Liberal and Loving It

When saying less is better

When reporting a sexual assault the media does not list the name of the victim with rare exceptions (one being that the victim chooses to have their name made public). The public still gets the story but some news is purposely withheld because in balance, privacy trumps our need to know.

I think the media should consider a similar policy for random shooters like at Virginia Tech, Von Maur in Iowa, etc. Report everything else but report nothing about the shooter himself (it's always a male). No name, no background, no history. Do not even count them in the total of the people killed if they died.

This would stop those who want publicity out of what they do. If they see that they become a non-entity, then the quest for fame will work against someone choosing to kill others for whatever twisted reason they have driving them. And while locally people will still tend to know who the shooter was, others reading about it will generally not realize that.

This does not mean we don't learn from it. In professional journals for police, psychiatry, teaching, etc there should be full discussion of all relevant facts as the articles discuss warning signs, how to respond, etc. But these should be limited to professional communication - no one is going to come up with a way to respond to these situations by reading about it on CNN.com.

So to the media, I ask that you come up with a policy of what you will not report in these stories. Talk to the experts on what drives people to shoot in these cases and do not report what could give others reason to go do the same thing. And we will all thank you for telling us a little less.

Update: The report out of Colorado Springs is "Two people died." I think it is totally wrong to group the killer with his victims. Out of respect to the innocent it should be "One person died." Or "One victim died. Killer also dead."

Bringing Democracy to Boulder - part II

As the recent City Council and BVSD election showed, we truly do have a winner take all system here. The problem is not that the Sierra Club and Teacher's Union won the majority of the seats. They had the majority of votes and therefore did deserve a majority.

The problem is that they won every single seat. The problem is that with our present voting system it means that 50% + 1 vote holds 100% of the 9 seats on the City Council and 7 seats on the school board. This does not make for good government and it does not make for robust democracy.

And there is a simple answer. It's called Instant Runoff Voting. Australia uses it for it's national elections. Aspen has just switched to it. It would insure that if not everyone, more of Boulder would have a voice at the table.

Note: This would require that the BVSD race eliminate wards and make all seats at large, with 4 up every 2 years. But it would provide a wider diversity of political philosophies than the present ward-based winner take all system.

It's a good day education-wise

A lot of good news on the educational front today so kudos all around.

First, the K-12 school ratings are out and BVSD did very well. What is especially notable is a lot more schools improved than dropped. And the two unsatisfactory ones are weird cases - Gold Hill is so small that a couple of students can drastically change the grade and Justice High should be measured differently because of who it works with.

There are a couple of schools that need serious help. But for most, they are doing a good to very good job. So congrats to the teachers, staff, students, and parents for a job well done.

Second, CU finally did the right (and morally correct) thing and settled with Lisa Simpson & Anne Gilmore for bringing sexual predators to campus and placing the success of the football team above that of the safety of the female students.

What is really good about this is it includes measures the school is now legally obligated to take to protect and support students. This is what the school should have done when this first came out. But they are finally doing the right thing.

So, it's a good day for education here in Boulder.

Think you know who's gonna win? Wanna bet?

Ok, for all of you that think you know who's going to win the various elections, John Ives has put together prediction markets for the main races. There's not enough participants yet for them to be statistically valid but they're getting close.

Here's the most interesting one, the CD-2 race:

These are legit questions

First off, keep in mind that the fact that someone has a good answer for a question does not make the question invalid. Because if the question was not asked, the answer would not be forthcoming.

Ok, so we have Joan Fitz-Gerald's campaign hammering Jared Polis' with questions. Questions on the Iraq trip, questions on donations, questions on... well just those two. And many Polis supporters calling foul, that the questions have nothing to do with the campaign or are mud-slinging.

I think every question I have heard so far is very legitimate to be asked. And in this questioning and the answers from the Polis campaign do teach us more about Jared Polis, his positions, and how we think he would operate as a Representative. All both legitimate and useful.

So lets look at these questions.

1) Should Jared have made the trip (with Joan's answer being no)? I put a longer answer here but the short answer is that most everyone who has spoken to this runs the gamut from "good idea" to "all candidates should do this." Jared clearly learned a lot (a picture is worth a thousand news articles) and he brought Iraq front and center to the campaign - both of which are very valuable.

2) What entity is paying for the Iraq? At present the answer is "my lawyer will figure it out." Bad answer. Ok, the final bookkeeping will almost certainly be legal. But this is like Al Gore's "no controlling legal authority" answer that while legally correct, gave the impression of pulling a fast one. And this means this question will be left hanging out there.

This is dumb as there is no upside to this approach and lots of downside. If Jared had made an initial statement like "I feel the most proper way to handle the expenses of this trip is I will pay for this personally and then declare it an in-kind donation to my campaign." That would have left no grounds for anyone to get upset - it's not campaign donations paying for the trip but it is all being declared as a campaign expense.

3) Should the United Way have been involved? This is another one that smells and yet was totally avoidable. I get the feeling based on the initial press release and how it was played at first that exactly what the purpose of the trip officially was evolved both from Jared's end and how it played out here. But it left the actual United Way connection in limbo.

And with the statement from the United Way, it just brings up one more negative. And again, a clear clean unambiguous statement at the start would have avoided this being an issue. Everything stated was vague enough that the Polis team can fit most anything to it - but the contortions make it a continuing news story.

4) Should Jared have accepted contributions from Cranberg and other Swift Boat contributors. This is an interesting question. If it was one of the Swift Boat creators the answer would almost certainly be a hell no. If it was less than $100.00 it would be who cares. At $2,500.00 it sits in that gray area.

Add to that Cranberg strongly supports vouchers and it gets worse. When it comes to vouchers the teachers union has one thought (over our dead body) and if you want to win a Democratic primary you usually need if not the support of the teachers, at least not violent opposition. (Personally I wish this was not true, but wishes are irrelevant in an election.)

But the bottom line is, once again no clear answer from the Polis campaign so this is also left continuing to get media play.

What really bothers me about this is it seems like amateur hour in the Polis campaign. Items (2) and (3) above never would have even been whispered if there had been forethought in how the trip was framed. And to date, they remain unanswered, at least to a level that eliminates them as a story.

Item (4) is a tough one, it's understandable that this was unexpected although they should have been ready to speak to the contributions from voucher supporters at least. But again, no answer to bring closure to the issue. For political issues speed is everything in killing stories - that's why the Clinton campaign had the war room.

I think part (but only part) of the problem here is that Jared's background is different from an experienced politician. Maybe this is because I've spent most of my life in the start-up world as Jared also has - but it's a different approach used there that works very well there. And that is to try 10 things and you know half or more will fail. Stick with the ones that work and go try 10 more things.

Now this has problems in the political realm. Some are substantive problems like being saddled with a badly written amendment until '08. Some are more issues of perception like "my lawyer will figure out how to bill the trip."

There are benefits to the political realm to bringing some of this start-up approach to politics. But just some. The question is can Jared bring a good balance between the two. At present he's still working with a start-up level of failures to successes and in a campaign I don't think that ratio will be successful.

But the bottom line about these questions is they all teach us something about Jared. The Iraq idea - brilliant. The political framing - poor. Response speed to negative questions - slow. I think voters will consider Jared if he learns to do better on the framing and response speed. But if not I think he's in a lot of trouble.

On the flip side, all the CD-2 news recently has been about Jared and only Jared. And there is an old Hollywood saying - I don't care what you say as long as you spell my name right. If all most people remember is "Jared Polis something something" then this all may not be that big of a deal...

Have you seen this man? Oops, never mind

Ok, I had this great post just about finished. A title of "Have you seen this man" with a picture of Will Shafroth and some snarky comments about how he hasn't been seen since announcing. It was a great post - lots of great lines.

And I just deleted it.

I just received an email blast from Will talking about today being World AIDS Day. It's pretty generic with no specific call to action. But it is a clear campaign piece with a closer of "In Congress, I will be a leader in fighting for..."

So we have Will popping up to campaign and doing so with a clear specific positive campaign piece. And I like what he talked to, AIDS is important and yet has fallen off to a secondary issue issue in the election. So kudos for speaking to it.

One nit though - the email should have a hyperlink on both the top banner and the "Paid for by Shafroth for Congress" at the bottom that go to his website. There is not a single link in the email to his website www.shafrothforcongress.com. And it's a good website.

Responding to RLB

Ok, someone who calls himself Real Liberal Boulder has started a blog devoted to me (interesting that I awaken such ardor in someone). I am not going to argue opinion here but I would like to correct a couple of things s/he has factually wrong.

1. My name is spelled Thielen, not Thielin. It's right there in the url to this page - www.davidthielen.info.
2. It's Will Shafroth, not Bill Shafroth.
3. Yes I think the Republican party needs to have strong credible candidates in the local Boulder races. We have had a one party system in Boulder County for a long time and a one party system is inherently corrupting, if not with financial payments, then with abuse of power. With that said, I didn’t endorse Bob over Claire, I just said that I think the Republicans should put Bob up because it would make a great race.
4. As to my fawning over one of the candidates to later endorse, is it Joan, Jared, or Will? I'd like to know because at present I'm not sure who I would vote for. At present my preference is that all 3 get on the primary ballot as all 3 are very good candidates and I would be happy with any one of them.
5. As to my not being a liberal, I am a strong advocate of appropriate market regulation, including actions to reduce our carbon output - see this post on taxing carbon, I am a strong supporter of helping Hispanic, African-Americans, the poor, etc. get a true equal opportunity - see this post on affirmative action. There's more if you read my posts.
6. Yes my mom’s an elected Republican. A very liberal Republican but a Republican. But even if she was way to the right, what does that have to do with my politics? And my sister is a Democrat (apparently RLB is not aware of that), as are all my other siblings, most of my mom’s legislative staff, most of her voters, etc.

The root issue that bothers me about RLB's post is not our disagreement on issues as that is what makes the blogosphere interesting. Rather it is that his/her continuous call for censorship is the antithesis of liberalism. And it is especially interesting that RLB calls for this censorship from a cloak of anonymity.

I hope that moving forward RLB will chose to contribute to the debate by discussing issues rather than trying to reduce the debate by restricting who is allowed to speak. I invite RLB to join in on a robust and open debate on the candidates, on the issues, even on if I'm a liberal.

But let's discuss it rather than call for expulsion of anyone who does not meet your criteria of political purity. Because if we all agree, the world would be a very boring place.

Update: Jann Scott has proposed a debate between RLB and me, moderated by him. I have accepted so we are waiting on RLB.