Liberal and Loving It

Josh Penry’s Announcement of support for Scott McInnis

 

Announcement from Sen. Josh Penry

Dear Friends,

This morning in a small park in Grand Junction I endorsed Scott McInnis to be the next Governor of the State of Colorado.

Experience and new energy are now on the same team, and that's good news for our state, our party, and the cause of conservative reform and good government that Colorado desperately needs.

It's bad news for Bill Ritter and a Democratic legislature that has rubber stamped his big tax, big fee, no drill economic agenda. The Democratic monopoly in Denver has helped usher in the worst economy in 60 years. Soon, it will be their turn to take a number in the unemployment line.

My endorsement of Scott is an enthusiastic one - it comes on the heels of two weeks of talks between Scott and I as well as other leaders in local government, the state legislature, and leading Republican names like Tom Tancredo. Those talks resulted in a common-sense conservative reform agenda that will be unveiled in the coming days - it's a governing vision that will get Colorado's economy moving again, and at long last rally the Colorado Republican Party on the principles and priorities that make us strong. Look for more on that soon.

It also positions Colorado Republicans for a historic comeback in 2010.   

On the morning of election day in 2004, Colorado was Republican Country.

The Grand Old Party in the Centennial State claimed a Governor, two United States Senators, five Members of Congress, a state Treasurer, Secretary of State, and a majority in both the State House of Representatives and the Colorado Senate.

By that evening, everything changed. And over the next five plus years, Republicans witnessed a literal electoral collapse, with Democrats taking the Governor's office, both US Senate Seats, five Congressional Districts, the state House, Senate and the Treasurer's and the Secretary of State's office too.

The reasons for our Party's demise are by now well documented: a well-funded, well-organized and highly-motivated Democratic and liberal machine out-smarted and out-maneuvered a Republican Party that was, for its part, divided, undisciplined, and underfunded.

This week, the long march back begins for Colorado Republicans.  On the heels of runaway election sweeps in New Jersey and Virginia, Colorado Republicans have a once in a generation chance to return our governing philosophy to a leadership position in Colorado - to defeat an incumbent Governor, to re-establish conservative control of both chambers of the Colorado legislature and in other key seats as well.

And my endorsement of Scott McInnis is one part of that. This election is about something more than personalities and personal ambition - it's about reclaiming this State, and demanding common sense and leadership from government.

I left the Governor's race last week to focus our resources and our common purposes on taking back the electoral real estate we've lost - yes, beating Bill Ritter, but also rallying our resources to make sure we elect conservative reformers to Congress the statehouse and courthouses across Colorado.

It's a little different role then we envisioned five months ago, but it's a critical fight for Colorado.  And right after I finish a little turkey and a lot of mashed potatoes with the family, it's a fight that I will wage vigorously.

For his part, Scott is eager to earn your support and vote. Ask him questions and hear him out. My bet is he'll convince you he's the right man to be Governor - like he did me.

Thanks for your time. Best wishes for a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Most Sincerely,

Josh

Boulder City Council election results

Wow, go to bed with it mostly counted, wake up to some real movement in places 3 – 5. Ok, first off a big thank you to everyone who ran. You put yourself out there in front of everyone and had to take a lot of grief. Campaigning is a contact sport and you all did yourselves proud.

So last night around 10:30 it was:

1. Suzy Ageton – 15.12%
2. Matt Applebaum – 11.94%
3. George Karakehian – 10.35%
4. K.C. Becker 10.26%
5. Macon Cowles – 10.14%
6. Barry Siff – 9.22%
7. Tim Plass – 8.92%
8. Jyotsna Raj – 8.71%
9. Fenno Hoffman – 7.47%
10. Valerie Mitchell – 3.28%
11. Kevin Hotaling – 1.80%
12. Rob Smoke – 1.76%
13. Seth Brigham – 1.02%

And this morning it's now:

1. Suzy Ageton – 14.71%
2. Matt Applebaum – 11.94%
3. Macon Cowles – 10.32%
4. K.C. Becker 10.28%
5. George Karakehian – 10.08%
6. Barry Siff – 9.19%
7. Tim Plass – 8.95%
8. Jyotsna Raj – 8.85%
9. Fenno Hoffman – 7.57%
10. Valerie Mitchell – 3.45%
11. Kevin Hotaling – 1.80%
12. Rob Smoke – 1.81%
13. Seth Brigham – 1.06%

So in counting the final ballots, Suzy & George dropped and Macon as well as the rest of the freeze in amber team rose at their expense. If the Clerk's office can tell us where the final ballots came from, that would be interesting. I see a couple of interesting things out of this:

1. Incumbency remains a powerful advantage.
2. A Sierra Club/PBC endorsement is no longer a guarantee. Tim & Jyotsna both did well, but they did not win.
3. The difference between 5^th and 6^th is 0.89%, and between 5^th and 8^th is just 2.51%. There's a pretty even balance in Boulder between the freeze in amber and embrace the future crowds.

Boulder will continue to bounce along as it always has. For those that hoped for a giant change in direction – didn't happen. On the flip side, for those that hoped for a strong endorsement for stopping new development – that also did not happen. The big message is we have two groups with roughly equal political backing. And that is really good because it will force both sides to work together to find compromises in the middle. (Of course in Boulder the "middle" is what most cities would call far left – so things remain good.)

Election Results

Final Update: I'm calling it a night. There's a tiny chance Becker & Cowles could flip, but we know which 5 people won. The giant news is that the freeze in amber crowd went down to a strong defeat with Macon barely retaining his seat – for 2 years. And what makes this even more interesting is this occurred in a low turnout election where voters were not that impassioned. No one can explain why two (and almost three) of the Sierra Club/PLAN Boulder candidates lost.

You can bet that this question is the number one thing on the minds of Macon, Crystal, Lisa, & Susan (ok, probably #2 for Crystal, after shopping). They all face an election in 2 years and if that election plays out like this one, they'll be fighting for 5^th place. Make no mistake, the number one goal for any politician is getting re-elected.

Update 7: 9:37 – 59,072 votes updated Council results below – no change. And the Stan Garnett job security act is still losing – by 244 votes. I'd say this has lost.

Update 6: County Question 1D – the give Stan Garnett 4 more years proposal is losing – by 341 votes. Definitely going to be close.

Update 4: 8:48 – 58,281 votes and still no real change.

Update: 7:55 – 52,280 votes and no real change. We know who our new council is.

Wow, only 7:30 and we have most of the results. Maybe Hillary Hall is learning how to run the clerk's office.

Here's the results:

1. Suzy Ageton – 15.12%
2. Matt Applebaum – 11.94%
3. George Karakehian – 10.35%
4. K.C. Becker 10.26%
5. Macon Cowles – 10.14%
6. Barry Siff – 9.22%
7. Tim Plass – 8.92%
8. Jyotsna Raj – 8.71%
9. Fenno Hoffman – 7.47%
10. Valerie Mitchell – 3.28%
11. Kevin Hotaling – 1.80%
12. Rob Smoke – 1.76%
13. Seth Brigham – 1.02%

Update 5: If I'm reading the ballot totals at the clerk & recorder correctly – turnout was much lower than normal – 50K actual vs. 63K expected (ballots, not total votes). If so this is a giant change for City of Boulder voting. The rule of thumb in the past has been low turnout lead to a slam-dunk for the Sierra Club/PLAN Boulder candidates – especially when they agreed. I think the change is a combination of some new groups becoming very effective endorsers (B.O.C. by far being the biggie) plus the impact of voters who decide via Google searches.

Update 2: Note on the vote "total." The total listed on the Clerk's page is the total votes for all candidates. So a single ballot with 5 candidates selected is listed as 5 votes. If the total is 50,000 votes, that is on the order of 12,000 ballots as the average ballot, IIRC, has slightly over 4 choices.

Update: If Macon Cowles did not have the advantage of incumbency I think Barry Siff would have easily beat him. This would have meant 4 from the evolve ticket and ½ for the freeze ticket. This election clearly was a repudiation of freezing Boulder in amber and shows clear support for moving intelligently into the future.

This is a very pleasant surprise. This gives us 3 candidates (a majority) from the let Boulder evolve ticket and 1½ for the freeze Boulder in amber ticket (Matt being the ½). In my guess I was wrong that I thought the vote would be more business as usual. These results are a wonderful surprise. Boulder is not going to be frozen in amber.

In my guess I also got one thing very wrong – how George Karakehian would do. This may be due to his campaign budget – I never saw anything from him other than one robo-call, but I don't read the print edition of any paper so if he spent money on ads I missed it. It could also be due to the fact that he has deep roots in the community here and while he's not a barn burner in his presentations, he is well respected. Or something else. Probably a combination of all of that. But I did misjudge how he would do – and I am thrilled that I blew it – because I think he'll be a great addition to the council.

The other interesting question is, has the internet changed how people get their information, and from that, how they vote. Looking at the stats for my blog, which is just a small part of what's out there, I'd say about 5,000 voters hit my site, coming to candidate pages mostly from Google searches. This means they were typing in the candidate names, reading independent posts on the web about them, and then voting.

I think it's safe to say that the web has a significant impact on the vote in Boulder. Looking at positions 1 – 9 (the two tickets running), you see the interleave of the tickets and realize that the domination of the Sierra Club/PLAN Boulder is gone. They matter, but so does B.O.C. & Company. And within each, people are going to the web because it is so quick & easy, people will now do more than just follow an endorsement list.

From K.C. Becker to Seth Brigham, you could pretty much predict that order by doing a Google search on each and looking at the first couple of independent sites that came up for each.

Update 3: If anyone running in 2011 wants to make effective use of the Internet, and is willing to put in the effort, contact me in May of 2011. Effective use of the net (none of the candidates did a good job) could easily add 1K – 2K in votes. And that would have moved any of the candidates in places 6 – 9 into the top 5.

Who’s going to win tonight?

Ok, ½ hour to go so time to make my guess. First for BVSD – who cares. No matter who wins, all of the candidates I saw will continue the BVSD tradition of being totally ineffective and we'll see no improvement in our schools. The children of the well off will do fine and the children of the poor will be screwed and stuck in a cycle of poverty.

Now on to the council. We have a clear race between the left, and the far far far far left. What happens in Boulder is most years the majority of voters ignore the race and let the looney left run the city. But when they take the city too far off into la-la land, like when Crossroads was empty, then the grown-ups pay attention and vote in a couple of people that will bring the city back to just far left.

So the question in front of us is – did the FAR effort cause enough people who normally don't vote to take the time to vote in this election. My guess is no. We'll see some vote, especially from Martian Acres. But not enough to control the election. So here's my guess as to the results:

1. Suzy Ageton – incumbent and appreciated by most in Boulder.
2. Matt Applebaum – incumbent and most everyone's 4^th choice – which is as good as 1^st in this election.
3. K.C. Becker – quality candidate with tons of connections into politically active groups in the community. Having some people upset at FAR and some who normally don't vote move her up to 3^rd.
4. Macon Cowles – The fact that some normally disinterested voters are paying attention will push him down to 4^th – but that's still a 4 year term.
5. Tim Plass – Quality candidate and darling of the don't build anything in Boulder crowd. Business as usual will get him in.
6. Barry Siff – He seems to have resonated the best with voters out of the remaining embrace the future candidates.
7. Jyotsna Raj – Having the backing of the freeze Boulder in Amber crowd will not make up for zero experience with the city.
8. George Karakehian – George never closed the sale with people. He'll be an interesting data point that you can't buy the election.
9. Fenno Hoffman – He was the 5^th vote for a lot of the people that wanted to see Boulder evolve.
10. Valerie Mitchell – The poor could use an advocate on the council. They never have one though because they don't vote.
11. Kevin Hotaling – Kevin also never closed the sale. And students just don't vote in these elections.
12. Rob Smoke – Rob gets the vote of everyone who wants to send a Fuck You to the City government. It's a surprisingly small number.
13. Seth Brigham – Seth has no interest group that supports him and that means very few votes.

Must be an election today

Over 500 visitors to my blog yesterday, over 600 1,000 so far today. People are using Google to figure out who to vote for...

Of course, to put this in perspective, I have over 4,000 9,000 visitors so far this morning on my programming blog reading my latest post there - What every developer should know about time.