CO-02 Primary Day 8/12/08

The big day is here. After over a year of campaigning, organizing support for and through the caucuses and county primaries, and sending multiple pieces of mail and putting out radio, TV, and web spots, the primary for Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District is here. I’ll have running updates throughout the night with commentary as well.

As of 7:20P, Polis is up by 3 points. This is from early voting returns, which finished last Friday. I’ll provide links as I catch them. Here are the early return numbers:

Polis 5,897

Fitz-Gerald 5,555

Shafroth 2,990

457 precincts have to report in now.

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As of 7:40P, with 13 precincts (3%) reporting, Jared is maintaining his very narrow lead, up to 569 votes:

Polis 8,598

Fitz-Gerald 8,029

Shafroth 3,655

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As of 8:30P, with 29 precincts (6%) reporting, the lead narrows slightly:

Polis 9,183

Fitz-Gerald 8,726

Shafroth 3,974

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Results continue to come in slowly. As of 9:00P, with 68 precincts (15%) reporting, Polis’ vote lead has increased:

Jared Polis	14,676	43.2%
Joan Fitz-Gerald	13,290	39.1%
Will Shafroth	5,991	17.6%

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We’re up to 21% reporting (95 precincts) as of 9:50P. Jared’s lead is slimmed down somewhat, but news is he has carried Adams County. Joan Fitz-Gerald currently represents some of Jefferson County, so I’ll keep an eye open for those.

Jared Polis	15,366	43.0%
Joan Fitz-Gerald	14,052	39.3%
Will Shafroth	6,355	17.8%

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As of 10:20P, Joan Fitz-Gerald conceded the race to Jared Polis. There is still only 27% of the ballots officially counted, so I’m not sure what Joan is aware of at this time. I would think this race still has a while to go, but I certainly hope the result remains.

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CO-02 results continue to slowly come in. Jared Polis is still in the lead, by 1,300 votes, or about 3.6%.

Jared Polis	16,047	42.8%
Joan Fitz-Gerald	14,706	39.2%
Will Shafroth	6,778	18.1%

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Update 8/13/08:

Jared hung on to win the primary. With 452 out of 457 precincts (97%) reporting, here is the state of the race:

Jared Polis	19,942	41.7%
Joan Fitz-Gerald	18,181	38.0%
Will Shafroth	9,708	20.3%

Jared still faces a Republican and a Green candidate in November’s election. I’ll cover the differences between the candidates in some future posts.
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Other Congressional districts also had primaries yesterday.  The ethically challenged Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman won his primary for the 6th Congressional District in a bid to replace the extremist Tom Tancredo.  Doug Lamborn survived a primary challenge to retain his seat in the 5th Congressional District.

A large number of state Senate and House seats also had primaries yesterday.  You can see their results here.  The odious Douglas Bruce is on that list.  After embarrassing himself during the 2008 legislative session, Colorado Springs residents decided not to send him back.  Rollie Heath beat Cindy Carlisle to represent the 18th Senate District.

Colorado Daily Asking CO-02 Candidates Questions: Afghanistan

The Colorado Daily has been asking the candidates of CO-02 about leading issues. I previously shared my thoughts on their responses to the Daily’s health care question. This time, the topic was Afghanistan. Note: this originally ran about one month ago. I became aware of this series only last week. Here is the original Daily webpage introduction. Here is their question:

Should the U.S. still be in Afghanistan, and why or why not? If so, what would some of your objectives for a successful mission be?

Jared Polis‘s answer was pretty good. He shared a 9/11 anecdote, questions why bin Laden remains free, discusses troop realignment as it relates to the number of troops in Iraq, and identifies drug production as one aspect of the Afghani reality that has unfolded. Jared also speaks to the need to protect human rights and secure womens’ resources in order to bring about a more balanced Afghani society. Jared’s approach to the Afghani state of affairs revolves around stabilization. Without stabilizing the region, progress won’t happen.

Will Shafroth‘s answer was just as good as Jared’s. He starts by calling for a reanalysis of our goals to determine if we have the capability to achieve those goals. He identified the Afghanistan approach as being better than Iraq (identifying allies, etc.), and recognizes the importance of implementing diplomacy first in any foreign affair. He employs what I consider to be the correct language with respect to Iraq: invasion and occupation. We are not conducting a war there and the more people recognize that, the sooner we can disengage and stop occupying the Iraqi people’s country. Like Jared, Will identifies restoring stability as a worthy goal, and his definition of success would include no reestablishment of Al Qaeda in the region.

Joan Fitz-Gerald‘s answer was good, but I think it was somewhat weaker than the other candidates’.   She begins by pointing out the unfinished mission of finding Osama bin Laden and preventing Al Qaeda from regrouping.  She cites the troop number differential between Iraq and Afghanistan, then shares an anecdote regarding women and sub-par civil projects the US constructed.  She identifies the importance of Pakistan (neither Jared nor Will did so).  I’m with her up to this point in her response.  It’s after this portion that I part ways.  Her solution would include finishing the military mission.  With respect to both bin Laden and Al Qaeda, I don’t think the mission is exclusively military.  The mission should include apprehension of suspected terrorists and letting established justice systems deal with them, if necessary.  Continuing to invade, kill and occupy foreign lands cannot be the de facto approach of our foreign policy.  Joan wants to know what the status of intelligence on bin Laden and Al Qaeda is, which I do agree with.  Then she brings up losing a PR war in addition to a military war.  In my opinion, Joan is utilizing immoral language to further policies.

Two days ago, I wrote about the right-wing extremist that shot up the church in Tennessee and identified violent language as an impediment to identifying and implementing policies that work for the American people.  There is no difference in my mind between the violent language that right-wing pundits use and the violent language that Democrats use.  Violent language is violent language, regardless of who uses it.  I think saying, “losing a PR war” is a horrible frame from which to operate.  It doesn’t exemplify progressive values of opportunity and equality in discussing Afghani policy.  The word “war” has been overused to an extreme degree.  Are there troops from separate nations lining up fighting with film and pens?  Of course not.

All three candidates sound like they’re fairly close on the Afghanistan issue.  I think their effectiveness in Congress in developing and implementing an updated policy is highly dependent on how they approach the issue.  Jared and Will are closer to matching my approach.

Colorado Daily Asking CO-02 Candidates Questions: Health Care

Up until today, I was unaware the Colorado Daily was engaging the candidates in CO-02 (to replace Rep. Mark Udall) leading questions of our time. There have been a few already and another today. I’m going to take a look at today’s article and then cover the others in posts in the near future. Today’s question dealt with health care:

What do you think the federal government should do about health care in the near term, and why?

Jared Polis’s answer was good overall, though a little wonky. Perhaps that will work in the high-tech area of CO-02. He identifies the problem as:

The problem is we don’t get a bang for our buck – we pay more and get less.

Then talks about his solution:

This is why I support Healthcare for all, a publicly funded, privately delivered health-care system that extends similar coverage as the Medicare program to all Americans of all ages, regardless of their employment, income, health status, pre-existing condition, or any other factor.

This is a very good solution. Medicare is the most successful public program in the history of our country. It delivers care (gasp!) to those it covers and has the lowest level of administrative cost than any other health care program, public or private. He points out that citizens will pay less for their care, and that businesses will also encounter significant savings too. The only losers? Bloated insurance corporations and their overpaid executives. After all, health care is a right, not a privilege.

Joan Fitz-Gerald on Jay Marvin Show

This morning, Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald spoke with the morning talk-show host for the Denver/Boulder area, Jay Marvin on AM760. Joan is running to represent Colorado’s 2nd congressional district (CO-02). Her Democratic opponents include Jared Polis and Will Shafroth. There is an Aug. 12th primary election that will decide who the Democratic nominee for the seat will be. Then in November, the winner will face off against other party opponents. As CO-02 is solidly Democratic, the primary really constitutes the only meaningful race. The current CO-02 representative, Mark Udall, is running for the open U.S. Senate seat. Thus, there is no incumbent.

Joan started the conversation by telling Jay she has a sense of urgency about the state of the country that she doesn’t see in other members of Congress. She spoke about inertia in our political system. I think this was likely in reference to introducing “new” concepts/policies and getting them implemented. My opinion? Democrats have had a harder time than Republicans. Look at what Republicans passed in the six years from 2001 to 2006. Will Joan lead the charge to introduce progressive policies if elected?

She was asked to list her top three issues. She named the war, the economy, and health care as top concerns CO-02 residents identify. Then she went into some detail about each.

She said she was the only candidate who supported immediate withdrawal. I don’t consider this to be true. Jared Polis helped craft something called “The Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq“. Currently, 54 Democratic House candidates have endorsed it. Joan Fitz-Gerald is not one of them. She has said it is a bad plan, that it won’t accomplish what it says it will. I’m not aware of any specific points she disagrees with. And I definitely haven’t heard any specifics on how she would propose we immediately withdraw from Iraq. Unfortunately, this sounds just like climate change delayers: criticize everybody else’s plans, but don’t come up with your own. I don’t consider that to be leadership.

The Responsible Caucus

Jared Polis, one of three candidates running to represent CO-02 in the U.S. Congress, announced a plan to end the occupation of Iraq almost one month ago. He joined with a group of candidates around the country also running for House seats. A total of 55 Democratic challengers have signed onto The Responsible Plan.

I read a post at OpenLeft last week that talked about other “caucuses” within the House. From that post:

In Congress, there are 48 members of the Blue Dog caucus. There are 64 members of the New Democratic coalition. There are 72 members of the Progressive Caucus. And now, 55 Democratic challengers have signed onto the Responsible Plan to End the War In Iraq. Given its increasing size, a full-fledged “Responsible Caucus” is emerging in the Democratic Party, of roughly equal size to the three other ideological congressional caucuses.

The Blue Dogs have supported more than their fair share of right-wing Republican policies and legislation. I await the day when their numbers are merely single digits. That’s my goal of Better Democrats. The New Democratic coalition is slightly more progressive than the Blue Dogs. Their focus is on business and are frequently described as “moderate”. That moderate stance has been aggressively moved to the right over the past 30 years. So more progressive is very relative. The Progressive Caucus is pretty much just that: more progressive than the first two. This group has defined itself by standing up for social and constitutional issues in the past few years.

Now, not all 55 signers of the Responsible Plan will be elected this November. But if a high proportion of them are, they would definitively add to the strength of the Progressive Caucus. Along with a progressive President, some of the worst abuses that President Bush and his band of right-wingers have perpetrated could be reversed.

But that’s a ways off. There is a Democratic primary in August that Jared Polis must win to be on the November ballot. Two other candidates want the seat: Joan Fitz-Gerald and Will Shafroth. When the Responsible Plan first came out, a number of folks on the internet said the Plan wouldn’t end our involvement in Iraq. No challenging plan was offered, of course. It’s easy to criticize from the sidelines.

So here is my question: what caucus will Joan Fitz-Gerald join? what caucus will Will Shafroth join? Joan has released statements saying she wants our military to leave Iraq, but there’s no substance to back up that statement. How would she propose or support doing it? Whose lead would she follow if elected? Right now, there is no indication and that’s unacceptable. We shouldn’t have to wait until she’s elected to find out which strategy she supports.

EMILY’s List in CO-02

There’s an interesting post at Open Left discussing EMILY’s List’s efforts to help get Joan Fitz-Gerald nominated as the Democratic candidate for Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District. The 2nd is a safe Dem seat. Ideally, there shouldn’t be any messaging that Jared Polis, one of Joan’s competitors for the seat, is anything short of a solid Democratic vote. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

EMILY’s List didn’t have a good rate of success in getting Democrats elected in 2006, a year in which there was a Democratic wave across the country. 11% in House races two years ago is ridiculous, especially when the group takes donations and spends them in support of candidates. As such, it appears that some donors are starting to wonder if EMILY’s List is worthy of their money.

I’m a Polis supporter, so my thoughts are this: if EMILY’s List is lying about Joan’s opponent, donors should make their funds directly available to the candidate they feel exemplifies their interests. If that’s Joan, fine. If it’s not, that’s the way it goes. I have chosen this election cycle to donate directly to campaigns, due somewhat to situations like this around the country.