OK, I’m supporting Will Shafroth for CD-2 April 4, 2008
Up until very recently I was still agnostic on the Colorado CD-2 race. Now, after many months of keeping a half-eye on this race, and a few weeks of keeping a very close eye on it, Will Shafroth has won my support. It’s hard for me to give up what was a neutral vantage point, but I have come to appreciate Will’s candidacy over Polis’ and Fitz-Gerald’s.
I came to this decision in both examining the candidates’ positions on my voting issues, and considering the intangibles of each. Will stands out to me in a few ways:
- By taking on climate change and energy as his top priority. While I don’t expect that issue set to be CD-2’s top priority, it is mine. (I do think Jared would be a good vote on climate/energy issues as well, but wouldn’t make them his top priority. After further research I think Joan Fitz-Gerald is absolutely the wrong person on enviro issues, and I’ll get to that in subsequent posts.)
- By staying positive and above the fray, something his opponents have decidedly not done thus far.
- By going the petition route instead of the party insider route. Whatever the logistical reasons for it and whatever the Shafroth campaign’s reasons for it, to me it says, ‘asking the voters to support me is more important than asking the party hacks to support me.’ It also says he has to be out door-to-door asking for support. I’ve hated that kind of thing ever since little league and elementary school fundraisers, so I can appreciate its balsiness.
- By raising 99% of his money from individual donors. I don’t begrudge anybody for taking PAC or other institutional money, and I don’t begrudge Polis for self-funding (my points in previous posts have been that the voters probably won’t like it, but I’m fine with it). But for Shafroth to raise almost equally with Fitz-Gerald while Joan has over 20% of her money coming from non-individual donors is impressive. (I did the numbers based off this site. New reports will be out April 15.)
- By not pandering. Joan may truly hate the Bush Administration, but so does everybody that will vote in the CD-2 D primary. Highlighting it over and over wastes our time by preaching to the choir while other issues can be discussed. Ditto Jared on Iraq. Listening to Joan and Jared try to out-anti-Iraq each other is a useless waste of time. Nobody voting on August 12 has ever liked the Iraq war either, friends. I’ll get deeper into the Iraq positions in another post.
While I will be supporting Shafroth, perhaps even carrying a petition for him (something I’ve never done for any candidate), I will continue to call this race as I see it. I’m not going to become a iWill sockpuppet on ColoradoPols or make up insults against the other candidates just to trash them. (Beware the comments on Pols and other sites. Many commenters are obvious sockpuppets — either paid, just supported or independent — for Polis or Fitz-Gerald. Shafroth may have some too but considering the tone thus far it doesn’t appear likely.) When I take the candidates to task it will be because I believe what I’m writing and that the issue is important; it will not be opportune jabbing with the sole purpose of slander. That’s just not my style.
For what it’s worth to CD-2 readers, if it wasn’t Will it would be Jared for me. I was impressed with Jared’s presence at the energy/climate debate and I’ve been impressed by how willing Jared has been to engage with me — just a lil’ ol’ blogger from nowhere — both in the comments on this blog and over email. I also appreciate Jared’s — much like Will’s — attempts at nuance in stating his positions. I’ve been equally unimpressed with Joan in the multiple times I have seen her speak and in the statements she has made during the campaign. Joan’s lack of nuance and her coziness with an array of monied interests, including the mining industry, frightens me. No issue is black-and-white and any politician that speaks in such terms (see for example) scares me off. Joan probably wouldn’t be a bad Rep, but she’s not the kind of Rep this political junkie wants.
Shafroth is the kind of Rep this political junkie wants. He comes across to me as intellectually honest, dedicated to his values and willing to work for his constituents’ interests above all others, and he is the clear choice for those of us in CD-2 who place enviro/climate/energy issues at the top of the list in this election.
What’s the difference between an enthusiastic supporter and a sock puppet?
My one experience with hearing all three of them is the Boulder County Dems Assembly last month. There is a liveblog account of it here: http://www.davidthielen.info/politics/2008/03/live-blogging-.html
To me, Will seemed the weakest of the presentations that day.
I am a strong Fitz-gerald supporter, but I won’t get into that here.
My observation is that this is going to be a much more interesting race than it looked a year ago. No doubt Shafroth’s fundraising is little short of phenomenal considering his lack of previously held elected office.
Which segues to the observation that this is going to be a very expensive primary race. Watching Polis hit TV for the precinct caucuses, thats been obvious for a while. I think the circumstance of having two different candidates with good fundraising success so far in the race with a near billionaire candidate is going to generate a bunch more money (and expenditures) before August. Certainly record $ for a CO Dems primary.
Finally, an observation about primary polling: its got a poor track record recently in CO. Good polls are expensive, even more so for a primary (you have to figure out who will vote, its a low percentage). Combine that with relatively low public interest in a primary in a “safe” district, and you get a lot of fog.
Finally, as Sen Salazar said at the County Assembly: Dems need to pull together after the primary, no matter who wins. (He was talking about the Presidential race).
Yea, it could be a loose distinction. But the working definition, more or less, is that a sockpuppet is an anonymous online handle used for deception. ie, you’re posting about yourself but posting under an anonymous handle that you’re pretending is just some random observer and nobody can readily trace to you. If one of the candidates, or candidate’s family members, or a campaign staffer was leaving rah-rah comments or attack comments against an opponent using an anonymized handle, they’d be a sockpuppet. John Lott is the poster child for this behavior but it’s obviously happening on Pols in this race (”Lover of Irony” is the most obvious). Wikipedia has a longer rundown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_sock_puppet
Definitely feel free to boost Joan in the comments here.
As for the rest of it, I agree with it all. The campaigns are doing their own polling, of course, but you can’t trust anything that doesn’t come from a larger known group, like SurveyUSA or ARG or similar. Otherwise it’s likely to be leaked data from one of the campaigns and thus spin.