Courting business becoming a political trend

Gov. John Hickenlooper

President Barack Obama is not the only chief-executive-of-state courting the business community big time. Our own Gov. John Hickenlooper met with ten CEOs of the state's largest employers last Friday in a meeting that so far has gone relatively unreported except by him.

The president met with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday and asked its business membership to "get in the game" of hiring to reduce the nation's unemployment. 

Hickenlooper hasn't said he asked the Colorado CEOs to open their doors and hire more unemployed Colorado workers, but he did say Monday on Mike Rosen's radio show that the CEOs "had all kinds of specific suggestions in terms of changing the taxes we ... have on business, not to lower them, but just to make them more fair."

He also said that raising corporate taxes in the state now "would put up a neon sign saying we don't want any [new] businesses" coming to the state -- exactly the opposite of the "aggressively pro-business" message Hickenlooper, like Obama, wants to send right now.

Both chief executives want Corporate America to pitch in and contribute to economic recovery. We don't know whether Hickenlooper specifically asked the Colorado employers to do that because his two-and-a- half-hour session with the execs in his Capitol office was deemed a "private meeting," according to spokesman Eric Brown.

Brown also said the governor "regularly meets with business leaders and will continue to do so."

That's a good thing for both the governor and the state because Hickenlooper needs business on his side if he expects to accomplish anything during his term. That's a reality that escaped his predecessor Bill Ritter, whose governance was in marked contrast to Obama's and Hickenlooper's because it followed a national Democratic agenda rather than one crafted by him for Colorado.

Obama, a former community organizer, and Hickenlooper, an entrepreneur with a Democratic bent, have realized from the start of their political careers that government has to work with business for the common good of all citizens.

They realize, too, that neither liberals who like to shut out business interests from government, nor free-market conservatives who want government to stay out of business altogether, hold the proper respect for the joint venture that our society demands from both its public and private sectors.

Hickenlooper told reporters and economic development specialists after his Friday morning meeting with the CEOs that Ken Tuchman of Teletech Holdings Inc., one of those businessmen who attended, suggested to the group that the tightening economy over the past three years has made all their companies "better and stronger," in Hickenlooper's words.

Operating lean and mean will do that for a company, but as Obama suggested to the U.S. Chamber, the time for Colorado's big businesses to get off the sidelines and hire people is now. Let's hope our new governor pressed the same point with his C-level executive friends.

Self-interest, a Republican earmark

Dick Wadhams, Colorado's cutthroat Republican chairman, says Tom Tancredo's third-party bid for governor is based in his own self-interest.

So what's new about that?

All Republican Party politics in Colorado is driven by the self-interests of its rich, establishmentarian membership. Conservative or not, Republicans in the state consistently argue for the least amount of government in order to preserve their privileged existence. Most of Colorado's executive business community also subscribes to that party line.

Check out the rising percentage of poor children in Colorado: 15 percent of all children in Colorado lived in poverty in 2008 compared with 10 percent in 2000. In 2008, they numbered about 179, 000 kids, said Lisa Piscopo of the Colorado Children's Campaign.

Guess who was in power for most of that time: a Republican governor who did nothing for Colorado's poor through 2006, and diminishing Republican majorities in the legislature, although a quartet of Democratic millionaires started to chip away at that power base late in 2004.

Limited government, which Republicans in Colorado hold up as one of their highest values, naturally limits the ability of the state to care for its poorest citizens, and naturally leads to lower and lower taxes that eventually starve the government of any sustenance at all.

That's the philosophy Republican Party leaders are trying to take to Colorado voters in November, and only the financially struggling Republican middle class are politically blind enough not to see that's what their party stands for.

Tancredo's run for governor will not only split the Republican vote in Colorado, it will cut down statewide voter turnout. Self-interested people don't go to the polls when they know there will be no victor to throw them their rightful share of the spoils.

Gambling for governor

Can a poor man run for governor of Colorado? Can we trust him?

Essentially, that's the thrust of the Denver Post's front-page story today about Republican gubernatorial hopeful Dan Maes.

Maes finally released limited information about his family income on Tuesday, after refusing to release income-tax returns to the Post, as the newspaper had asked, for the past several months.

The information released Tuesday shows why. Maes and his wife are poor people despite Maes' business having had one good $300,000 year.

Again, the thrust of the Post's coverage is: Can Colorado trust a small-business owner who has barely been able to cover the costs of his family's survival for the past 10 years as a governor responsible for maintaining and managing a multi-billion-dollar state budget.

It's a somewhat legitimate question, but it belies the Post's prejudice in favor of the rich and obviously successful. Presuming, of course, that only the rich are successful.

Most small-business owners struggle to make a living; that's why help for small business is a middle-income issue that gets to the heart of an economic recovery. That's why banks resist government calls to increase lending to small businesses. The risks are high.

Maes doesn't have to be ashamed of his small-business record of not-so-great revenue growth. But he shouldn't hide it from voters. Republican money men may not vote for it; even Democrats will not look favorably upon it. But voters should know how much of a bluff his lifestyle has been.

It's the only way for voters to make the safest bet on a future leader.

SchwabBlog: Watch out for a bailout

The Colorado General Assembly, according to the Denver Post, faces a boat load of decisions on issues ranging from public-school teacher tenure to college funding, from medical marijuana to river rafting, during the last week of their legislature.

Watch out for a bailout.

Legislators in the last few years have prided themselves on early wrapups, conducting their business with money-saving dispatch. This year, however, too many unresolved issues will probably push the gang of politicians to the more traditional push back of the clock at midnight May 12, in order to give themselves time on that Wednesday night to do the last of their dirty deeds.

Unless they decide a bailout is the better part of political valor.

Not acting to resolve conflicts is a favorite device of politicians not willing to face the political backlash that results from taking action.

Why do you think it took almost 100 years and seven presidents to gain nearly universal health insurance coverage for Americans? Congress during all that time was afraid to act and face the repercussions of their votes. So thousands of Americans died for lack of care.

Expect the Colorado legislature to make the same choice on at least a few of the issues lawmakers still face. I'd bet river access will be the most likely.

Cry me a river; who wants sacred landowners howling for your skin because you voted to give all Coloradans access to their rivers.

Delay is not what we pay these guys and gals for, so anyone who has any influence over the mob should press them to take all issues to a vote. The time for right policy is always now, not later. At least that's how Schwab reads the news.

Cities should press banks to help small business

A city-government tactic to persuade bankers to help struggling homeowners in a down economy could -- and should -- be put to use helping small businesses.

A story in the Denver Post on Saturday suggested that a strategy used by the city of Philadelphia to encourage bankers to go easy on troubled mortgage holders or risk holding on to city-government deposits in their banks could also be used by Denver-area municipal officials to slow the number of Colorado foreclosures.

Illustration: Queensboro.wordpress.com

The Post talked to two Denver city council members who said they had thought about wielding the banking tactic, but neither was very committed to the prospect. As I wrote here Thursday (see below), real estate is a protected industry of the political establishment in Colorado. Banking is not far behind, so putting financial pressure on those industries would not be considered a wise political maneuver.

The money at stake, however, is huge. Christopher N. Osher of the Post reported the city of Denver has about $2.4 billion deposited in local banks and an additional $1.7 billion in pension investments available for such use if Denver city government chose to shift deposits to banks that cared enough about homeowners to help some stay in their houses.

The same could be said of helping small-business owners who are underwater as a result of the recession. Nobody is suggesting bailing out poor managers, but if local city governments could pressure banks to loosen up credit for small businesses that need the money, the governments would be indirectly saving and creating jobs in their communities without spending taxpayer dollars or busting their own municipal treasuries.

Economic power can be wielded in many different ways, and city officials, even if they are Western city officials, should explore whatever ways they have available to them to promote successful small-business operators in their towns. Small business is the source of most jobs in any state. The last national figure I remember seeing was that small businesses are responsible for at least 48 percent of jobs in the U.S.

Helping small businesses helps any region's ecomomy, and all governments have a stake in helping local businesses expand and prosper.

Help poor, or yourself; a media no-brainer

The Denver Post would rather provide 100 million people with broadband access than 32 million Americans with health care.

I guess you can't fault the Post for editorially holding such a puzzling dichotomy of opinion, but the newspaper is a business, and business is business.

Logically, what's at stake, is the newspaper's self-interest. Supporting the federal government's expansion of broadband could benefit the newspaper's online business at little cost, while the expansion of health care to the uninsured might cost it some big money.

At least that's the impression the Post's Sunday and Monday lead editorials could give a reader.

Not surprisingly, Monday's editorial following historic passage of health-care reform denounced the action as a "single-minded quest to notch a political victory" for Democrats. The Post has opposed the health-care reform effort in Congress for most of the last six months while basically echoing facetious Republican arguments against it. It didn't much matter to the newspaper that 32 million more uninsured Americans would get health care they deserve as much as richer folks in the nation.

Yet the newspaper's main Sunday editorial hailed a national expansion of Internet access proposed by the Federal Communications Commission. It, too, will bear a cost to taxpayers including the Post. But the newspaper could conceivably benefit from such a huge market expansion because the FCC proposal -- just as health care reform does for insurance companies -- would increase exponentially the newspaper industry's potential to reach new customers, mostly those with money.

There you have it. Help the poor, or help yourself. It's a choice most businesses consider a no-brainer.

Watch the establishment take its Toll

Erin Toll, a Colorado government official, "was dangerously visible, perhaps overly visible" for the Colorado business community, according to a mortgage broker quoted in the Denver Post this morning.

"Dangerously visible" is especially dangerous in Colorado for anyone who is not part of the state's power elite, meaning the very rich business class, or the highest of elected officials, or the unquestionably successful and usually retired establishment.

Photo credit: Erin Toll, dora.state.co.us

On the high side of that equation, think of Phil Anschutz or Pat Bowlen or Bill Owens. On the opposite side, consider Clinton Portis, Herman Malone or Erin Toll.

When you are "dangerously visible" in Colorado, meaning you probably talk too much, you might as well get out of town because the unquestionably successful establishment has no room for you.

Witness Erin Toll. The Post today tried to explain Toll's unexplained, sudden leave of absence from her job as executive director of the state's Division of Real Estate, where she was given the charge of regulating previously unregulated mortgage brokers.

Mortgage brokers were a high-flying segment of the real estate industry in Colorado five years ago until their nefarious practices brought the real-estate economy low and put Colorado at the top of state rankings for the most home foreclosures.

Toll got her position in the Ritter administration in 2006 because she gained Colorado and herself national recognition for her investigation of title insurers, another segment of the real estate industry.

But real estate is a powerful economic engine in the state of Colorado, and you can bet Toll's enemies have been lying in wait ever since.

A Highlands Ranch Republican state senator, Ted Harvey, thinks he was handed the establishment hammer recently when Toll told the press his company was under investigation for false advertising, one of the tools unregulated mortgage brokers used often to get homeowners into trouble way back when.

The hammer came down when Harvey took after Toll during a legislative committee meeting.

Only the power elite knows why the Ritter administration hasn't backed up their real-estate regulator and told Harvey to go away. A judge has already backed her up, but that may have been an oversight.

The game is still in play, and Toll may still survive the presumed arrogance of doing her job. That would be a healthy sign for Colorado. It might also prevent some future crisis in the real-estate market.

Romanoff pulls off lead in Dem caucuses

Report from the Arapahoe County Democrats 37th House District caucus:

About 200 people showed up, compared with 2,000 in 2008 for the presidential election, and a relieved Ted Fritschel, site coordinator for the district, welcomed the smaller group with the news that party organizers simplified the process in order to avoid hundreds of mistakes that were made during the raucous caucus two years ago.

Fritschel also announced that for the first time in Arapahoe County history -- Arapahoe County was the first county jurisdiction organized in the state 100 years ago -- more Democrats were registered than Republicans, about 119,000 vs. 110,000. He didn't say how many people are now registered as independents.

My caucus of Precinct 227 went smoothly with a straw poll showing four of eight voters going for Romanoff in the U.S. Senate race, three for Bennet, and one uncommitted. By the time we took a formal vote, however, and after a couple speeches, the vote had changed to seven Romanoff, one for Bennet.

Today's news shows that trend held up across the state for Romanoff, who reportedly tallied 50.9 percent of the caucus vote to Bennet's 41.7. That doesn't mean Romanoff wins the nomination, but it should give him a big boost among the state's Dems, and it shows how much the party was divided by Gov. Bill Ritter's appointment of Bennet to the Senate seat.

Go Andrew! I was elected a delegate to the county assembly to cast a vote for him there, too, on April 10 at Hinkley High School in Aurora.

Voters mad about something

The trouble with polls is they lump everyone's individual opinion into clumps and ascribe the results as indicative of what all Americans think.

But whenever I read a news story about poll results, I remember what my first wife told me: Opinions are like assholes, everybody has got one.

That's why when I heard Charlie Rose and David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, agree the other day that the Obama administration didn't seem to fathom the angry wind sweeping the country over health-care reform and deficit spending, I shouted at my television that the pair's conclusion was wrong, wrong, wrong. I had seen no polls to support the breadth of the anger with government.

Now I have. The Washington Post reported today that their Post-ABC News poll of 1,004 randomly selected adults taken from Feb. 4-8, showed two-thirds of Americans were dissatisfied or outright angry at the way Washington works nowadays, one year after Barack Obama's inauguration. The headline over the Denver Post's story read: "Poll: Americans unhappy with government's tack." And the implication, amidst all the newstalk of the so-called "Tea Party movement," was that most of the anger being generated is a result of Obama's attempts to reform health care.

I submit much of the anger is also generated as a result of Obama's and Congress's failure to reform health care in America.

In fact, the Washington Post poll found more of those polled viewed "Tea Party" views unfavorably (40 percent) than those polled who found those views favorable (35 percent), and a full quarter of those polled (25 percent) offered no opinion at all when asked that question.

Which means the angry "wind" Rose and Brooks were describing Monday night is mostly huff and puff. Brooks noted that the president's personal popularity still out scores any dissatisfaction with his policies, and the Washington Post admits in its story that what "Tea Party" advocates advocate is almost unfathomable because the "movement" is so disorganized and disparate.

So come November, if the winds keep on a blowin', incumbents of every stripe are going to be at risk of voters' wrath. The American people want to see results out of Washington; not bipartisan incompatibility.

New journalism: partisan but professional

My headline ought to get some of my journalistic colleagues' juices flowing, but according to a writer in The Atlantic's January/February issue, American journalists are going to have to make some accommodation with the concept.

In fact, I'm making an accommodation to the notion with this ongoing blog. I'm writing about small business and politics from a very liberal perspective. And I hope to attract advertisers to my readership.

Paul Starr, a professor at Princeton, wrote the Atlantic piece. In "Governing in the Age of Fox News," Starr states toward the end: "Although most American journalists assume that professionalism and partisanship are inherently incompatible, that is not necessarily so. Partisan media can, and in some countries do, observe professional standards in their presentation of the news."

I have always questioned the journalistic principle of so-called "objectivity" in news coverage because I know as a writer the way you put words to paper (or on a screen) is inherently subjective. What nouns you use, what adjectives are colored by the writer's choice of words.

There's no escaping the tinge except by the samurai editor's butchering sword.

Unfortunately, quality of writing often slides away with the fat of a trim; occassionally, however, the cuts can actually make the writing better.

I take my journalistic principles and professionalism to the writing of this blog. I mean for my profiles of small businesses to carry the good and the bad about a firm, although my advocacy for small business will emphasize the good over the bad in most cases. And I will always give a business owner the benefit of the doubt.

I will not, however, give business as a community a pass when it comes to the harsher side of issues. Colorado's current debate over the elimination of tax exemptions for business is an example.

The tax exemptions should be removed in an attempt to balance two state budgets (fiscal 2010 and 2011) despite any damage to the state's reputation as "business friendly." A "people friendly" business community will recognize it must contribute to fiscal austerity that requires Colorado to reduce services to all its citizens.

At the same time, legislators should not forget that business owners are citizens, too, and already share as much as anyone else in the general pain.

Tax exemptions can be restored as well as removed.

If the state would correct its budgeting problems, if it can regain some economic steam, and refuel its revenue streams, exemptions and incentives can be given back as easily as they can be taken away.

Business and the business lobby knows that. They should begin working for the common good rather than their own self-interest.

Welcome a filibuster, change or be gone

Here's a thought: Seat the new senator from Massachusetts, finish crafting a decent health-care reform bill that merges House and Senate concerns, and let the Republicans filibuster all they want in the Senate. The vacuousness of their arguments against the bill will show them up as anti-middle-class blowhards.

And the American people, young and old, will welcome action, any action, from Congress, just to shut it up and be able to move on.

The 60-vote super majority in the Senate is just that. A health-care bill can be passed with fewer votes but still a majority, and the stupidity of a Republican stand against all the good parts of the bill might even convince some of them they want to be on the right side of history when the bill is signed into law.

My friend, Bob O'Neil, a successful retired business man out of Chicago, believes the election in Massachusetts was a message to all incumbents in Washington, including Obama, that something must get done or all their futures are in jeopardy.

I remember telling my friend Herman Malone after Obama's election that he had better "change" things or the whole country would explode. Young people in America, who strongly supported him, as well as middle-class whites, are mostly frustrated with the Washington bureaucracy's inabilty to fathom their 2008 election message. "Change" or be gone.

The same message will be sent this year come November if there is no evidence the people were not understood the first time.

Hardball over health care

I come here in advance of my next intended post (RobertSchwabPoet.com: a Business Plan) to remark on the politics of Democrats trying to pass a health-care reform bill in time for the president to claim it as an accomplishment in his first State of the Union.

Hardball, to say the least.

One example: Massachusetts election officials say it might take them weeks to certify the election results of the upcoming special election to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, which the Associated Press points out could preserve for Obama the 60th vote he needsin the current Senate to pass a health-care bill without a Republican filibuster.

I read about the move in an Associated Press item packaged in the Denver Post next to a piece about Colorado Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet's protests of the closed-door negotiating between members of their own party to combine separate bills passed by the House and Senate.

The closed-door negotiations are as much an indication of the hardball politics Democratic Senate leaders are imposing on the negotiations, which include Obama at the White House.

Republicans complain that the non-traditional approach to melding the two bills harks to the smoke-filled rooms of lore, but they don't remind their listeners of similarly harsh tactics used by the Congress when Trent Lott and Dick Armey were ruling the roost.

It's true that opening the negotiations to television cameras would make make for a truer "Democratic" result. But no Republicans have indicated any willingness to buck their disciplined ranks to vote for a final bill, so crafting one without them seems the more efficient path.

Bennet rightly criticizes the lack of transparency. But I doubt it will keep him from voting for the historic bill. It should not.

Bill Ritter's exit challenges Dems

I don't think Bill Ritter likes me.

I endorsed him here (November 23) almost a year before I hoped he would be re-elected governor, yet before two months have passed, he ups and quits the race.

He told us he has failed to give the proper priority to his family over the past year of worrying over that re-election, and that by dropping out, he could discount re-election politics and make the right decisions for Colorado in the last year of his term.

I know nothing of the family failures, but I agree not running frees him up politically to make some tough decisions for the general good of Colorado. But he never made very good political decisions during his term anyway. That's why he faced a very tough re-election bid. (You can read my early take on it here in ColoradoBiz.)

Still, it puzzled me when I heard and read everything said and written about Ritter's surrender to the political forces of the day. Ritter ran for the nomination of his party for governor in 2006 as a stealth candidate, someone no one expected to take the slot on the ballot, yet someone who was well respected for having done the work necessary to earn it.

At ColoradoBiz back then, I refused to endorse Ritter because I thought his campaign reflected "blue-ribbon" positions of the national Democratic Party, and not individual stances specific to Colorado. Funny, he made a joke during his bow-out press conference that his personal decision not to run was not the product of any blue-ribbon commission.

Of course not. This decision had to be individual and inevitably was specific to Colorado. But that was my problem with Ritter. To me, he seemed to speak always from a political platform that was almost alien to him. A platform never upheld by his own, strong, personal conviction.

His decision to quit, based in his concern for his family, seems to come from such strong, personal conviction. I applaud him for that.

Now Democrats face the challenge of picking a candidate who can puncture the cartoon balloons Republicans cannot help but draw around their own staid-and-failed, limited-government policies. How, for instance, can you build highways with no money? Some Republican, especially those re-endorsing TABOR, needs to answer that question.

Ironically, Democrats are going to have to use Ritter's successes to convince Colorado voters that governing and government are honorable pursuits worthy of their support.

For that reason alone, the new governor's race should be an engaging political campaign.

Business needs a Broncos win

Colorado's business community needs a Broncos' win against the San Diego Chargers on Sunday.

I have learned since arriving in the state in 1988, the morale of Colorado business takes a cue from the success of the Denver Broncos, and I have come to believe that the success of all the state's professional sports teams seems to set a tone for the success of the entire state.

I know that sounds crazy, but give me a listen.

When I was the night city editor of the Denver Post, I would drive to work on Sundays at a time when those lucky enough to attend Broncos games had already found their parking spots at Mile High Stadium, and the rest of the city was already positioned in front of its TV sets.

Central Denver was hushed and quiet in the middle of the day, waiting the kickoff.

After a loss, on Monday's in the middle of the day, the city was almost as quiet and palpably depressed.

Then the Avalanche came to town and promptly won the city's first national professional sports title. The Broncos followed with two consecutive Super Bowl championships (it should have been three, but the Broncs were beaten by Jacksonville in the first year they also should have won the championship, which, with the next two wins, would have made history).

The Rockies made the playoffs early on and two years ago went to the World Series. The Nuggets made the playoffs several times since I have been in Colorado, but never with as strong a team as they have now, one with a realistic opportunity to take an NBA championship.

Yet it's the Broncos that still set the tone, and you could feel that already this year when they surprisingly won six games in a row as Colorado was feeling the first little urges of a national business recovery. Once again, the state was leading the nation and gathering praise for its growing alternative energy industry, school reform and even health-care delivery on the Western Slope.

Then the Broncos lost to Baltimore. Winter had come early. National unemployment hit 10 percent. Stimulus dollars were being reported to have hired way too many people than seemed realistic.

And the Broncos dropped two more, while the Chargers kept winning.

For some reason, the Broncos and other winning sports franchises in Colorado seem to inspire business and political leadership in the state. There's no objective proof for that, but the winning lifts a burden that winter's snow and cold often impose.

Colorado needs the Broncos to beat the Chargers at home to show the state's business and political communities that the team's improvement over the off-season wasn't just a mirage. And that the inklings of economic improvement in Colorado weren't just false positives.

When the state's professional sports teams are winning, Coloradans, their business leaders and their political leaders are energized. And right now, Colorado cannot afford to let its energy and leadership slip.

Business needs a Broncos win on Sunday.

Ritter campaigns on too many fronts

Gov. Bill Ritter campaigned all over the Denver Post on Thursday, from a piece he and Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien planted on the op-ed page defending their proposed cuts to public school funding, to a news story at the top of the Denver & The West cover reporting Ritter backed down from taking drunk-driving crackdown funds away from local police departments.

Campaigns were waged against the governor, too. His name was mentioned on the front page of the newspaper as the villain of budget cutbacks to state-funded health clinics, and on page 4B for being the architect of the $260 million batch of cuts overall in order to backfill a $320 million shortfall of revenues in the current fiscal year.

He was praised by the Post's editorial page for both regulating (read: limiting) and promoting the natural-gas industry in the state, and in Susan Greene's column he was the wizard behind the curtain drawn over tragic cost cutting at the state's Fort Logan mental health facility.

One thing you have to say about the governor in all those situations is that he has chosen to govern the people of his state, making tough decisions required of him by state law.

The move to restore funds to pay for drunk-driving arrests was something you might have expected from a former prosecutor once people complained that it would leave more drunks on the road and more victims of drunks in hospitals.

But the Ritter also has stayed firm on cuts that go against his law-and-order grain by releasing some convicts early in order to save prison money, and allowing other convicts shortened parole supervision, also to reduce state spending.

The general impression of Ritter I got after writing a piece in the current ColoradoBiz magazine was that he is doing his job. The report focused on the governor's political prospects for keeping votes in the Colorado business community during his 2010 re-election campaign, specifically by promoting the growth of clean/green industry in the state.

When I briefly interviewed Ritter for the article last July, I asked him if he was already campaigning for re-election given harsh reactions to some of his decisions among his natural supporters. He unabashedly responded that he has been campaigning for re-election ever since his inauguration.

That's the nature of politics today. Campaigns are always on, 24-7.

It's also the nature of being a governor in a state that is divided somewhat evenly between liberal and conservative voters, although large margins of those voting concentrations hone to the moderate center of their groups rather than the outer fringes.

Ritter campaigned as a somewhat undefined moderate and won the day in 2006, but the intervening three years have been hard on his continued efforts not to be pinned down.

He doesn't seem to be brave enough to decide against conservative factions in the state, and yet not liberal enough to provoke them and take his chances. Under that cover, he can claim to be serving the largest number of Colorado citizens, and he's basically right.

But serving a crowd often creates new enemies.

Voters will be making hard decisions for and against him in polling places across Colorado come November 2010. And while pissing off both sides of an argument might be appreciated in a news reporter, it usually doesn't work for an elected official.

Time to call a Constitutional Convention

Gov. Bill Ritter let his old prosecutor's guard down by calling for the early release of some convicts and shortened paroles for others to help balance the state's budget.

I didn't think he had it in him, but it seems that governing for all the people finally took precedence in a politician's set of values rather than old, staid biases.

Gov. Bill Ritter, like President Barack Obama, has proven himself an agent of change.

Now, he should call the General Assembly into special session to approve the fee hikes he has proposed to improve gun control in Colorado, and have the legislature call a Constitutional Convention so the state can offer voters a permanent fix to its budget mess while the cost cuts are still fresh and stinging, and more than Band-aids are top of peoples' minds.

At a convention, conservatives will finally have to face the issue that state government costs big money, and that taxpayers who are privileged enough to live and grow old in this state, ought to be responsible for the costs of running a top-notch government operation.

The governor's criminal cutbacks will save the state just $19 million this fiscal year, but they had to be one of the more bitter pills Ritter was forced to swallow, given his background as former Denver district attorney. He said during his press conference that he didn't like having to make some of the cuts, but that he had no choice.

Neither do Colorado voters.

They must soon vote to approve a modern method of financing state government at a level everyone in the state can afford. And yet at a level that will ensure Colorado's national leadership toward energy independence, superior health and prosperity for all its citizens, and a style of living to match the natural beauty that surrounds us.

It's time.

Roar of the crowd saves Pinnacol money

Gov. Bill Ritter must have been listening to the crowd of anti-tax demonstrators outside his window when he pulled his administration away from taking the $500 million of Pinnacol Assurance surplus assets on the negotiating table for the state budget.

Ritter made clear that he doesn't want the state's institutions of higher education to suffer $300 million in cuts proposed by the Joint Budget Committee, but he ducked under the desk, as it were, when it came to taking the money from an employer favorite, Pinnacol.

It will be interesting to see if the governor will sign a bill that remains that would make clear Colorado state government controls Pinnacol surplus money, if indeed that law is passed by the legislature.

But in the meantime there are those anti-tax folks who were outside his window.

Democrats, progressives and liberals ought to take note of the crowd, which was estimated at more than 5,000 outside the Capitol. The Denver Post, the only major newspaper in town anymore, said the anti-tax "tea party" was one of a dozen held throughout Colorado and 750 reportedly held throughout the country. That kind of turnout cannot be ignored by incumbent politicians, even if their incumbency is as "young" as the Obama administration's.

What the rallies showed is conservatives -- from the now less-influential Christian right and Moral Majority, to the blathering talk show hosts who can still whip up a frenzy -- still hold power over some people, and the millions of voters who cast ballots for John McCain didn't lose their voices or their ability to make placards with Obama's election.

It was fun to read the Post's quote of demonstrator Bertha Holland from the rally. "It's pretty sad that I've lived 65 years and never had a reason before to protest something," Holland told the Post. But what is sad is that Holland never had the guts during 65 years of life to oppose her government on an issue before Wednesday.

Ritter is right to heed the demonstrators, and put the budget-balancing act on the backs of doctors and other less powerful special interests, like state employees, who are going to lose money in the budget deal no matter how it falls. He'd be wrong if he raises fees paid by the general public to the point they create their own opposition to his politics.

But balance is a critical skill for a politician.

Balancing on a razor's edge is dangerous, but always entertaining folly.

Ward Churchill: Free speech trumps political backlash

Ward Churchill's victory in a Denver District Court Thursday not only represents another victory for the First Amendment, but a victory for all the people of Colorado.

And you can thank the jury for that.

So far, none of the jurors have explained their verdict which ruled Churchill's rights to free speech were violated by the University of Colorado at Boulder, which fired him. The jury awarded the former CU professor only $1 in damages, putting enough of a devaluing influence on the decision that attorney Scott Robinson wrote in The Denver Post:

"Free speech triumphs. But at least when it comes to professor Ward Churchill, it isn't worth that much."

Shame on Robinson.

As an attorney, Robinson knows, as so many people at CU knew, that free speech is worth every penny we spend on it because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that without it the republic would not survive.

Which is why the $1 Churchill won is not without significance.

I am currently reading (finally) Anthony Lewis' 1991 book, "Make No Law," about the New York Times v. Sullivan decision which gave the press and the citizens of the United States secure freedom to say and write what they like about public officials, unless they know what they say is wrong when they deliberately say it anyway.

Again, since the jury's not talking, you have to read into their verdict what you will (and be perfectly happy interpreting it whatever way you like since your right to do so is guaranteed by the First Amendment), and even write about it when your interpretation is all wet.

What I see in the jury's decision is a strong endorsement of free speech in the face of dire consequences from public officials, and yet a concern for Colorado's leading public university and it's money problems. The jury knew CU couldn't afford to pay Churchill a large damage claim for violating his civil rights, and yet, perhaps, also knew the state should be able to afford attorney fees since it was a former governor, a former senator in Hank Brown, the former CU president, and a former Republican Party chairman and candidate for governor, who forced the state into court to defend its woeful decision to fire Churchill in the first place.

Make no mistake: All these people knew the financial consequences to the state for trying to defend the university for making constitutional infringements on the civil rights of one of its employees, and yet they took no heed of the people of Colorado's financial plight, especially regarding one of its strapped institutions of higher education. They all had a political point to make, and damit, cost or no cost, they were going to make it.

Former Gov. Bill Owens remarked post verdict: "I think the $1 in damages accurately reflects the jury's appreciation for Ward Churchill's warm and endearing personality."

I'll always defend the old governor's right to say such a silly thing, but the people of Colorado, who will pay anywhere from a half million to a whole million in legal fees for an attempt to keep someone else from exercising the same right, ought to take Owens to task for having provoked the whole legal fiasco in the first place. Perhaps they should ask him to pay the fees!

Bruce Benson's comment is just as ridiculous considering the legal advice available to him. He said CU administrators -- he is current CU president and was once a candidate for governor and state Republican Party chair -- "strongly disagree" with the jury's decision and:

"It doesn't change the fact that more than 20 of Ward Churchill's faculty peers on three separate panels unanimously found he engaged in deliberate and repeated plagiarism, falsification and fabrication that fall below the minimum standards of professional conduct."

Neither, however, does any of that change the fact that Churchill has a right to say what he likes even when what he says is wrong, especially when he is speaking about government.

Benson knows that; and his attorneys at CU certainly knew that. Former Gov. Bill Owens should have known it, too, when he called on CU to fire Churchill.

You can forgive Owens, though, for not remembering it now. Now, judging from his statement, Owens believes First Amendment rights should be adjudicated on the basis of one's personality rather than on one's constitutional freedoms.

Ready to rumble

By now, many people are registering their opinions about President Barack Obama's appearance on the "Tonight Show," but the interesting moment that struck me was Obama's balling up his fists and signaling he was ready for a fight when he mentioned that Washington D.C. is filled with little Simon Cowells, the feistiest critic on "American Idol."

To me, the president's gestures indicated he was ready to rock-and-roll with his critics over the recovery plan, over health care, over transportation projects and spending as long as the spending helped stimulate the economy.

I like that.

In response to his own remark about how, like Cowell, everybody in Washington had an opinion, Obama added something to the effect of: "That's all right. That's what Washington is all about," and then he balled up and whirred his fists, indicating that like any good Chicago street-fighter, he was ready to rumble.

I like that, too.

Inaugural post

This is my first post to Schwab on Anything, a blog I want to introduce to my website, http://www.robertschwabpoet.com/.

The title is a take off on the title of my former column in The Denver Post's business section, "Schwab on Small Business." Also, it is a take off on my column for several years in ColoradoBiz magazine, called "On Colorado." You see, I like being "on" things. It seems like a safe platform.

It may take me a while to post the blog on my website, but I'm learning these things as I go along, which is the way I've lived my life in journalism and as an entrepreneur writer.

I'm making a business out of my writing ability, and the columns I use to write for publications are part of the business product I hope to make of my website.

On it, you'll find my poems available for sale through PayPal. You can copy the featured poem for free, but you'll have to buy any of the other titles, at very low cost.

If you buy, I hope you enjoy.

I also write about literature on www.Examiner.com/Denver. Check out my work there as well. Naturally I welcome all comments from readers.

I hope this becomes an interesting conversation.