The Cortez Journal ran a good summary last week of a local candidate forum, hosted by the La Plata-Archuleta Cattlemen’s Association.

One point made by House District 59 candidate J. Paul Brown deserves follow-up.

The Journal reported:

Brown emphasized his goals to limit government, including, if need be, agricultural subsidies such as those he receives as a rancher near Ignacio.

“The federal government is $16 trillion in debt,” said Brown, the Republican incumbent. “We cannot continue down this road, and I’m willing to take the cut like anybody else.”

So, as I read this, he’s against agricultural subsidies, in light of the size of the federal debt.

Reporters should get more details from Brown on this. It’s obviously an important issue in his rural district.

In a run-of-the-mill interview Friday on KFKA radio’s “AM Colorado,” State House candidate Skip Carlson made this off-hand comment to hosts Devon Lentz and Tom Lucero:

“Do we need additional taxes? Unlike a lot of Republicans, I think we do on some things,” Carlson told Lucero, as an aside. “We just have to be careful. First of all, let’s make sure we are spending our taxes correctly. Then, let’s fix the infrastructure that needs to be fixed now, so that our children don’t have to pay for it later.”

Some Republican talk show hosts, like Lucero, would have simply ignored Carlson’s comment on the taboo topic of favoring a tax increase.

Other GOP hosts would have tried to talk Carlson out of it, saying something like, “Are you crazy? My entire audience and my Republican co-host will hate you if you really mean that.”

But Lucero, a former CU Regent, took the gentler approach of trying to clarify things. He just wanted to make sure the facts were on the table.

So he asked Carlson, whose running for House District 50, a clarifying question:

LUCERO: So the state legislature is required to prioritize on spending. Your number one priority is to figure out how we prioritize, how we get the [in]efficiencies out of government. And at that point, after you’re done going through it, you’re unsatisfied that we have the resources necessary, you would support raising taxes?

CARLSON: Oh, yeah! I mean, this is — that’s business. I’m in business.

LUCERO: Okay.

CARLSON: I ran my business, you’ve run a business. You get up to a certain point and you say, “Okay, business has gone so far with this. Do I have to increase my investment for my business to go even higher, to become even better?” And you say, “I can spend this now, and it will cost me a lot less than spending it later.” We have to, however, be very, very careful about that—very diligent about it and see to it that we don’t have the waste before, to start with.

I appreciate Lucero’s approach. He didn’t jump all over Carlson. He didn’t hyperventilate. He didn’t even let his own opinion be known. He tried to get it straight.

But, still, Lucero didn’t clarify the situation well enough for me.

Lucero should have asked, specifically, what “things” Carlson thinks we need to raise taxes on. Carlson stated that there are, right now, unnamed things that need funding through new taxes. At least that’s how I hear his statement.

[Listen here: Skip Carlson discusses taxes on KFKA AM Colorado 8-31-2012]

It sounds like bridge and highway repairs are two of those things, since Carlson’s comment about taxes came up in the context of the FASTER bill, which raised vehicle registration fees to pay for highway and bridge repair.

Asked by Lentz if he’d repeal FASTER, Carlson said, “Absolutely! I mean, if it’s going to be a tax, let’s make it a tax!”

So for Carlson, you’d guess that basic safety upgrades on roads and bridges might merit a tax increase. But what else?

This would make for a good conversation next time Carlson is on AM Colorado.

Publishing the basic positions of candidates, on specific issues and ballot questions, falls into the basic public-service function that journalism shouldn’t let go of, despite the hard times.

But if The Denver Post–or Fox 31 or 9News or KOA or any news outlet–is going to publish candidate surveys (and someone should), please ask specific questions that allow voters to compare candidates in the most meaningful way.

Here’s an example of what a huge difference specificity can make.

In 2008, both the Rocky Mountain News and The Post published candidate questionnaires.

The Rocky’s, which was far superior, asked four broad questions about why the candidate was running for office and his or her priorities. This was followed by a series of very specific yes/no questions, including queries on the death penalty, Roe v. Wade, illegal immigration, and vouchers, as well as questions about whether the candidate supported each of the ballot questions facing voters in the 2008 election.

The Post, on the other hand, asked broad questions about transportation, education, health care, and natural resources, as well as a “wild-card” question.

Among the Rocky’s questions, two were focused on a women’s right to choose.

The first addressed Roe v. Wade.

Here’s how Ken Summers, who was running for HD 22, answered the question:

The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Do you agree with the decision?

Summers: No

In the candidate’s words: Even if abortion is held to be legal, to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape or incest, it is difficult to view it as a constitutional right. I have always viewed constitutional rights as those that are commonly exercised and essential to a free society.

For comparison, in his response to the Rocky, here’s how Ali Hasan, who was running for HD 56 answered it.

Hasan: Yes

In the candidate’s words: It is important to note that I agree that the federal ban against 7- to 9-month abortion should always be upheld.

Another Rocky question addressed personhood, which would outlaw all abortion and common forms of birth control.

While Shawn Mitchell declined to answer, Summers responded as follows:

Do you support Amendment 48? It would ban abortion by defining personhood as beginning at fertilization.

Summers: Yes

In the candidate’s words: A new baseline for this issue is needed. Clarifications will be needed.

Ali Hasan stated flatly in his questionnaire that opposed Amendment 48.

The closest thing The Post’s 2008 questionnaire had to these fun and exciting questions (and answers) was a broad question on the role of state government in providing health insurance, which is important, to be sure, but fails to illuminate narrow, and easily comparable, views on health insurance issues generally, and, specifically, on the topic of a women’s right to choose. In fact, not Summers, Mitchell, nor Hasan voluntarily brought up abortion issues in their answers. The Post’s question, which has unfortunately been removed from its website, was:

Health Care: What role do you see for the state in providing or ensuring health insurance for every Coloradan? What policies do you propose to achieve your vision of health care coverage in Colorado?

So, obviously, The Post’s question is important, but Rocky’s approach had to have been of more use to voters.

I’m hoping that this year the Rocky’s 2008 “Ballot Builder” will be a model for journalists in town.

If I were a conservative talk-radio host, I’d love it if my guest called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”

The topic would keep your geriatric audience awake, plus it gives you a chance to say “Ponzi” a bunch of times.

So why do talk-radio hosts love to sit there in silent acquiescence as their guests say that Social Security is nothing but a disaster?

That happened last year, when we heard Rep. Mike Coffman say on KNUS’ Kelley and Company that Social Security is “obviously” a “Ponzi scheme.”

And again, on Grassroots Radio Colorado Wed. Colorado Sen. Kent Lambert said Social Security “really is a Ponzi scheme.”

Lambert: “I’d like to tell you what I like about PERA. It’s not Social Security. Social Security really is a Ponzi scheme. You’re taking from one employee or one worker and just giving it over to somebody else. In PERA at least we’re making some investments and having some growth to that retirement system.”

If I were at the controls at KLZ AM 560, I’d be thinking, how beautiful is this?

Here’s a leader of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, whose members presumably know a lot about budgets, saying that Social Security is a criminal enterprise.

That should make for good talk radio. A good debate.

I thought Social Security was one of the U.S. government’s greatest achievements. It’s been tweaked slightly over its 76 years of providing a lifeline to seniors, and it’s on solid ground for 25 more years. With minor changes, it will last indefinitely.

So what’s up with the Ponzi-scheme attack line? It doesn’t fit.

It’s shallow thinking at its shallowest. As such, it could make for a good debate.

Any chance we can hear what Lambert’s logic is, next time he’s on Grassroots Radio Colorado?

Talking to KHOW’s Peter Boyles June 5, state Senate candidate John Sampson said it was unfortunate that a Georgia judge decided not to scratch Obama’s name from Georgia’s presidential ballot for the upcoming election.

Sampson said the judge should have issued a default decision against Obama for failing to appear in court in person to defend himself in a case brought by some of America’s five-star birthers (though Boyles not among them).

Yet Sampson was on KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado July 5 saying he had no position on Obama’s eligibility, even though he previously said he thought Obama’s  name should be off the Georgia ballot and he was hired by the birthers to testify against Obama.

Sampson told KLZ he was hired by the birthers to testify; he was an expert witness with no opinion. He described his court testimony this way:

Sampson: “I did the Joe Friday routine, ‘it’s just the facts, ma’am.’ There was no opinion in that. I was asked to do a job. I did a job. And regardless of what people think, or what their opinions are, it doesn’t change the facts.”

All Sampson knows, he said, is that:

“Sampson: Mr. Obama is using his social security number that was issued to somebody residing in Connecticut in March of 1977. And there is no connection ever documented between Mr. Obama and the state of Connecticut. So, the question is, how did it come to pass that he’s using that number?”

Snopes and others have debunked Sampson’s claim, and Worley should ask Sampson about the facts.

But who could possibly believe Sampson’s claim that he’s all about the facts on Obama’s SS number, and he has no opinion on Obama’s eligibility, especially when Sampson stated his opinion on a previous radio show, claiming Obama should be, shall we say, purged, from the Georgia ballot?

I’m hoping Worley delves into this next time he sits down with Sampson.

During an interview on KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado yesterday, Colorado State Treasurer Walker Stapleton came out in support of a lawsuit alleging that the 2009 FASTER law, which raised Colorado vehicle registration fees to pay for road and bridge upgrades, is unconstitutional.

Here’s the key exchange on the radio show:

WALKER STAPLETON: Well, you know, my friend Rich Sokel is at the tip of the spear, there. And I think it’s a great thing. And I hope they prevail because, you know, the FASTER tax was one of many taxes and fees that was passed without our input as voters in Colorado. And it was passed and given cover by a liberal activist Supreme Court. And so I hope that it gets some traction, because these fees need to be called what they are, and that’s tax increases.

Host: Absolutely. So I’m going to wish them luck on that and we’re going to do everything we can to support those guys and their efforts. Walker Stapleton, Colorado state—

STAPLETON: Thank you, guys! I appreciate you!

HOST: We appreciate you and everything you’re doing and you know you’ve got a friendly voice here, so use us whenever we can and we’ll help you fight this battle. That’s Walker Stapleton, Colorado State Treasurer.

Listen to Walker Stapleton on KLZ 6-7-12

It’s painful to hear a public official, who claims to be the standard bearer for fiscal responsibility, support striking down the FASTER law without explaining how he’d fund road and bridge repair in the state. And this is of course not the first time Republicans have exhibited this problem.

So, please, all you entertaining people over at KLZ, put this question to Stapleton when you have him back on Grassroots Radio Colorado: Does he 1) want to fix Colorado’s crumbling roads and bridges, and, if so 2) how does he propose to pay for it ($300 million in bonds issued and $400 million to be issued in 2017).

If you’re a connoisseur of conspiracy theories, you know that consparicists take great pleasure in each other. They thrive in the closeness they achieve through their shared beliefs, especially because everyone else thinks they’re crazy.

That’s why talk radio is such a beautiful medium for conspiracists. The voices and emotion on talk radio, and the familiarity of the hosts and guests, create a sense of intimacy doesn’t exist on blogs or other media.

This is the kind of environment, as others have pointed out, that validates fringe beliefs, where the embattled can feel good about themselves.

As a case in point check out this discussion yesterday between KHOW’s Peter Boyles and John Sampson, a private investigator who’s also running for Colorado Senate District 25.

Sampson and Boyles were both selected by The Denver Post’s Curtis Hubbard as top birthers in Colorado. Sampson got the number five spot; Boyles hit pay dirt, snagging number one.

BOYLES: Well, so, congratulations on being number five. You certainly deserve more than that.

SAMPSON: Well, you know, I’ll leave you to be number one.

BOYLES: You know, Terry [Lakin] … I mean, every one of you guys… I mean, I’ve tried to make this point. Sampson, Hollister, Wolf, Doc Lakin … All you guys risked a hell of lot more than I ever did. I just get up at three o’clock in the morning and do a radio show. But Terry lost everything. Phil Wolf took an enormous amount of heat. Hollister took huge heat. You’ve taken heat. And, you know, and, you guys, well, set aside.

SAMPSON: Well, we swore an oath to defend the Constitution, Peter, and that’s where my core value is.

BOYLES: Long story short, I’m, I mean, like Sheik was saying, you know, we’re number one, but, truly, looking at you four guys, I don’t even belong on the list. But…

SAMPSON: Well, you’ve been carrying the water, also. I mean, you’ve been persistent covering this issue where others… where angel fear to tread… you know, it’s…

BOYLES: It’s “Fools rush in.” [laughing]

SAMPSON: Yeah. Fools rush in.

See what I mean by embattled people feeling good about themselves? This is what talk radio does best.

The birthers are on the run (witness Rep. Mike Coffman), but there’s obviously a different reality on Peter Boyles’ radio show.

But Sampson is candidate for public office, and so media types should pull out some of the things he’s saying, extract them from the false reality of talk radio, and subject them to rationality.

In a previous radio interview, Sampson said, “I have not and do not have sufficient evidence that would warrant me to make a statement as to whether or not he is eligible or not eligible.”

But yesterday Sampson said on the radio, straight up, that he thought a George judge should have found President Obama ineligible to appear on the November ballot in Georgia. Sampson said that because the President of the United States did not make a personal appearance to defend himself against lunacy, Obama’s name should have been scratched from the ballot.

Discussing the Georgia case yesterday (And you can find a summary of it here, including a link to Sampson’s testimony at the trail.), Sampson had this exchange with Boyles:

SAMPSON: And from what I had been told, the judge was indicating clearly, unequivocally, that he was going to issue a default judgment–

BOYLES: Yes, against–

SAMPSON: Against Mr. Obama.

BOYLES: Yeah.

SAMPSON: Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.

Sampson said some other strange things on the show that merit scrutiny.

In a discussion of how Obama could have been issued a Social Security number that belonged to a Connecticut resident, which is what Sampson believes, Sampson, with no hint of humor in his voice, threw out this “rampant speculation:”

SAMPSON: You know, there’s been some rampant speculation that Bill Ayers and his wife, given their prior affiliation with the Weather Underground knew very well how to obtain counterfeit or false documents.

Sampson also believes there’s convincing evidence, even though he says we don’t know for sure, that Obama’s Selective Service records have been falsified:

SAMPSON: Okay. However, the Selective Service record that also has that Social Security Number of 042-68-4425 was purportedly filed by Mr. Obama in 1980. But then again, you know, Zullo has very convincingly shown me, and has shown a bunch of people either in presentations or behind closed doors how he recreated that postal cancellation stamp, and there are problems with it. But, you know, we don’t know. We simply don’t know. And that’s where it’s a little problematic. At some point, hopefully, the truth is going to come out, and we’ll see what happens.

As you can imagine, there’s much more where this came from. And if you like conspiracy theories or not, you should listen to it, especially if you happen to be a reporter and it’s your job to let the public know about Colorado Senate candidates.

In a promo for his show tomorrow morning, Peter Boyles is promising to interview the four men identified by Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard as “Colorado’s 5 Most Prominent and Passionate Birthers.”

The “passionate” part is a direct reference to Rep. Mike Coffman, who told KHOW last week that, with respect to birthers: “God bless people who do that. I understand their passion.”

So, if you disregard Hubbard’s advice to “pay attention to [Colorado’s top 5 birthers] at your peril,” you might tune to the KHOW birther fest tommow.

It will feature John Sampson (who believes Obama is using the Social Security number given to another citizen in 1977); Col. Greg Hollister (who may have broken the law in pursuit of Obama’s Social Security number); Phil Wolf (who’s errected a series of anti-Obama billboards at his car dealership in Wheat Ridge), and Terry Lakin (who refused Army deployment due to his birther beliefs).

And, of course, you’ll also get to hear Hubbard’s number one Colorado birther, Peter Boyles himself.

If you listened to Boyles today, you know he’s been joking, in between his jabs at Hubbard, Obama, and others, about how much he loves being “number one.”

Does this mean he’s okay with being called a “birther?”

“Birther is a term that was given, not accepted,” he told me. “In other words, the term came from guys like you. I never called myself a birther.”

Boyles made no mention of Coffman being on tomorrow’s show, but that’s not surprising because Boyles has been calling him a “weenie” for apologizing for his birther comments about Obama.

Wolf, of birther billboard fame, had a similar response when asked if he calls himself a birther. “Of course not,” he said. “I’m a thinker. I ask questions. Maybe we haven’t been dumbed down like so many people have been. I question a lot of things. If there’s not an answer, the question lingers.”

I spend a lot of time criticizing conservative talk-radio hosts, and some people think I’m beating my head against the keyboard.

Too bad for me. Here I go again.

I can’t accept that KLZ host’s Ken Clark and Jason Worley agree with Sen. Ted Harvey when he says, on the radio, that Sen. Morgan Carroll’s bill requiring hospitals to post a list of services that they do not provide is like “putting yellow stars on the door of religious hospitals.”

Even if you disagree with her bill, proposed legislation like Carroll’s and Nazi Germany have zero in common with one another.

You may think it’s ridiculous that I even write the above paragraph, but that’s what we bloggers have been reduced to, particularly because the legacy media is mostly ignoring the Colorado GOP’s Nazi talk this year.

The Nazis killed people and Carroll’s bill informs them. Carroll’s bill would’ve helped consumers make a purchase. That’s it.

Even if you’re anti-abortion, Carroll’s bill can’t be remotely linked to genocide in any way.

So, if you’re Ken Clark and Jason Worley, how could you possibly listen to this exchange without objecting?

Sen. Kevin Grantham (at 16:30 in the podcast):  “Ken, I kind of wonder if Patrick Malone would have made the same statement, or did even ask the same question to Rep. Carrol when she was running her Senate Bill 93, wondering whether she is going to have a legacy… or she’s worried about her legacy as a bigot for what she’s doing to hospitals and to private religious hospitals.  Doesn’t that make her a bigot as well?” 

Asked to explain, Grantham said that SB 93 would require “religious hospitals to post the services they do not provide,” which would be a requirement targeted specifically at catholic hospitals. This is not correct, since it would apply to all hospitals, but Grantham maintained that the bill was targeted specifically at abortion issues and other life issues.

Later, in a discussion about how the Democrats’ strategy on civil unions will backfire, Harvey said:

Sen. Ted Harvey (at 39:32): I don’t like to repeat the negative and talk about what their talking points are.  And what my talking points are is that this is an attack on religion.  This is [an] attack on the right of conscience, and the ability of people to exercise their faith the way that they believe is best for them. And I think that the people of faith are seeing this for what it is, and it’s a direct attack on them and they are now not sitting on the couch, not sitting in the pews, and just trying to live their lives and take their kids to school, and go to work and do those kinds of things. They are truly scared of what this is we’re talking about. We’re talking about an entire party in the United States that thinks it’s okay to force people of religious faith to do something against their religion. And that’s never happened in the United States before.  You heard Kevin [Grantham] talking about Senate Bill 93 where it forced hospitals to put on their door a yellow star, for all practical purposes.  To say, ‘this is who we are, and we have to tell you who we are.’  Never in American history have we had a major political party say that that’s okay.  And that is what you are seeing right now. And people of faith across the country  are rising up and saying, ‘No, not in our country.’ SB-93 is like putting yellow stars on the door of religious hospitals.

Journalists, like Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard, speculated that House Majority Leader Amy Stephens’ primary fight against Rep. Marsha Looper might play a role in the fate of the civil unions bill.

Stephens would want to show voters in her El Paso County district that she’s the uncompromising conservative that she claims to be, versus Looper, who reportedly supports civil unions.

If this turned out to be true, you’d expect House Speaker Frank McNulty and Stephens to start bragging, especially in the Colorado Springs area, about how Stephens stepped up to the plate and batted away the civil-union proponents.

And that’s exactly what McNulty did on the Jeff Crank Show on KVOR Saturday. KVOR broadcasts from, you guessed it, Colorado Springs.

Reporters should take note of this exchange, as they explain what in the world happened to the civil unions bill today:

Crank said that he was hearing rumors that Stephens was for civil unions. But Crank complimented Stephens and McNulty for putting their political lives on the line to stop civil unions.

McNulty responded to Crank with this:

McNulty: “Well, thank you.  And it’s absolutely true that Amy Stephens was the rock that we came back to throughout the debate.  It wasn’t easy, and there were times when the pressure was great, when you have advocates for [civil unions] piling into the gallery, and you’re looking up there wondering what’s going to happen next.  And Amy is so strong in her faith, and is absolutely rock solid, and she just has a measure of calm about her in crisis and that’s one of the things that we relied on.  And our goal is to head into this Special Session.”

Listen to the audio clip here: McNulty On the Jeff Crank Show 5-12-2012.