Liberal and Loving It

Impeach Alberto Gonzales

I would like to start with a quote by Kagro X

The failure even to hold Gonzales accountable for his part in this would be a complete abdication of the Congress' responsibility to preserve and exercise an absolutely critical element of the ongoing scheme of accountability designed by the Founders. It was to the Congress that the Founders entrusted the only mechanisms of mid-term accountability that could be brought to bear directly on the president and his administration. Giving that up would be an error of incalculable magnitude.

Impeachment is where the House of Representatives would investigate the Attorney General and determine if he should be charged with impeachable offenses. In terms of normal criminal proceedings it is more akin to a grand jury hearing to determine if charges should be brought.

It is not a step to only be taken when there is clear grounds. It is the step taken when there is a strong reason to believe that the individual has committed impeachable offenses. The House impeachment hearings are to determine if the individual has in fact done so.

After that step, and only if the House votes for impeachment, then the trial occurs in the Senate. And the House would have to find strong evidence of clearly impeachable actions to even bring the charges to the Senate.

The bottom line? The bar for the House to hold impeachment hearings is not that high.

The Grounds

So now comes the question of what grounds do we have. And I think the number 1 reason, of and by itself sufficient to hold these hearings, is not the attorney firings. It is not the illegal wiretapping. It is not the obvious lying to Congress. It is not any of the other political decisions made by the DOJ.

The number 1 ground should be simple fact that Alberto Gonzales is clearly incompetent. He clearly is incapable of running the Department of Justice. And that alone is grounds for impeachment if he will not resign and the President will not remove him.

In addition, this is an argument that most of the country would support. It would be hard for even the most rabid Republican to claim that Gonzales is qualified for his job. On this issue politically impeachment is possible now.

And that's the beauty of this approach. The hard step is starting the hearings. Once they start, all these other impeachable offenses will also come up. But it's the incompetence grounds that can get it started.

Want to win a Council seat?

Ok, there's 7 openings and so you figure - why not? Anyone can win. And in fact, there is a lot more opportunity this November. But that doesn't mean you can just walk in. Even the PLAN-Boulder back candidates have to do some campaigning.

So here's my suggestions if you want to win.

1. Start sucking up to PLAN-Boulder and the Sierra Club. Most elections their recommended slate wins every seat. (So much for Boulder being a hotbed of independent thinkers.)
2. Get a good campaign manager. You need someone who is plugged in to the local power structure, has good instincts, and will work their tail off.
3. Continue sucking up to PLAN-Boulder and the Sierra Club.
4. Stay vague in your position statements. (And yes I will ding you for that in my posts.) Specificity just gives people something to get upset about as everyone knows the best way to implement every issue. Write these now.
5. Raise Money. You need ads, yard signs, robo-calls, etc. And those things cost money. Equally important, if you don't raise substantial bucks people will assume (reasonably so) you can't win and will vote for someone else. And someone who donates money to you has skin in the game - they will campaign for you more. Figure you need $10,000.00 - $15,000.00 to be a contender.
6. Put together a good website. It is the absolute cheapest way to get votes. And for many it is the only way they will "hear" from you. Put that together now.
7. Do not put a forum in your website. If you have a blog, disable comments. In both cases people do not treat it as a way to have a conversation - they treat it as a way to play gotcha with the candidate.
8. Everyone you talk to is a potential voter. Give them a reason to care if you are elected. And get a donation from them. Every single person you talk to from now to November. Every one. Because if you don't do this, there are at least 7 others that will do so.
9. Find a "media person" who will help you write your position papers, answer questionnaires, etc. This is key because you need to tell each group exactly what they want to hear, in a way that you are not contradicting yourself.
10. And finally, do whatever you need to do to get that PLAN-Boulder and Sierra Club endorsement.

That's it. Execute on the above well and you have a very good chance of winning. And then you can listen to everyone complain about the job you are doing and how they would do it so much better.

Mark Udall did the right thing

Recently Mark Udall pressed charges against a group of people that refused to leave his office. And in doing so he supported a fundamental pillar of democracy.

Democracy requires, absolutely requires, that while we campaign and lobby and persuade, that we then accept the results. And if it's important enough, we continue to campaign and lobby and persuade to try and change things. But refusing to accept the result, to demand that your wishes override those of all others - that is totalitarianism.

How does this relate to protesters filling Congressman Udall's office and refusing to leave? Well if 40 people who feel strongly enough about an issue can shut down a Congress-person's office, then we would shortly have every congressional office in the country shut down - some by groups insisting that we increase the troops in Iraq. We cannot have a functioning democracy if every congressional office is shut down.

What is even more insane in this case is that Mark Udall clearly agrees with the goals of the protesters. They aren't protesting his goals, they are merely protesting his decision on how to reach those goals. He may be right, he may be wrong (I also think he's wrong) but they want to shut down his office because they disagree with him on how to do something, not if we should do it.

Yes getting out of Iraq is crucial and a matter of life and death for many. Darfur is a matter of life and death for many. Health Insurance is a matter of life and death for many. Global warming is a matter of life and death for many - animals as well as humans. Hell, even our farm policy is a matter of life and death for many farmers in the 3rd world.

So how can anyone say that the Iraq issue is so much more important than any of those others? And how can anyone be so sure that their way out is so much better than any of the other alternatives?

The protesters were very similar to the Republican mob in Florida delaying the recount of Gore/Bush. In both cases groups tried to bring government operations to a stop to further their aims. The ends do not justify the means.

The Big Line

This is my guess for the odds of each candidate running for a Boulder City/County seat. This has nothing to do with my preferences for a candidate (boy does it not!), it's what I think the odds of each winning is. I also will not go worse than 100:1 because that is just mean.

Additional candidate information is available here.

Ok this includes all the newspaper endorsements as well as the environmental groups. We're getting down to the wire here as ballots were supposedly dropped in the mail today

There is another Big Line at RLB and he makes a couple of good points, especially on how lazy Adam Massey is. I disagree with a number of his points, and he is wrong on some points, but it is another take on the odds. It will be interesting to see which of us is more accurate.

Final tweaks - the election results are in tonight at 7:00.

City Council ('07)

Slam dunk - these candidates will win unless they are caught driving a SUV, on open space, running over prairie dogs, with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on the back of the car.

Susan Osborne (2:1) : Susan has been in all the right groups, been on all the right boards & committes, etc. All three newspapers endorsed her. And her fundraising shows incredible support. She has dotted every i and crossed every t to be the number 1 annointed candidate.

Angelique Espinoza (3-1) : Angelique is the best politician (I mean that as a compliment) in this race. She has received endorsements from almost everyone - by selling them on her. I would not be surprised to see her come in first.

Lisa Morzel (3-1) : Strong (strident at times) environmentalist so disliked by the business community but loved by the environmentalists. And she seems to have not been a target of any of the recent mud-slinging. She appears to be 2nd or 3rd on most environmentalist's lists and that should be enough to guarantee a win.

Ken Wilson (4-1) : He won the special election and got endorsements from all the environmental groups. While he got the Camera endorsement, he only got an honorable mention from the Weekly and nothing from the Daily. The Washington School NIMBYs are mad at him - but that's not much of a vote.

Shawn Coleman (5-1) : Shawn seems to be doing everything right and he impresses virtually everyone he talks to (aside from the occasional wingnut). Shawn is not first on many lists but he seems to be on most everyone's list.

The race - These 7 are competing for the remaining 2 seats. All have a good chance at winning but will need to work for it.

Crystal Gray (8-1) : Incumbent, all three newspapers, & PB endorsement, should be another guaranteed win. But she is putting in a pretty minimal effort and hasn't answered some of the Camera questions. Doing terrible in fund-raising. Hard to believe but Crystal could lose.

Alan O'Hashi (8-1) : Alan got a very strong endorsement from the Boulder Weekly and this puts his impressive record in front of everyone. And he has a very strong base of support. Alan is the most likely vote for people tired of the same old candidates. And a lot of people are donating to Alan - a lot!

Matthew Applebaum (9-1) : Matt clearly has support and high positives - but also high negatives. Matt knows he is the most qualified (and he is in some ways) and that both helps & hurts him some. I am hearing more and more about his arrogance (negative) and his fundraising sucks.

Eric Rutherford (10-1) : Boy did I have Eric wrong - he has some of the strongest fundraising of any candidate both in number of contributors and total dollars. He's clearly resonating with a lot of people. And he's it for the "conservative" (what the rest of the country would call slightly liberal) vote - no vote splitting from his base. But still, hard to win as the "developer" candidate.

Macon Cowles (11-1) : Macon is a strident environmentalist and he is one of only 3 candidates that when people tell me they met him for the first time recently, they follow it up with and they are not voting for him. He clearly has a lot of support in the environmental community but he does not seem to do well outside of that core.

Larry Quilling (15-1) : Oh wow - endorsement from the Daily and an honorable mention from the Weekly. Larry is now definitely in play. He's also a Fairview parent and considered a nice guy by every other parent there that knows him - that is worth votes. Larry is the obvious pro-environmental vote for people tired of the usual suspects. That could be enough.

Eugene Pearson (15-1) : Eugene has the PLAN Boulder, Weekly and Daily nods. But to win he needs to pull in more votes and I have not seen him resonating elsewhere. If he wins it will be by the skin of his teeth.

A for effort - very unlikely (with 7 openings I won't say impossible) but the odds are not favorable.

Philip Hernandez (23-1) : Philip is working at it and his fundraising remains impressive. And he's a very nice person and that helps. But no endorsements - that probably ends it for Phil.

Adam Massey (34-1) : RLB make a very compelling point that Adam is basically doing nothing and assuming a B.O.C. endorsement will do the job. That is unlikely to be sufficient in this election. And people tend to get annoyed at candidates that take their vote for granted. No Camera or Weekly endorsement either (he did get the Daily). The Realtor's endorsement is the final nail in his coffin.

Susan Peterson (41-1) : Got the PLAN Boulder endorsement. But she missed one forum and has missed a number of the Camera blogs. She may be hoping to coast in on that endorsement and that is a questionable approach. No newspaper endorsements - that probably ends it for Susan.

Not going to happen - trying but not getting traction

Kathryn Kramer (49-1) : No base, no compelling spiel, no PB/TSC endorsement. Kathryn cares but with no base to build on, there is no core of votes to build from.

Tom Riley (49-1) : A smart, thoughtful, articulate candidate who raised a respectable amount of money in the special election - and placed 12th out of 14. Tom does not resonate with voters for some reason. If he can fix that, a big if, then he has a chance. But he needs to figure out how to connect.

Philip Bradley (60-1) : No reason to vote for Philip and very little experience of actually working for a living. On top of that he clearly did not work that hard in the special election. And almost no donations means he's not finding support among the politically active.

Rob Smoke (70-1) : Ok, Rob is definitely putting in a serious effort. And it is resonating a bit with the very disaffected, but even in Boulder there aren't many votes there.

Seth Brigham (75-1) : Seth is also putting in a serious effort. However, he does not appear to be gaining any traction.

Out to lunch - these candidates are on the ballot but don't seem to be actually running.

Nabil Karkamaz (95-1) : Has a website but no funds raised (so far), no yard signs, no appearance of a campaign organization. And he is not bothering to answer the Daily Camera questions. But he is at least putting in a small effort.

Andrew Harrison (100-1) : His website is a blank MySpace page. Is there a stronger way he could say he isn't going to put any real effort in?

Out - withdrawn from the race

Eric Bodenstab: Eric had his heart in the right place but I guess realized he did not have a chance this election. Here's hoping he gets on some city board and gets the experience and connections to run successfully in the future.

There is another person blogging their own take on The Big Line here at RealLiberalBoulder. Very snarky, lots of typos (and spells my name wrong) but hey, they're blogging about the race and that's great.

District Attorney ('08)

Stan Garnett (2-1) : The only declared candidate and he has endorsements from most of the usual suspects. He's a terrible choice but unless we see a strong opponent he will walk into office (like he did for his BVSD seat).

Ingrid Bakke (OFF) : Stan managed to talk her out of running.

CO-2 House Race ('08)

Joan Fitz-Gerald (3-1) : A political powerhouse in this area for awhile and a really good politician. She remains the one to beat. I met with Joan for coffee.

Jared Polis (3-1) : A very strong candidate with essentially unlimited funds and the smarts to not use his own funds but instead raising money very well. Definitely the most net-literate of the candidates by far. I met with Jared for lunch.

Will Shafroth (6-1) : Will is running a good campaign and his fundraising is impressive. But his real hope is that Joan and Jared beat each other up enough that he then glides by. I met with Will for coffee.

Boulder Election Results

Well the election made one thing very clear again, If PLAN Boulder and Ruzzin/Toor/etc endorsed George Bush, he would get elected here. For a community that prides itself on being independent thinkers there sure isn't a whole lot of thought put in to who people select.

Ken Wilson is a smart guy and I probably will agree with him most of the time but I really don't think it serves us well to have a council that marches in lock-step with no discenting viewpoints that would lead to better decisions due to the wider variety of options discussed.

And for those running in November, start sucking up to the powers that be. The 20 or so votes among that group are the votes that matter.

But with that said, Matt Applebaum coming in second is a very pleasant surprise. Matt is not liked by the powers that be (he has independent thoughts at times). And 67% voted not Ken Wilson so there was a substantial part of the electorate that actually exercised independent judgement.

Turning to The Big Line, I was off a bit on the odds for Wilson/Applebaum/Espinoza, mainly due to my thinking that we would not have so many people voting for the annointed candidate. But I think I was reasonably close on those.

I was way off on Tom Riley. Way, way, way George Bush level of miserable failure off on my guess for him. And I was a bit off on Hernandez and Peterson, but it's such small numbers by then that it's hard to get real accurate.

It also looks like money does not matter that much in the election. I did a graph of votes vs dollars and number of donors and there was basically no match. Eugene Pearson's large donations didn't appear to boost him at all. And Alan O'Hashi and Shawn Coleman did almost as good as Eugene with no money.

I will put together a new Big Line this weekend composed of those who told either me (via email) or the Camera that you are running in November. If you do/dn't want to be on the list, email me to confirm either way.

Sure are a lot of procrastinators in Boulder

The largest number of unique visitors to my blog during the election? Today. 446 so far. Largest source is google followed from email and the Camera links to my blog. The high number of email links coming in is surprising, I am guessing people are emailing the links to others.

Anyways, this surprises me because anyone hitting my blog today is either driving their ballot down or doesn't understand that the ballot has to arrvie by today, not be postmarked by today. And in both cases, they put it off till the very last day.

Results tonight. And once final ones are up I'll post about how off I was on The Big Line and start a new Big Line for the November election. (and for those that think I'm wrong in my estimation of who will win - please post your guess here.)

Election results are here.

Hate Crimes answers

The Boulder Daily Camera asked all the candidates:

"Boulder police have reported several recent hate crimes in the city. Is there anything more the City Council can or should do to address this issue?"

Before I get into grading the answers, let me give my view on this issue as it impacts the grade. I think the most powerful step this community can take, and does take, is to make it clear that any hate crime is awful and in no way acceptable. This community reaction is the most powerful force against hate crimes.

So now, off the soapbox and on to the candidate answers - which by and large were all very good to excellent.

Matthew Applebaum A : Gives primacy to the community reaction being key and also to the balance between free speech and hateful speech.

Eric Bodenstab B : No discussion of ways to handle this other than the hot-line "that could prevent any further harm to members of our community". Eric - if they call the line there has been harm. But his instincts are good.

Philip J. Bradley F- : No answer? To this question. Philip has given up on running - ever.

Shawn Coleman A : An excellent answer that talks to how community reaction is key and also how fear and ignorance is a part of hate crimes. And it is a short, concise, and succinct answer too.

Angelique Espinoza A+ : Strong eloquent answer. And very brave for sharing the incident about her Grandfather. Having someone on council that understands this in her gut would be good.

Phil Hernandez A : Great answer and brings up the need to stop "hate humor" as well as the effects of alcohol and police response on reducing hate crimes. And speaks to the community reaction being key.

Kathryn Kramer B- : Kathryn starts with the effects of hate crimes and the awful case of the boy in Texas who committed suicide because of what was done to him. It's a good way to start. But she then takes us on a tour through history and the world. We then get stuff on the need to educate people and how we're all the same. I don't know about you but when I read about these bozos that beat someone up because of their skin color or orientation or whatever, I don't think they are just like me. And I don't think that they are going to read an article in the Daily Camera about anything except a sale at Liquor Mart.

Alan O'Hashi B+ : Alan speaks solely to making the city employees more culturally aware. Definitely a good idea (and hiring a more diverse workforce would help too). But nothing about affecting the community or it's key role in addressing this.

Eugene Pearson B+ : I applaud Eugene's passion and the fact that he also understands it in his gut. But his entire answer revolves around passing laws and police response. Nothing on community action.

Susan K. Peterson B+ : Good idea on looking at the data (although with 4 - 5 incidents/year it's hard to determine trends). And she does talk to watching how things go and adjusting as needed (always a good idea) as well as educating the community.

Tom Riley B- : Really good thoughts on restorative justice. But nothing about the key role of the community.

John Welsh F : Gee John - nothing? Not even the council registering it's disgust with some slime-oid that hurts someone? Well at least you're being honest.

Ken Wilson A+ : Speaks to how hate crimes diminish us all (very good point) and in two sentences does a superb job of discussing all the key ways community is important. And he then dives in to some real good specific ideas to reduce the problem.

Frank D. Zoldak B- : On the one hand, it's a great general answer touching on all the key points from community to determining what the problem is and how best to handle it. On the other hand, it's a very general answer - no specifics. I take that as he has his heart in the right place but no real knowledge of the issue.

Tearing in to people is not fun and so this was a nice one to discuss. Aside from Philip Bradley and John Welsh everyone had good thoughtful answers. And between all of the answers are a number of very good ideas. To the 12 of you - thank you.

Are Bush's actions impeachable offenses?

There is an excellent post on the pluses and minuses of impeaching Bush here. It is best summed up in this quote from Meteor Blades:

But whatever they do, it's important to remember that impeachment is a nuclear political act, and because it's a nuclear political act it has to be judged on that basis with a clear view of the political playing field. The consequences of voting impeachment out of committee and failing to get a majority in the House --- or if we get a vote, failing to convict in the Senate (which is inevitable) are what's really at issue. I'm willing to consider that it's worthwhile anyway. But regardless, everyone needs to decide this course based upon the reality that Bush will not be convicted and barring an untimely demise, will not leave office before January 20, 2009.

So the question I ask is this --- is a failed impeachment going to hold them accountable? If so, then I'm for it. But if it actually ends up getting them off the hook, then not so much. It's not such an easy call.

Let's step back from the question of impeaching for a second. Because moving to impeach in the house is a gigantic step. It will always be contentious and it will always cause great divisions. When Nixon was facing impeachment, it was a gigantic political fight.

But we do not have to take such a large first step. What if instead the House moves forward to discuss what constitutes an impeachable offense. An open "general" discussion where highly respected experts from both sides are called to testify.

Before someone runs for office, they have an exploratory committee. Before the committee they "test the waters." This is where the House can "test the waters" in many ways. It brings the country as a whole into the discussion. It gives members who aren't sure a chance to both listen and discuss the issue.

My gut is that at the end of the discussion we will find that we must impeach. And if so, we will have already brought the country as a whole to that point. If we can do that, then impeachment will not only be demanded, it will pass.

Sometimes the fastest road to success starts with small steps.

As always, Keith Olbermann speaks so well to the issue.