The Routt Report

46 vs. 82

For the past 30 years I've been a Black guy in America. When a person is born black, male, to a single mother, living in Harlem, at the lower end of the tax bracket, in 1978, well society didn't have very high expectations. Nonethless there I am floating in a pool at the condo that I own in Boulder, CO. Not to say that I am some pinnacle of success and prosperity, I asure you that is not the case, but if a stock beat market expectations by such a large margin, and still only cost $10 a share, well that firm would probably have an easy time raising capital. How did I beat the odds? I didn't, there was a wild card. Now there was luck and opportunity like in every life, along with setbacks and dissapointments. But the only factor of consequence was my mother. Sharon Coleman decided that the cycle of generational poverty ends with her. She succeeded where affirmative action and philonthropic organizations failed. Good parenting is the only effective cure to what ills not only the black community but every community that suffers from the disease of generational poverty. Programs like affirmative action which only treat the symptoms serve to distract us from the common struggles that transcend race and gender. Over time our heavily medicated malaise only deepens the infection. If you are born in a New York housing project or an Alabama trailer park , you have every important baramoter of success in common, and an equally bleak prognosis.
While affirmative action soothes the symptoms and gives the apperance of social health to those fortunate to view it from the elite and therefore distant vantage point, it does nothing to cure the disease at the site of infection. Poor America, rural and urban suffer from the same lack of educational opportunity that is perpetual, and therefore it defies logic that because one is Black and the other White that one should recieve preferrential college or employment when both are equally under-qualified.
This fall Colorado will have two competing ballot measures regarding affirmative action. I don't know which I intended to vote for, but if the langauge of the measure is appropriately neutral I will vote to end affirmative action in Colorado. I am not so naive as to think that I have never benefited from affirmative action or to believe that there are some proponents of ammendment 46 that are racist in their support. What is clear is that since the inception of affirmative action poverty has increased in minority communities, and education has only increased marginally, just shy of keeping pace with "educational inflation" (i.e. 150 years ago you didn't even need high school,30 years ago H.S. was essential to success and today try working getting a decent job without at least some college level education.) When you factor in educational inflation and inflation inflation, the urban poor are slightly behind where they were at affirmative action's inception and rural poor have seen a dramatic decline. Yet we continue to use arbitrary solutions when it's far too late.
Affirmative action's fatal flaw is it's inherent reliance of mediocrity. Further the low expectations it sets for society as a whole are at best problematic. Good parents like my mother know that the only way to break the cycle would be for her children to do something comparitvely extraordinary. She offered the personal sacrifice required to move from the projects to the surburbs. In return she expected excellence from her children. She taught us that reliance on assitance programs is not the same as success. That to be truly free you must be judged worthy exclusively on your merits absent of pity. These teachings the remnants of Dr. King and the leaders of "Black America's greatest generation" have been lost to entitlement and confusing mediocrity with prosperity.
My mother was wise enough to know that the gravity of generations of inequity is too strong to escape without a quantam leap. Affirmative action's problem is it encourages baby steps. Sure affirmative action can get you a mediocre job, or decent education, but that is not enough to break free of the gravity. The only way to get into Juilliard or Yale Law, become a CEO or Congressman is unquestionable personal excellence. The assumption that a person who is a minority can only acheive greatness with accomodations breeds a culture that expects them. Good parenting that instills the values of pride, self worth, and personal responsibility is what allows people of all ethinicties to rise out of poverty. These values are no more a guarantee of success than affirmative action, but unlike affirmative action those values are a pre-requisite for enduring prosperity.
Affirmative action ironically cast a shadow on the success of minorities that is deleterious to enduring prosperity. It also allows us to take the easy way out as a society by focusing on race rather than the real, but more serious and more challenging problem of economic inequity. The biggest barrier to higher education whether you Black or White is the financing. And the biggest barrier to long term employment success is education.
Affirmative action had it's time. We are in a different albeit imperfect world now where economic disparity is shared across races and to the end that we continue to distract ourselves from real progress on an economic plan, investing in commuties and having personal responsibility for our families, we will continue this path of degredation masquerading as stasis. A White person saying exactly what I'm saying now would probably be viewed as a racist. That is part of the problem. We must stop walking on eggshells and have a real dialogue on the issues of race and economics based on the assumption that we all recognize the inefficiency of poverty and biasis, and be prepared to actually listen to each other without assuming a persons position translates to their personal character. Being progressive for the sake of being progressive is just as bad conservative for the same reason. We have to stop making issues like affirmative action divisive down party line. Proponents of affirmative action are generally liberal minded people, but the question is; what is more important, taking positive steps towards equality or being "right". We spend so much time as a society deciding how we accomplish goals that we loose sight of if we have accomplished anything and finally loose sight of the goal itself.
Our society is not perfect, but it has made trenedous strides. Today, with hard work and personal responsibilty a person has relatively equal opportunities with those in their economic class. Let's work on leveling the opportunity playing field so that a person has the opportunity to succced or fail on their merits. Let's not continue a policy of lowered expectations and dimished returns on investment.

Oh and thanks Mom for being generally awesome. Your achievments as a parent are extraordinary and you embody the proof that success is possible with determination, even absent public or private assistance or accomodation.

What is her strategy?

Regina Cowles, wife of City Council member Macon Cowles in today's Daily Camera accused Cindy Carlisle of having a conflict of interest. Mrs. Cowles is of course correct and that is why Cindy Carlisle appropriately recused herself during the lawsuit.
More confounding is why, Mrs. Cowles who clearly has an axe to grind (which is fine this is politics after all) would attempt to discredit her opponent by offering an example of good ethics? Why would she encourage people not to vote for Mrs. Carslisle and fall short of endorsing Mr. Heath (I'm supporting Carlisle in this race but Heath is by no means incompetent).
But what is truly fascinating is that IF you are opposed to a candidate in a. A local primary race that only politicos care about b. The candidate you're against is running against a candidate that is annointed by the party and c. The primary would be a coronation as long as mainstream voters sit out, Why would you call attention to the race? And mudslinging is of course the most effective way of advertising an election.
I personally don't have any REAL problem with Mr. Heath's proffesional ties. I believe people do what's appropriate to their stage of life. I believe that both Rollie and Josie Heath are good people, have done great things in Boulder and beyond, and I take Rollie at his word in respect to his associations. That said while I was a liitle dissapointed in the Carlisle campaign, at least the strategy made sense. (The strategy being call attention to the race so voters know it's happening, they'll see Cindy is the better candidate and she wins, brilliant in it's simplicity really).
With the large number of "Obamacrats" who are now registered as democrats and can vote in this primary, the Heath coronation was already in doubt. Cindy Carlisle at the county convention fed the change hungry "Obamacrats" all the liberal meat they could eat. The camapign went in worried about making the ballot and came away with 60% of the vote! (which means that it is likely the party insiders are now a minority voting block). As ballots arrive the last thing the Heath or Fitzgerald campaigns need is to have the Obamacrats reminded that they can also change the Democratic Party. They can vote for Cindy Carlisle and maintain SD18 as the most progressive seat in the State Senate. They can elect Jared Polis, and send to Washington young energetic talent that is good for the future of the Party.
This primary gives us an opportunity by casting one vote to send a message of progress in Denver, vote against partisanship in Washington, and send a message that entitlement and spoils will not be acceptable at home.
Regina Cowles does not want Cindy Carlisle to get elected. Why would she then remind voters about this election so they can research the candidates and pick the best one who is Cindy Carlisle? To her credit Mrs. Cowles is excersing good civic responsibilty by pointing out what she sees as an injustice. It's just that if the goal was a certain outcome in the primary, then I question her strategy. Voter turnout is the key changing the status quo. Recent electoral history in Boulder County would say that we can't change the fate of the party spoils system. With a plurality of Obamacrats voting in this primary the results will say yes we can.

Join me in supporting Cindy Carlisle and Jared Polis on August 12th

SD 18, nothing to do with South Dakota

Nothing is worse than losing to the learning curve. The iPhone typad app, apparently does not auto-save. I know that now. Hopefully this new entry will prove better than the one just lost to operator error. Fortunately that is the worst thing that happenend to me today. Minor in comparison to what can be lost to the learning curve of out of town drivers adjusting to VERY local traffic patterns.

Speaking of out of towners, Boulder is host for the Internationl Downtown Assocation Conference. As a member of the Downtown Managment Commission, I attended the reception. I had the pleasure of speaking with civic leaders from Anchorage, Harlem, Windsor ON and others. While all where on message as representatives and champions of their communities, their sincere admiration for Boulder's Downtown, only reminds that nothing makes you more aware of the wonders of the place you call home than guests. I also talked to locals about the state of city government which only reminds of the challenges of good housekeeping.

Boulder is not without it's problems, Colorado likewise, and it's difficult to determine if during election cycles the negativity is a function of the seriousness of our problems, or is this panic the reason we have so few? Boulder holds herself to a sometimes impossibly high standard, where if we were to simply view our success in context of a city instead of a country club, perhaps we would not be a superior city.

I question if the relentless pursuit of perfection is actually the inefficiency that prevents us from having it, nonetheless we are in an election cycle and therefore it is time to incite panic.

The state senate debate between Cindy Carlisle and Rollie Heath was typical in being heavy in laying out problems, light in solutions. It was also typical in that if you hadn't already decided which candidate to support in this primary you probably came away still undecided as both candidates are clearly qualified, and have the same basic political philosophy. It was also typical in that no one in the audience was there for any reason but to support the candidate they had chosen quite some time ago. The hardest thing in a local election is making people aware that there is one. So as typical the sparse audience was full of supporters.

I support Cindy Carlisle. A democratic primary, particulalry in Boulder County is about who can out left the other. Cindy clearly wins that contest. But while I do admire Rollie's pragmatism, and he is probabaly closer to my political philosophy but, when I engage the context of how our State House actually works, When I factor the width of the political spectrum at the Capitol, and when I account for the fact that as I'm generally personally to the right of most of Boulder, when I objectively consider who would be the most reliable representative of the values of SD18, it is pretty clear that Cindy Carlisle is the superior candidate to represent famously, and in the context of State politics, importantly liberal Boulder. Cindy will get my support and vote.

But there is one other issue. The following certainly influenced my decision in this race as well as CD2, but I discuss here to inform, not to sway.

Boulder county is a for all intensive purposes a Uni-party county. Republicans rarely run and when they do they loose in a landslide. This is dangerous for democracy as well as the democratic party. Just because the conservative mindset is the minority does not mean they do not deserve representation. Further the "can't loose" mindset of the Democrats has created a system of spoils. The answer to potential candidates who would consider running for office is "wait your turn". Thankfully Cindy with political capital and Jared Polis with . . . ahem, capital capital where able to challenge this system and save us from the politics of usual. I do believe that Cindy Carlisile and Jared Polis have the strongest platforms in their respective races. But I also was going to vote for them anyway because this entitlement cannot be tolerated from democrats either.

Apparently absolute power does corrupt absolutlely and the once hopeful progressive Boulder County Democratic machine is slowly becoming the Republican party it replaced. The end game of the spoils system is mediocrity that opens a void for the opposition. While I don't know if a resurgent Boulder County Republican party would be the worst thing in the world, I rather think it would be a good thing for both the city and the county, I do know that a vote for Cindy and Jared would be an important first step in getting our democratic house in order. Housekeeping is hard work, in this election we have two brooms, let's use them.

Why I went to church today

For the second time this century organzing a concert resulted in me in the pew the following Sunday. This time it was First Baptist of Boulder's Slaynard Yarborough that captured my fascination. I met him while scheduling my DNC fundraiser recital. While I am a cool kid, and I know that becuase of how hard I had to work to become one, I still have some nerd tendecies. Particularly I'm a sucker for academics. After spending an hour talking about politics, life, the universe, everything, the number 42 . . . I decided I had to see this guy give a sermon. I was equally impressed with his ability to relate the theme of his sermon "if you wait for perfect, you'll never get anything done" to current geo-political events and his own campaign for the job. And I mean that in the most positive light, the very fact that I was there to hear his words was proof that he does know how to communicate outside the flock and perhaps in doing so increase the flock. I don't know when the next time I'll go to church will be, nor whether First Baptist will choose this brilliant, yet subtle and certianly persausive Pastor as their next leader, but I do know that if there were more leaders like him, spiritual and otherwise, we'd get a lot more done, meanwhile we in the flock are best minded to sow today lest our patience for perfection cause us to miss our opportunity to reap.

Submitted poolside, if you don't have an iPhone, get one.

So who is this Routt guy anyway?

Well for starters John Long Routt (1826-1907) is not the author of this blog, he was the first Governor of Colorado, a very popular Governor, champion of womans suffrage, who was the epitome of the "citizen politican" A polite way of saying that during his terms as Governor and later Mayor of Denver, he was more interested in his personal buisness endeavours than the affairs of the state. That is not to say he was derilect, in fact all evidence points to a popular and successful Governorship. Whether he is famous for being effective or famous for being first is not for debate here though I would suggest it is the former, since it's likely this blog will be a lot about politics, I just wanted to honor the first person to have the job I'd like to someday have by calling this foray into the blogosphere the "Routt Report"