Competition is always good. Always.
The more competitors, the more choice and the better off we all are. This applies to goods and services. It applies to public schools. And, yes, it applies to political candidates. More choice is never a bad thing. Ever.
When choice becomes a bad thing, there is something wrong with the system that creates that result.
Tom Tancredo is not the problem. Third parties are not the problem. Our two party election process, including plurality voting, is the problem. A two party duopoly, controlling and limiting the choices of every American citizen, is the problem.
If we want a better America, criticizing competition is misplaced.
Colorado Republican state chair Dick Wadhams called Tancredo’s plan to run for governor as the American Constitution Party candidate “reprehensible.” It is not. What is “reprehensible” is a system that gives the people of Colorado two really bad choices for governor. Anyone trying to solve that problem is not “reprehensible.” People defending the status quo are not “reprehensible” either, but they are horribly misguided.
Most people, even die hard political activists, act as if the two party system and plurality voting are some immutable law of nature, like gravity. Our election process is not a law of physics. It is not even a law of our Constitution.
It is a process that has simply evolved without any particular design, intelligent or otherwise. We can change it if we are willing to recognize the problem. Pretending that Tancredo and third parties are the problem is a bad diagnosis.
Our system is broken. While there is no panacea, there are ways to fix it.
Approval voting is one such fix.
The Colorado GOP knows it has uphill battle on its hands in the 2010 race for governor.
This is a doomed strategy. It will backfire.
Continuing the “class clown” analogy, making fun of the popular guy does not make one more popular. Generally speaking, the one making fun of the popular guy comes across as a jerk. Or, in today’s vernacular, a “
hater.”
McInnis does not need help in that regard.
Even those that don’t particularly care for the class clown will feel some sympathy for him as the jerk keeps calling him names. The official GOP name for Hickenlooper in almost all of its press releases is “Hickenritter,” a reference to the sitting Democratic governor, Bill Ritter.
While the GOP may think Hickenlooper is the “class clown,” it is the GOP itself acting like petulant school boys.
If the Colorado GOP does not grow up, the Colorado governor race might be one of the few elections the Dems win in 2010.
Think they’ll be hatin’ it then?
Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams, in a Westword article, recognizes the problem his party has:
“We want fiscal conservatives to be our standard bearers, because we need to restore our credibility on that issue. We lost that credibility nationally, and we lost it here in Colorado, too, when our legislative majorities appeared to be more concerned with social issues than with confronting the beginnings of our fiscal problems five or six years ago.”
He wants you to give them ONE more last chance. Just ONE. They really mean it THIS time.
