Dan is not an experienced politician. It's not just that he hasn't run for office before, it's that he is new to the system. This is rare at this level. He also comes across as a credible competent candidate – so don't discount him because he's new to this. He lacks the political connections (and the funding resources that come with it) but he's got political skills and is resonating with the base.
(So let's talk Dan's odds as that's question #1 on everyone's mind. In a normal year his lack of connections and funding would make this a futile quest. But with the tea partiers having stronger support than the Republican party, and Dan having the enthusiastic support of those tea partiers, he's got a shot. The giant question is – will enough of them show up at the caucuses to put him way ahead of Scott McInnis? And as with anytime there is a large group that normally doesn't participate in the process – we won't know until we see the turnout & count the votes.)
On to the interview…
Dan is a successful businessman who has built up and sold several companies. He brings this approach to how he would run the state. He's not a Republican or Conservative so much as he's a business executive. A lot of his focus is on improving how the state operates and taking a businesslike approach to decision-making. Yes he's a conservative and yes he's responding to the people he talks to. But at core he's a business guy who wants to improve how the state operates.
He's running because he thinks Governor Ritter is doing a terrible job, especially with the Oil & Gas regulations that he has imposed. Dan believes that the regulations have drastically reduced the amount of drilling, and therefore the number of jobs, in Colorado. He also sees the state bureaucracy as being inefficient, over compensated, and over staffed compared to other states, and especially compared to private enterprise.
That's half of it. But while he was (mostly) true to the 11th commandment, he also spoke to the issue that he did not see anyone on the Republican side stepping up who would address these issues. His concern is that the Republicans need a candidate who will tell the voters what they believe and what they will do. Dan has a businessperson's contempt for a person who speaks in vague generalities and does not make commitments as to what they think and what they will do. (Having worked in high tech companies my whole life I'm 100% with Dan on this – people who won't give clear opinions and commitments annoy the snot out of me.)
He wants to make Colorado a more business-friendly environment. On Oil & Gas his first step would be to eliminate all of the regulations that Ritter brought in to place. He believes that these regulations have caused a significant depression in drilling in this state, starting on the day Ritter was elected.
He also wants to encourage Aerospace and High-Tech small businesses in the state. As the owner of a small high-tech company I asked him what that help would be. He flipped it and asked me what I want from the state. When I couldn't think of anything he then replied that the best thing the state could do then was just not bother us. So this is a focus for him, but nothing specific in mind (yet).
He did bring up a case of the IRS fining one of his companies because a form was filed a day late. No taxes were owed, but the form was late and so the fine was levied. Small actions like this that an individual personally faces can have significant impact on their view. To a person running a business this becomes the face of the government – and they are acting in a way they find unfair.
This then shot in to a very interesting point. Dan has had numerous small business owners tell him that the additional taxes they pay when hiring an additional employee are a disincentive to hiring and therefore the government should give a tax break for additional hiring. I didn't understand this at first because I thought he meant the additional taxes on the additional profit from that person was what they were upset about. No. They view the payroll taxes they pay when they hire a person as additional taxes on them and that those additional taxes are a reason to not hire a person.
I replied as a business owner that this made no sense to me. An employee costs me X dollars between salary, taxes, benefits, etc. and if I make more than X from hiring them, then I make money. Dan said he personally sees it the same way, but that most of the small business owners he talks to do not. They view additional hiring as additional taxes they have to pay and those taxes are a disincentive to hiring. (In that the taxes reduce the ROI of hiring someone they are right. But you can say the same thing about paying someone well.)
What's interesting here is what this says about Dan as a politician. Dan views it differently, but most of his supporters do view this tax hit as a problem. And so Dan is looking to find a way to provide tax relief for additional hiring. This shows both that Dan does respond to the concerns of the voters (which is supposed to happen in a democracy) and that he then looks for solutions that will make the state better off (more jobs). I think this reflects very well on Dan – he's not telling everyone that he has all the answers, he's listening and responding to the concerns of his voters.
He would also like to see the business personal property tax repealed. This is universally unpopular because it is such a gigantic PITA. For many companies (like mine), it's not the amount, it's the effort to determine what is owed. Unlike many who want it repealed, but are limited by TABOR that they can't then have an increase elsewhere to make up the difference – he would just like to eliminate it and have the state live with the lower income.
This brought us in to the core approach of Dan Maes – reducing the cost of government. At the end of this part of the conversation I asked if there is anything the state is doing that it should stop doing (to reduce costs). Not do better, but just not do. He did not list anything that he thought we should not do although he said he probably would find one or two programs that don't make sense (couldn't we all). But the bottom line is he is not looking to have the state do less, he's looking to have the state operate more efficiently – big difference.
He stated flat out that he would not reduce spending on corrections (I should have asked if this meant this part of the state was very efficiently run) and he talked about pointing more money in the general fund back to transportation. So the big hit in his cutting 4,000 employees promise would come from K-12, higher-ed, and health services. He believes that he can cut 1,000 employees from higher-ed without it impacting the colleges in this state.
Here's the crux of both the strength and weakness of a candidate from Dan's background. Is the state inefficiently run? Absolutely. Governments are generally less efficient than private enterprise. And in private enterprise there is a range of efficiency based on industry and company. When I worked at Microsoft I found it to be inefficient, bureaucratic, and slow compared to the start-ups I worked at. But back then it was easily one of the most efficient large company in the world. All organizations sit somewhere on a continuum.
So could the state do with 4,000 less people? If you fired the right 4,000 people the state would probably be more efficient. If you made systemic changes, that would have even more impact. There are gigantic savings that could be brought about. On the flip side, governments are not slow, inefficient, and bureaucratic because the people at the top want them to be so. It's the nature of the beast. Effecting real change in an operation like this is incredibly difficult and takes time (and getting a lot of people on board) – that's the cost of a democracy.
The strength of an individual like Dan is they will work to improve things a lot more than any career politician will. And we need this. Without these constant efforts, the state will become even less efficient. The weakness of an individual like Dan is he will first assume he can effect change as rapidly and as major as he did at his company and will base his other decisions on that substantial change. It will take a bit of time for him to learn that the fact something makes complete sense does not mean it's going to happen.
He did speak about working diligently to reduce the cost of government and then with those savings, reduce the tax burden. In no way did he very come across as a Norquist/Bruce drown the government in a bathtub type. He is looking to reduce the cost of what the state presently does to thereby reduce the taxes needed to provide the existing services.
I then asked if there was anywhere in the state where he would like to see additional services. (This was clearly a new question for him – I don't think his base ever asks that.) This was the other very interesting part – he would put more money into law enforcement, specifically illegal aliens. He says this is by far the #1 issue brought up by the people he talks to. So while the rest of us have forgotten about this issue, it is still gigantic for the tea party base. (And for the life of me, I have no idea why.)
He said the economy comes a distant second in terms of interest. But that his priorities are the economy/jobs first with illegal immigration a close second. This is illustrative of how Dan Maes takes the concerns of the voters into account, but also uses his own judgment as to how to prioritize.
I asked about education and he said that almost never comes up. He pointed out that the age of his base is older and so very few still have children in K-12. They are much more likely to have grandchildren in school. He did speak about the low graduation rate in our public schools and that that needs to be addressed.
So what do we get with Dan Maes. I let the candidate drive the conversation in the first interview so we see what they choose to talk about. On energy he'll roll back the O&G regulations – and did not say anything about renewables. On education, he listed the poor job our public schools are doing, but that was it aside from cost cutting there. He does support law enforcement, incarceration, & transportation at existing or higher levels. Health & welfare services were not mentioned.
Dan is a thoughtful intelligent guy who speaks clearly to the issues. He has strong support from a base many of whom are scared, upset, etc. But while Dan speaks for that group, he himself is optimistic & positive – and I think that speaks well of the tea partiers who support him. And for Dan Maes, if you get elected, I leave you with this thought…
"He'll sit here, and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating." – Harry Truman [after Eisenhower won]
podcast: DanMaes Interview
