Liberal and Loving It

Live-blogging the state convention

Friday - 9:30pm - So we're driving into Colorado Springs on I-25 and there's a sign that says "El Paso County" and then 10' further one that says "Ronald Reagan Highway." Sort of sums it up - huh? Checked in to the hotel (some people take their wife to weekend getaways at lousy places like San Francisco - I go all out with a romantic weekend in Colorado Springs at the convention).

Checked in and was talking to the person at the front desk about the convention. I asked her if Democrats are allowed in Colorado Springs and her answer was, I quote "I think so." Also discovered this is not a terribly green convention - no shuttle buses to the convention. So everyone will be driving their own car.

Did get a chance to look up at Pike's Peak earlier. I don't care what Bob Schaffer says, I don't think it looks anything like Mt Denali.

More tomorrow live blogging all day at the convention.

Note: first part written offline while the DNC press person tried to get us wireless (I forgot my cellular modem).

9:30 – This is amazing. We’re talking rock concert levels of people, Hannah Montana levels of craziness in the crowds, and all kinds of candidate crap for sale from t-shirts to a life size cut out of Obama.
The Clinton team has not given up. I shared a cab over with 2 Clinton supporters and they are still in this to win. The signs outside are all for Hillary. And walking the outer ring hallway there are more Obama t-shirt booths but more people carrying Hillary signs on sticks.

The other large presence out there is for Udall. There are Udall supporters everywhere wearing blue Wal-Mart type vests with UDALL on the back of them. They’re handing out credential strings with a Udall flier attached. It looks like the Udall campaign is starting to move.

Jared Polis has a booth here but I did not see one for either Joan Fitz-Gerald or Will Shafroth. I did see some Fitz-Gerald signs taped up, but not a lot. It looks like they are taking a pass on the CD-2 campaign today. Curious since the people here are voters in the primary.

9:55 – The Hillary team has a major chant going on the floor. They are here to win. It is nice to see that the still have the enthusiasm.  Obama is so correct in handling the end of the primary gently.

10:06 – I just talked to Taylor West of the Udall campaign and they did not get their greeter jackets from Wal-Mart. They also made sure they were made in the U.S. and not in the Marianas Islands (sorry Bob).

10:09 – Mike Mayfield just lead the pledge of allegiance. He has a really good voice.

10:15 – Pat Waak is calling us to order – standard stuff.

10:18 – Bill Ritter is in the house! Listing off the people to applaud for, nice cheer for Romanoff. Another big cheer for Udall winning the Senate. Ritter is a forceful speaker, but he’s not inspirational. It’s a good speech and he makes his points well, but it’s not one that lifts the audience up.

Now we’re getting the laundry list of issues we need to address here. They’re all real problems and saying we must address each gets the correct cheer.  Maybe I just spend too much time following politics but this actually gets boring hearing it all again. The crowd liked it – he got a standing ovation at the end.

10:32 – I see a cowboy hat – it must be Ken Salazar. The crowd is on it’s feet welcoming him. Now Salazar is getting them charged up. Short, sweet, and to the point – about how we’re going to take back the country and undo the damage inflicted on us by 8 years of Republican mis-rule.

10:38 – Dianna DiGette is up. More of a professorial listing of what we need and why we are going to win. It’s interesting how each has a very distinct way of speaking. And then a zinger – “we are going to mop the floor with John McCain” – crowd loved it.

She’s now listing out what McCain stands for and is getting giant boos from the crowd as she lists each of McCain's points. It’s interesting, with our primary not officially decided (although anyone good at math realizes it is over), it’s an anti-McCain speech rather than a pro-Clinton/Obama speech. Good approach. Same for CD-2, that we need to send “a Democrat” to Washington.

Interesting, she just started a “Yes We Can” cheer about sending all our Dems to Washington. I don’t think that was a spur of the moment item. We’ll see Dianna switching to Obama soon.

10:47 – Hey, we have a Lt. Governor! Starting off with a girl-power speech. A couple of anti-McCain points. Back to when women vote Dems win and so women - go vote.

10:52 – Cary Kennedy is up. Not a great speaker. You know you’re not carrying the crowd when the speaker has to start the clapping herself. Nothing new from her.

10:57 – Apparently the cowboy hat store had a 2 for 1 sale. John Salazar is up and has a cowboy hat on too. Apparently that is required to win the rural districts. I can’t wait to see if Betsy Markey wears one when she speaks. John is giving a good talk. It’s all about all of us coming together, working together, to take back our government. Good job on this being about all of us.

11:04 – Ed Perlmutter appears to be a rockstar. Got about half the audience on it’s feet when he walked up on stage. He’s doing a really good job. About how the change started in ’06 (it definitely did for him) and we need to continue with it on ’08. Very inspirational speech. Not so much the content as the delivery – very good job.

Bill Ritter was just up in the press box asking if anyone had news about Ted Kennedy's condition. Speaks well of him that his prime concern is the well being of another over talking up the press.

11:28 - Udall is being nominated. Apparently he's climbed every 14er in Colorado (unlike Schaffer who doesn't even recognize the one he proposed to his wife on). Joe Rice is seconding him. Joe gives a good speech - I think we'll continue to see him climb.

11:39 - Udall is still being nominated, now by Salazar who keeps saying Udall is a "true Son of the West" - I'm guessing as opposed to someone from Ohio who doesn't recognize Pike's Peak. The interesting thing was Salazar said we needed another vote to get us out of Iraq. Neither Salazar or Udall have been pushing that recently but he was talking the talk at least just now.

Note to my daughters if you're reading - Hi Girls!

11:46 - Finally! Mark is coming up. They have the lights low and Mark is walking the length of the floor with a crowd around him and a spotlight on him. He's getting a standing ovation.

11:52 almost to the stage walking up. It looks like a Wal-mart rugby scrum with all the campaign staffers (wearing the blue greeter vests) around him moving him through the crowd.  He definitely has the crowd behind him. The contingent that's mad at him for not pushing to leave Iraq yesterday is nowhere to be seen (and this is the Democratic party - there's no control on who's where here).

11:56 - Really Finally! Ok, Mark is on stage, the others have left the stage, and he's starting to talk. Only 28 minutes to nominate him.

First 10 minutes is about how we have to get it right on energy, with an emphasis on how it hurts us to be sending money to the oil countries and where the money goes on to. Then going through the economic mess the present policies inflict on families.

He's getting an occasional heckler now. He started talking about Iraq and that started. It's an occasional lone voice among the background crowd noise and Udall is just continuing through it. At the applause points in his talk he is getting strong applause. You have the core of the base her and he has all except a very few behind him.

The speech is good. Hits all the right points, covers all the key issues with great applause points. Find moments of humor, and moments of serious commitment. But it's not great. It's not as good as Ritter or Salazar. Udall has to win this on what he will do rather than how he speaks. I think that is how all campaigns should be. But to win, I wish Udall could lift up the audience.

BREAKING NEWS - 12:17 - Udall was just won the primary by acclimation.

12:21 Jared Polis is in the house! Short & sweet speaking mostly of the economy. He did not get much of a response.

Joan is not here - she is out walking precincts today. That's interesting that she did not show - I'm not sure what it means.

12:26 - Terry McAulife is up to speak for Hillary. Lots of cheering for him. He starts off saying "Colorado is the greatest state in the United States." What a dick - we're supposed to believe that? Full disclosure - I think McAuliffe was a horrible DNC chairman so I don't like the guy.

So he's up there talking about how we are going to put "a Democrat" in the White House. Now he's listing out the vote totals for each (using the Florida & Michigan numbers too) and he turned a come together moment into a very divisive one. The entire audience is on it's feet, 1/3 cheering and 2/3s booing.

Now saying we need to continue the primary to not upset the voters in the remaining states (I agree with that). Getting a giant chant of "Yes We Can" in response to shut him up.

Ok, now he's brining them back together. "when this process ends, and I believe it will end in early June, then we have to come together." And he's talking more about how we have to come together in the general. If McAuliffe sees it as "over in early June" then he knows Obama has won.

Ok, now he's talking the positive points to Hillary. Getting a good response to that. Interesting, brought up Bill Clinton for an applause line, and got almost nothing. Bill seems to have worn out his welcome with the Dem party, at least here in Colorado.

Closed with we have 2 great candidates, but we need to elect Hillary because she has a uterus. Repeated again that the primary will be over in 2 weeks. And once again that Colorado is the greatest state in the country.

I don't know how this guy every got to be chair of the DNC. It definitely was not for his speech-writing or presentation skills. Thank god it's over. Wellington Webb was much much better.

1:15 - during the platform presentation I walked around outside and met someone interesting. Here's a picture of the two of us (I'm the one on the right). He had some very thoughtful ideas - I'm hoping he decides to run for office someday.

We now have the presentation of the candidates running for the state Senate. They all just got to wave from the stage as each was introduced. The only thing of interest was that Rollie Heath was there, but Cindy Carlisle was not.

Now Andrew Romanoff is introducing the house candidates.

At the end one of the other legislators spoke about Romanoff and that got a giant round of applause and some people standing. He clearly is liked & respected by the other legislators and is very well respected by the base. If Ritter's 2nd term ended in 2 years, Romanoff would be it. I hope he finds a way to stay this visible for the next 6 years. Maybe Secretary of State?

1:32 - Betsy Markey is now speaking. I think she is trying to channel JFK. The speech she is giving is superb. But it isn't grabbing the audience. They are paying attention but it's not sucking them in. I'm guessing that people are getting very tired and it is hard to be speaking at the very end of the assembly part.

Ok, she's starting to carry them along. Oh wow - she's good. This is my favorite speech of the day. She is taking it to Marilyn Musgrave ending with a direct attack on the disaster that is MM. For those of us worried that Betsy won't be getting in MM's face and won't get aggressive - she's starting to do it.

1:41 - Hank Eng up now. Taking on Mike Coffman is tough and Hank doesn't have a political base. He is giving a nice professional speech celebrating our immigrant heritage and our diverse demographics. I think he'll be a candidate that we can be proud of.

But he is not a captivating speaker. Granted he sees the same problem Betsy did - we all want to go home. But to beat Mike Coffman in that district, he's got to be superb, and with an existing political base.

That's too bad as he is clearly a thoughtful and eloquent person.

1:53 - Hal Bidlack up now. Another sacrificial lamb, but again he sounds thoughtful and reasonable. Both Hal and Hank give us a good alternative if the Republican candidate in either race is found to have any of the issues that dog so many Republicans, well then we have someone very good to then win that race.

2:05 - We're now hearing speeches from candidates for our rep to the Democratic National Committee. The thing is, how much do we really learn about each in a 3 minute speech? I won't vote as I have no idea who any of them are.

Debbie Marquiez (GreenChileDem) is one of the candidates - vote for her!

2:59 - I was just walking the outer hallway again. They are trying to seat the alternates. Of course, as we are the Democratic Party, it is a total cluster-fuck. So I guess we need all these DNC member speeches to use up time while they get everyone their credentials.

From the AP wire, two people were arrested for trespassing here.

3:08 - Just passed by acclimation, we are not going to let the delegate candidates speak - thank god! I'm a delegate and I don't want to sit here for 3 days as they all get 2 minutes.

How are they going to get ballots to all of us? There are 5,000 people here to vote and we have no ballots yet. They have tables up at the front of the floor of the arena. They will call people up by section and give them their ballot. This is going to take a bit of time.

When you get your ballot, remember to put a check mark next to the name "David Thielen." That is the most critical part of voting.

Someone was yelling from the audience when the guy on the stage was giving instructions. The guy on the stage told that person to shut up and we all cheered - major round of applause.

The guy explaining the voting must be a 3rd grade teacher, he is explaining this perfectly for this crowd.

3:20 - I think the way this works is that the Obama ballot will have the 2 delegates they want on the ballot, and only those 7. I'll write for sure on this once I see the ballot - this strikes me as very questionable if true. Update: read below - this is the PLEO candidates (junior super delegates).

3:24 - Lecture from the El Paso County chair - we need to all go home and work locally to take back not just the country, the state, the county, the towns. Well received and very good advice. I will ignore it as I live in Boulder and we already own the County and City offices - to a degree that is bad for us. But very good advice for all of you - get to work :)

3:36 - Walked through the outer hallway - JeffCo is still seating alternates. Every other county seems to have this all done. JeffCo did appear to have the longest lines most of the day. I guess one county has to be the most disorganized.

Note: All ballot problems listed from here down are only for Obama delegates. For Hillary there is no line and they have full ballots.

3:51 - Getting in a looooong line to vote

4:06 - Talking to a major official in one of the county Democratic parties (not next to Boulder). She was talking to Rollie Heath and afterwards I asked her what she thought Rollie's chances were against Cindy Carlisle. Her reply was that the party owed Rollie after he stepped up to be the sacrificial lamb against Bill Owens 4 years ago. That explains a lot of Rollie's support, but that won't be close enough to win - it's a vote, not a dedicated supporter.

4:52 - They just announced that they are out of ballots, but are bringing more down from upstairs and those will be handed out as they come down.

5:21 - No movement and they announced that they are having to get special 1 page ballots printed but they will be here "real soon now." I asked to see one of the full ballots by someone who had it - the 7 candidates only are the PLEO candidates, the 7 super delegates we elect. This is from a group that is restricted to elected officials and top Colo Dem party officials - not the regular delegates. The whole ballot was about 80 pages of people to vote for.

5:39 - They've got the 1 page ballots. The line moves a lot faster for these. They forgot to put a place to print and sign the ballot - but it does have a line to write in each vote.

5:51 - I'm out of there and my wife is picking me up. I would guess in another 25 minutes everyone will have voted.

I was told by 1 Obama person there that Hillary had 100 delegate slots still empty and Obama 182 still empty so all alternates were seated and there were still empty slots. I asked one of the Boulder County people staffing their desk and she said Hillary had 1 empty slot and Obama about 20 in Boulder County.

6:41 - last post in this diary. My wife wants to know - why don't we just take the initial precinct totals and use that for the delegate allocation and skip the County, CD, and state conventions? My reply was "beats the hell out of me" so anyone who knows why, please post a comment. (Not that's what the law requires, but why the law was written to have all these steps.)

As always, long, exhausting, inefficient, and wonderful.

Obama delegates & alternates - you MUST go to the Springs on Saturday

Here's the latest from the Obama campaign:

The Obama campaign reports that Broomfield County is short confirmed delegates to attend the State Convention this Saturday

...

Remember, if only one person in each of the 64 counties doesn't show up, Senator Obama loses a National Delegate.

If you are a delegate you made a promise to everyone else at the County Convention that you will attend the state convention. You took the place of other candidates who were ready to attend. You need to go down to fulfill your commitment.

And for those that are upset with something, anything, that occurred in the campaign, CD-2 convention, or something that another person working for Obama did or did not do recently - please drop it. This is much bigger than any petty little issue like that.

This primary may be almost over - but the key word is almost. A delegate gain for Hillary Clinton this Saturday would be newsworthy. Lets all go down there and make this an un-newsworthy event.

And for all you alternates, I believe at the CD-2 convention last weekend every alternate who was there was seated, and they were still short a few. So go on down and visit the Springs this Saturday.

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.