The Cedar Lounge Revolution

A guest post from yourcousin, finally, finally, (you can check out his intermittent but informative blog here) which is a follow-on from thoughts of his on this post and gives an insight into the issues that face progressives/leftists in the US electoral environment.

So much of the story is not so much detail as backfill. For starters one should understand that Colorado was founded as a mining state. So while the settler spirit remains and some ignorant fools try to delude themselves into thinking we’re a cattle town (fuck you very much National Western Stock Show) the basis of the state was mining. This is only brought up because of the precedence it sets politically for the state which went for the Populist party in 1892 (the whole “Cross of Gold” speech four years later from the Dems) and which gave birth to the Western Federation of Miners which in turn gave birth to the IWW. This led to a series of fairly brutal labor wars in the early twentieth century which were a mix bag for outcomes. Probably the most famous now would the Ludlow massacre which took place in 1914. IE in Colorado both labor and business were organized to the extreme in the early twentieth century up until mid century. This eventually led to the Colorado Labor Peace Act which was heavily tilted against unions requiring a super majority to form a closed shop. This was basically a compromise between a regular state and a Right to Work state. And things were then left well enough alone as labor went into its decline and Reagan knocked a bunch of unions out in the eighties.

Outside of Denver this has always been a Republican state. We’ve had a number of conservative Dems take the governorship over the years, such as Dick Lamm (may not seem conservative but look at his stance on immigration) and Roy Romer, but the state houses have usually always been controlled by Republicans. There was usually always a state senator trying to get a Right to Work bill passed at least once every session but they were always contained by the Dems and some of the more moderate of their colleagues who reasoned that labor was dying just fine on its own and didn’t need any help. Things went along this way until 2006 when then Governor Bill Owens term limits expired. He had been tipped early on as a possible cabinet member for Bush until it came out that he was having the State Patrol drive him up to see his mistress and illegitimate love child on the weekends. Though this didn’t really cause too big of a stir locally. Although I would gleefully point out that when his portrait was hung in the capitol they painted his left hand in his pocket so that no one could see the his wedding ring ( I wonder why). And yes his wife divorced him as soon as he left office.

Oh yes, 2006 and the midterm elections. By this point Bush fatigue was setting rather hard and the Dems took both houses of the state house (lower-House of Reps, higher-senate) with slim majorities in the upper house and a comfortable majority in the upper house. On top of this the Democrats took the governship with a man named Bill Ritter. A pro-life former DA who had run once before against Owens and who was slaughtered. The Dems were desperate to find another candidate but couldn’t and so ran with him and oddly enough won. They were helped in this by the fact that the Republicans were split by two referendums (C and D on the ballot) which were pro business but were government spending and so opposed by a grouping of Republicans. In this group was the Republican candidate for governor. So business sided with the Dems and the Dems won.

Given this new majority a couple members of the house took Ritter at his word (he said he wanted to reform the Labor Peace Act during his campaign) and introduced a bill which would have made it easier for unions to organize. This set off a hailstorm of abuse from business and the press (both major papers in Denver are anti-labor) it was the first crisis of the governorship. Though the bill passed both houses Ritter vetoed it saying that while he agreed with the substance he didn’t like the way things had developed with the bill. Later he tried to makes amends by doing an Executive order allowing state employees to organize, something which the former governor had done away with. This, although largely symbolic, was too much for some elements in the Republican party who then got together and launched a petition to get Right to Work on the ballot. This was headed up by a city council member from Aurora (East Denver suburb), a nephew of the infamous Coors family and Jake Jabs(the fucker).

This set off a series of counter measures by Labor. The local government was Democratic but took the stance of opposing all Labor issues and had a fence post stuck up their ass. At the eleventh hour the union boss who’d gotten the measures on the ballot lost his nerve and pulled them in return for 3 million dollars (although in the end it was only 2.5 million with less than a month left until the election) to fight 47 (the Right to Work amendment) from government and (some) business bodies.

And even though local unions started ponying up cash early in the year we didn’t see anything until mid to late September. This was infuriating to many of us since there were anti-union ads being run for months with no response. But when we finally got yard signs out, they got put out everywhere. There are laws which strictly enforced about where you can and cannot put political yard signs. But at least this time the cops were standing in solidarity with labor and on every major road and offramp all throughout the working class neighborhoods. During the entire election I only saw two bill boards that were pro-47, and one of those was outside a Republican headquarters. Though I was unhappy with the fact that we let the pro-47 camp have the ideological field as we retreated behind a mantra of, “business and labor need to work together, 47 is divise and bad for local economy”. While they were able to hammer on about worker’s rights and freedom. Though you have to love the party of Reagan singing the hymn of rights and freedoms for working people.

One of the interesting subtexts of the amendment fight was how the unions have been totally gutted of rank and file intitiative and that “advisors” ran the thing. I suppose this is the natural outgrowth of the specialty market of political advisors. Seriously, due to the fact that the local for northern Colorado didn’t have a staffer in the local they had our political guy move his book up there so that there would be a staffer from the Regional Council up there to keep tabs on them. But once again I’m on a side tangent. Our mantra was thought up by polling groups and consultants.

Here we don’t have Reagan Democrats, we just Reaganites and they don’t even bother with the Dems. There are quite a few Republican brothers in our ranks. To see how hardcore the Republican camp is here I would point out retiring Congressman Tom Tancredo and local ex-House Rep. Douglas Bruce. Take note of the Tax Payer Bill of Rights (TABOR) link early in the article as an example of the mind set of Republicans here. I would also note that Focus on the Family is headquartered in Colorado Springs (a city about an hour south of Denver). I would also point out that the Reform Party pulled 11% in the 4th Congressional District in 2006 due to the fact that many Republicans were disillusioned by the Bush policies. We also have a shit load of independents which also helps explain the vacillation between Dems and Republicans for office both locally and nationally.

Bush’s time in office was probably the biggest thing which pushed us into the blue column. The lack of heavy industry really meant that Hillary was not a huge runner here and people like my father who are NRA Republicans voting Democrat for probably the third time in their life (the first was Jimmy Carter’s second term and Kerry). He would rather take another four years of Republican rule than take another four of the Clinton’s whom he despised (and I share his sentiments). McCain might’ve done alright had he been the 2000 McCain but his choice of Palin turned off the independents and the economy just slaughtered him here.

Having the convention here also helped but there was still an odd mix of ideologies and loyalties at play here. While not common it was not unheard of to see yard signs for Dems on the ticket all the way up until the president which would have a McCain sign. It was also common to see Republican yard signs with other signs supporting new school bonds (ie more government spending). What is odd is that almost all of the referendums failed including some pretty bland ones which just goes to show the idiosyncrasies of our state which were succinctly stated by the Rocky Mountain News as, “‘Yes We Can’ and ‘No We Won’t'”. I just heard today that a repeal of Affirmative Action was just defeated by a hair’s breadth. Locally the Dems had a tougher time in spite of the convention and trying to ride on Obama’s coattails. The Jefferson County commisioner seat went to a Republican after the Greens candidate polled over 10%. That was the only local Green on my ballot so I couldn’t about other areas. The Greens did run on the national tickets but even Nader outpolled them and they did not pose a threat to Congressional races.

In the national races the Dems not only retained their seats but also took a seat off of retiring Senator Wayne Allard as Mark Udall (Formerly a House Rep.) took it by a convincing margin. His tune of energy independence struck a note with Coloradans as did his easy going persona. Also his support of the war in Iraq also came to his aid as he could point to a record of supporting the troops. His opponent was a fairly hardcore Republican opponent Bob Schaeffer who hails from a political dynasty in Ohio came off as not only an asshole but someone who would’ve sailed to election back in 2000. He had big oil connections and had gone to Iraq not to support the troops but to make oil deals. His campaign had attempted to brand Udall as a “Boulder Liberal” but that fell flat as even Schaeffer attempted to go green and Udall could point to his failure to support the troops as a member of the House of Reps (national, not state house). Schaeffer had voted time and time again against the Veteran’s Administration (ie the people who take of vets once they get home) time and time again even as he voted to send them to war. The aforementioned 4th District also fell to a new Democrat.

As for progressives. Well define progressive? Udall probably counts as one for his stance on energy, but his support of the war knocks him out in my opinion. Though he’s taken alot of heat for his support of unions and hasn’t flinched so he got my vote. The rest while not bad aren’t anything special. Locally things are even worse. There are at least two house reps who aren’t bad, they support labor steadfastly which is not something which can be taken for granted as many a state rep and city council member who is a proud Democrat shits on us on a regular basis. Indeed just a couple of days ago a state rep came up to BS with my foreman and I. He was, prior to his election, a union electrician and confided in us that he has been trying to get a prevailing wage bill passed but couldn’t even get it on the floor as the Democratic leadership was squashing it in committee. But such is life.

I’m calling it good here as it has taken me quite awhile to amass this much info. Don’t know if this was what you were looking for but hopefully this suffices.