The Challenge As I See It

Dedicants to this blog will know that I am currently pretty down on the Democratic party and its candidates, particularly the traitor Mark Udall and Barack Obama, both for their FISA votes. But for the past couple of weeks, I have thought a lot about the state of affairs in Weld Co. as it relates to this dissatisfaction, and I have a major concern.

How do we elect a representative instead of a would be leader? How do we elect someone who will put the rule of law above his desire to be elected? How do we elect someone who actually has the principles he discusses from the stump?

I attended an Obama meeting last night, and accosted the nice, young woman from the Obama campaign about FISA. She gave the party line about the compromise and blah blah blah, and I called bullshit. I asked her how Barack Obama can campaign telling us that corporate interests have too much influence, but then vote to let them off the hook for their illegal activities. This behavior is that of a hypocrite, but I'll rationalize a vote for Obama in hopes of preventing a major Supreme Court disaster.

But what do we do closer to home? Do we support Betsy Markey today? She's talking the right (er... proper) talk, and I think she's sincere. She's a wonderful lady, but she's running in CD-4. While she may have an opening this year, I can't imagine that running against Buck or Gardner or some other establishment Republican in 2010 will give her the same opportunity. She'll have a really hard time getting re-elected if she votes the way she talks today. So, will she do the things she promises, or will she model herself after her former boss and run to the right?

This is not a problem just with Betsy's candidacy. The problem is closer to home. Instead of working to try to create ground that is fertile for the principles we stand for, we have simply been working to elect candidates who believe that it's necessary to attack Republican failings or that they need to share Republican dogma (with a couple tweaks).

We elect people like Ken Salazar, who hasn't read the Constitution, so he has no idea that he throws it under the bus at every opportunity. We run people like Mark Udall, who is so terrified of his buffoon of an opponent that he has to vote for a horrible forfeiture of civil liberties so that he can avoid being called "weak on terror." And we have a candidate for President who claims to be different, but is really just another member of the club.

Do we just have to stop supporting candidates running in today's Democratic party? Do we have to find ways to punish votes like the FISA bill? Sure. But we also need to look at what we're doing closer to home and find ways to build, from the ground up, a place in which a discussion of taxes is not all about how bad they are, but instead about responsible service and civic values. In short, we cannot point to Bill Ritter's win in Weld Co. and say we are any less red than before. We need to point to city councils and county commision and state house and senate seats. Then we can say we're making gains.

We need strategy at the local level, and today, we don't have any. We have get out the vote, but we don't care what we're voting for. We need to change this, and we need to change it today.