

Of course Tancredo knows that the Pope is just a cog in the vast left-wing conspiracy:

The far left has been siding with foreign governments, radical multiculturalists and illegal aliens in the immigration debate.

Tancredo was incredulous that the Pope would decry violence against immigrants. Naturally Tancredo assumed the Pope was talking specifically about him:

He said we should do everything to stop violence against immigrants coming to the United States — immigrants — just in general, you know. He did not make any distinction. First of all, what's the violence? Show me where our policies or anything we're doing promotes violence against immigrants.… It was annoying to have someone of his stature … say something like that.

Yeah Tom, that Pope guy can sure be annoying sometimes. As Tancredo concedes, the Pope's remarks were not about illegal immigration. Nor is it clear what the connection is between immigration and recruiting new members for the Catholic Church. Last I heard, residents of every nation on earth are eligible to be Catholics.

Yes, that's Tom Tancredo, the person who represents you and me in the United States Congress. Wouldn't it be great if the voters in Douglas County actually cared whom they vote for? Forever the optimist, I'm hoping this year the voters will give it more than two seconds of thought.