By Michael Lund

When it comes to Ryan Call, Ken Clark and Jason Worley are not impressed.

In the past week on Grassroots Radio Colorado (airing weekdays from 5 to 7 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM), show hosts Worley and Clark have been heard to call for current GOP State Party Chairperson Call to own up to his responsibility for the devastating November election losses “like a man”, and step down from his leadership position.

Last Friday on Grassroots, Arapahoe County Tea Party Chair Randy Corporon was filling in as guest host, as he often does.  Worley and Clark were on a “top secret” special assignment.  The guests that day, freshman State Representative Justin Everett (HD-22) and John Ransom from Townhall.com/Finance pleaded with Corporon to throw his hat into the race for the GOP Chairmanship.  Their enthusiastic request was modestly evaded.

And then yesterday, Mark Baisley, Douglas County GOP Chair, appeared on Grassroots to announce his candidacy for the position.

Ryan Call probably isn’t too worried.

He has endorsements from approximately half of the current County GOP Committees that will eventually vote to decide who leads the state party, as well as support from GOP notables such as AG John Suthers, and Rep. Cory Gardner.

Call’s ascendency two years ago came in a firestorm of name calling and finger pointing around previous Chairman Dick Wadhams, who withdrew his candidacy for reelection after the debacle that was The McInnis-Maes-Tancredo Show and Ken Buck’s losing challenge to Democrat Michael Bennet’s senate seat.

Stating his frustration with trying to herd the un-herdable cats of Colorado’s GOP, Wadhams said in a recent Lynn Bartels blog post for the Denver newspaper’s political blog, The Spot (January 13, 2013)

“[…]  he was “tired of the nuts who have no grasp of what the state party’s role is.”

In the same column, Bartels quoted Wadhams pointing to fundraising as another piece of the fallout from his decision to withdraw:

 “When I went back to major donors they said, ‘Since you’re not running we’re going to hold off. We’re not going to give to a state party run by an idiot.’ Ryan is who they wanted to have win and so after he won fundraising picked back up,” Wadhams said.

The “idiot” refered to in Wadham’s quote is most likely Senator Ted Harvey, who was challenging Call at the time with support from liberty and grassroots groups in the GOP.  Could the same divisive scenario be setting up for this spring’s GOP Chair election?  Well, Baisley is no Ted Harvey, although they appear pretty similar on paper.

Worley and Clark were happy to give Baisley a soapbox to announce his candidacy, as they have with other successful GOP candidates.  But they didn’t hold back with their criticism of Call, who they said runs a party that’s not all too inviting to liberty groups’ participation.  Worley points out that he and Call went to high school together, but they still butt heads.

Callers to Grassroots Radio last Friday echoed some of Wadhams’ concerns from 2011, namely the danger of splitting a minority Party whose wounds continue to weep along ideological fractures, and the proven abilities of a candidate to deliver in the Chairmanship’s two biggest responsibilities:  winning elections and fundraising.

Baisley addressed both concerns.

He asserted his longstanding friendship with Ryan Call and said they have always worked well together.  He’s offering to unite the all who believe in limited government with his “model of respect,”  where everyone is invited to share their talents in defeating the Dems – apparently to include  “nuts” and “idiots.”

As proof of his capabilities, Baisley cited his success in organizing over 3,000 Douglas County volunteers, activitating a localized ground game for getting out the vote, and the notable coup of electing seven conservatives to the Douglas County School Board which eventually tossed the American Federation of Teachers union from the district.

As far as fundraising, Baisley reduced its importance as secondary to the ground game, but noted his successes, just the same.  On the finance committee during Bruce Benson’s tenure ten years ago as leader of the Colorado GOP, he helped raise more than $10 million for the Party.  In Douglas County this election cycle, enough funds were generated to cover all GOTV costs, max out a contribution to Mike Coffman’s congressional campaign, while filling in gaps in other legislative races, he said.

Addressing Ryan Call’s claim of early support from the counties, Worley and Clark enthusiastically point out that new leadership in the counties committees could undermine some of those initial endorsements.

Then  Baisley said he had heard from some county leaders, who said if they’d known Baisley was running for the Chair, they would never have endorsed Call.   They promised Baisley they wouldn’t be seen campaigning actively for Call.

It all sounds very encouraging for Baisley, if you can believe Grassroots Radio.

But can he herd cats?

I blogged a few weeks ago about the need for media types to smoke out the views of state politicians on federal immigration reform.

So it was good to see extensive local coverage of a bipartisan initiative by Sen. Michael Bennet laying out the broadest of principles for immigration reform, like the humanitarian notion that U.S. immigration policy should “prioritize” keeping families together. That is, “where possible.”

The “where possible” caveat symbolizes the document, called the “Colorado Compact.” If the call to “prioritize” wasn’t sufficiently vague, it had to be clouded further with the phrase “where possible.” And there’s no comment on whether immigrant families should be kept together in the U.S. or deported juntos.

Top to bottom, the document is void of details, like how big a fence might be built, if a path to citizenship is essential, and if immigrant kids can get Pell grants, much less the same college-tuition rates offered to American-born kids.

The document calls for a “path forward for immigrants,” but not much in the rubber-hits-the-road category.

That’s fine for a broad community effort, like the Colorado Compact.

But journalists should be focused on specifics.

That’s what pissed me off about most of the news coverage of the Compact. (See a compilation of news coverage on the Colorado Compact’s website here.) It was gushing, mostly without any skeptical edge that you want from reporters.

The coverage barely hinted at stumbling blocks down the line, like Obama’s and other Democrats’ insistence on a path to citizenship and GOP opposition to this (e.g., Coffman, Gardner, Lamborn, Tipton). What about the Dream Act? What about the folks like Tom Tancredo who are saying it’s just wrong, period, to reward a person who’s entered the U.S. illegally with any form of legal status?

What about the folks like Helen Krieble, whose proposal for immigration reform has been floated by some Colorado Republicans like Rep. Ray Scott. Krieble reiterated her immigration proposal on Sunday to approving KNUS talk-radio host Krista Kafer, who’s a former aid to failed GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer:

Krieble: So, our recommendation [is to] have these employment agencies outside our borders. So, [illegal immigrants] don’t have to go home to their home countries. But they must go, by appointment, outside the borders, run through the security check, prove they have a job, or take a job, so they’re self-supporting, and return to the United States according to the rule of law. Which, could all be done in 48 hours. Because remember, you don’t have bureaucrats who have no incentives to do a hundred people a day versus two people a day. But a private business has every incentive in the world to do it and do it well and quickly. So, that would be our recommendation.

Krieble’s proposed policy solution is full of unanswered questions regarding its implementation and implications. But Kafer doesn’t venture to open those cans of worms.

We love reporters becasue they deal in the world of specificities, like data, numbers, concrete ideas, etc., and the ramifications of those specific things.

That’s what we want in news coverage of the immigration debate, even if politicians and policy makers don’t want to go there.

On KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado , State Representatives Chris Holbert and newly elected Justin Everett said they and their allies have no interest in compromising on civil unions during the upcoming legislative session.

A caller asked the two GOP lawmakers, who was guest-hosting for regulars Jason Worley and Ken Clark, if the new Republicans at the state Capitol would fight harder against civil unions.

“I think that you’ll find that this incoming class is fairly well aligned against that,” replied Holbert. “However…we are in the minority, and I think that you’ll see the majority party move very quickly to pass that type of legislation.”

Holbert’s answer is no surprise, because most new Republican lawmakers, like them, are from safe Republican areas, which wouldn’t be expected to produce moderates.

The incoming Republicans aren’t as old as the people they replaced, Holbert pointed out on air, but they’re mostly ideologically similar.

And here’s the ironic part: the next day on the same radio show, representatives of the Rocky Mountain Black Conservatives and the Libre Initiative spent two hours  talking about how important it is for the GOP in Colorado to diversify.

The good folks on Grassroots Radio should ask themselves how they can possibly diversify the Republican Party if their leaders won’t budge on something like civil unions.

During a panel discussion today on local coverage of the 2012 election, journalists said the presidential election, as it played out in Colorado, consumed so much of their time that they were unable to give proper attention to other important Colorado races, including congressional campaigns.

“The presidential just drowns out everything else,” said CBS4 Political Specialist Shaun Boyd. “I did cover the local stuff, but it’s hard to do that when you’ve got so much going on with the presidential race, and that’s what so many people are focused on.”

“TV is broadcasting, and the word ‘broad’ is real, ” added Fox 31 Political Reporter Eli Stokols. “If we think about what people are most interested in, it’s what they’re already hearing about, the presidential stuff. It’s hard for us to cover congressional races in much detail.

Colorado Public Radio reporter Megan Verlee told the audience of about 30 people at the Independence Institute that her station tries to explain why other races matter.

“If you’re covering the CD-7 race, most of your listeners aren’t in CD-7 , they’re wondering, ‘Why do I care about Coors and Perlmutter?'” Verlee said. “And then if you’re covering a State House race, the vast, vast majority of your listeners are not in that area. We were running stories reminding people why it matters who controls the Legislature next time. So if you’re uncomfortable with legal recognition for gay unions, and you’re Republican, you might want to get out and help your candidate. If you want civil unions, and you’re a Democrat, you might want to go out and help your candidate. There were things we could say–‘This is why you need to pay attention to your local races.’ And we actually interviewed Ernest Luning from the Statesman who was doing really great coverage of the State House races and we linked to his website.”

Twitter’s Impact

All four reporters on the panel, which was moderated by Diane Carman, Communications Director for the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Public Affairs, said Twitter has had a major impact on their reporting, and they expect this to continue.

“Twitter allows you to be in different places at once,” said Associated Press reporter Ivan Moreno. “It can be a huge distraction, but it’s a huge benefit. I could not live without it as a reporter.

“It makes us into a team,” said Verlee, agreeing with Moreno. “Nobody could be everywhere at once. It makes reporters from competing outlets each other’s eyes and ears.”

“I saw a couple times this year where [a story] wouldn’t have been such a big deal on our station had it not blown up on Twitter,” said CBS4’s Shaun Boyd.

Boyd cited her interview with Mitt Romney, whose staff told Boyd not to ask questions about abortion issues. Boyd and others at CBS4 didn’t think much of this, because preconditions to interviews are not unheard of, she said.

“When that went up on Twitter, I was stunned,” Boyd said. “I was hauled into the news director’s office. And the head of communications for Romney’s campaign was on the phone. And suddenly I have to totally change how I’m telling this story. I mean, [the precondition] becomes the story. And I felt that the only reason it became the story that day was because it blew up on Twitter.”

Partisan Pressure

None of the journalists on the panel, which would have included The Denver Post’s Politics Editor Chuck Plunkett, had he not gotten sick this morning, claimed to be influenced much by angry partisans who think journalists are biased.

“You know what’s funny, it’s gotten to a point where people get angry and see things as biased, it doesn’t impact me at all,” said Stokols. “The person it impacts, is the person leveling that charge. What that is, writ large, is a certain type of person, and they exist on both sides, who doesn’t want to live outside of that bubble, that idea bubble, that thought bubble, [because] it doesn’t fit the way they see the world. It’s a biased reporter. It’s a skewed poll. It’s dismissed. You can only insulate yourself from reality for so long.”

“If you look at the news that makes you uncomfortable, it will make you more effective, whether you are a campaign or volunteer,” he said. “If you just look at the stuff you like to digest, then the rude awakening is not far away.”

Journalists’ Bias

All four journalists on the panel, which was jointly sponsored by the Independence Institute, the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Public Affairs, and my own BigMedia.org, rejected the notion, presented by an audience member, that journalists should state their biases openly, rather than act as if they have no opinions, and strive to be fair and accurate, as expected according to modern standards of professional journalism.

“If you are involved in a court case, and you go before a judge, and you know all of his biases, which everyone has, but you then realize they are unfavorable to you, you would have the perception that you would get an unfair trial,” said AP’s Moreno. “I think it’s the same with journalism. With us, it’s not that we don’t have personal opinions, but I think we need to be objective and maintain public trust. If we expressed our opinions, people would question, much more so, our facts that we report and our objectivity.”

Election losers, especially, love to blame the news media, but scratch the surface of election winners, and they’ll usually find plenty of reasons to bash the press as well.

So rather than scream at your television, whether you won or lost Tuesday, come down to the Denver’s Independence Institute Friday morning to level your media critiques directly at those responsible: journalists themselves.

A panel of leading Colorado journalists will discuss “Colorado Journalism and the 2012 Election,” and take your questions.

Journalists on the panel are: Shaun Boyd, Political Specialist, CBS4; Ivan Moreno, Reporter, Associated Press; Chuck Plunkett, Politics Editor, The Denver Post; Eli Stokols, Political Reporter, KDVR Fox 31; and KWGN TV; Megan Verlee, Reporter, Colorado Public Radio. Diane Carman, Director of Communications, University of Colorado Denver, will moderate.

You’ll notice there are no bloggers on the panel, but the truth is, as much as new media’s influence is gaining, legacy media are still the biggest game in town, reaching the ever-popular swing voters in ways bloggers like to dream about.

If that weren’t true, I’d have the presidential campaigns’ mean ads on my blog, but alas there are none. Somehow, they don’t think my three readers matter to them.

So that leaves us with the traditional media still in the driver’s seat, and that’s why you should direct your post-election questions at them.

The panel takes place Friday, November 9, at the conservative Independence Institute, 727 East 16th Ave. Doors open at 7:30 a.m. for a light breakfast, and the one-hour panel discussion begins at 8 a.m. Disclosure: the event is sponsored by my blog, BigMedia.org, along with the Independence Institute, and the University of Colorado Denver.

The unusual co-sponsorship, of conservatives and progressives, should make for interesting questions from the audience.

It makes sense to put everyone in the same room for a change, because if you read conservative and progressive blogs, you know that anger at the news media doesn’t reside on one side of the political divide or the other. It’s universal.

And it’s unfortunate, because people of different political stripes also respect professional journalism on some level, even as they tear it down and watch it decline.

So air out your post-election anger at the news media Friday morning. See what the people responsible for the news have to say to you.

Here are a couple new additions to my list of this election season’s best political journalism in Colorado.

The first is the Colorado Statesman’s Ernest Luning, whose reporting on state legislative races across Colorado stands in a class by itself this election season.  His most recent installment stunned me with it breadth and depth. You’ll love it if you’re trying to figure out what’s up with the leg races this year.

Here’s Luning’s take on where things stand:

Control of the Senate appears likely to stay in Democratic hands after the election, though the party’s margin could dwindle. Republicans would have to win every one of the state’s four competitive Senate seats — and avoid surprises elsewhere — in order to take over the chamber, a feat that appears increasingly less likely as the population of active voters becomes clear. It’s less clear in the House, where every seat is up for election and candidates are looking at a jumbled map following reapportionment.

9News Kyle Clark was on my previous list for his impressive effort to track down Rep. Mike Coffman, who was hiding from reporters after a video emerged showing Coffman telling supporters that Obama is not an American “in his heart.” Coffman also said he didn’t even know if Obama was an American. Clark interviewed Coffman on the street, and the Congressman continued his strange pattern of dodging questions on the topic.

Clark asked Obama a series of tough questions in an interview aired on 9News yesterday. Colorado Pols put it well in a blog post this morning, saying Clark’s journalism “should make both conservatives and liberals proud:”

Clark’s interview with President Obama via satellite yesterday featured a feisty-but-respectful reporter launching immediately into the list of what Republicans consider the most salient attacks on Obama today: the recent terrorism against the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the Department of Energy loan guarantee program for renewable energy that, in addition to its many successes, includes failures like Solyndra and Colorado’s Abound Solar…

Lots of political types spend a lot of time complaining about the state of journalism today. But there’s still plenty of great work being done, and I’m thinking we’ll see more before the election ends.

On Nov. 9, a panel of media types will discuss the journalistic triumphs and lapses of the 2012 election–and answer your questions. This is your chance to talk back to some of Colorado’s leading journalists.

The panel includes:

• Shaun Boyd, Political Specialist, CBS4
• Ivan Moreno, Reporter, Associated Press
• Chuck Plunkett, Politics Editor, The Denver Post
• Eli Stokols, Political Reporter, KDVR Fox 31 and KWGN TV
• Megan Verlee, Reporter, Colorado Public Radio

Moderator: Diane Carman, Director of Communications, University of Colorado Denver

Friday, November 9, 2012

Doors open at 7:30 a.m. for a light breakfast

Panel discussion 8 – 9 a.m.

Independence Institute

727 East 16^th Ave.

Free and open to the public

Please come with questions for the journalists. You can also submit questions in advance to Ms. Carman at diane.carman@ucdenver.edu.

Free parking available as well as on-street parking

Please RSVP to jason@bigmedia.org

Sponsors:  BigMedia.org, Independence Institute, University of Colorado Denver

For more information, please contact Jason Salzman at 303-292-1524 or jason@bigmedia.org.

I was kinda scared to see what KHOW talk-radio host Peter Boyles would suggest for “immigration reform,” but I clicked the link he attached to his tweet below:

Talk Radio 630 K-HOW‏@630khow

What would be wrong with using these for immigration reform? ~Pete LINK

And look where Boyles’ link leads, to this photo on his show’s page on the KHOW website. It appears just above “Obama Timeline — Part I And II,” which I didn’t look at:

Does it make you want to follow Boyles on Twitter, too?

If you do, or if you listen to his show, you find a guy who used to be hard to classify on the left-right scale–socially liberal and anti-establishment, pop.

He remains anti-establishment, which you admire sometimes if you hear him, but he’s been veering steadily to the Republican right in recent years as he’s glued himself to the birther issue, especially. But he’s also anti-undocumented immigrant, anti-Muslim, even anti-Denver Post.

So at the end of the day it’s sad to see this kind of image on Boyles’ website, sad for him, and sad for undocumented people who will feel the hate, and potential violence, that Boyles is whipping up against them.

In an event that no reporter will want to miss, Secretary of State Scott Gessler is stumping tonight for State Senate candidate John Sampson, whom Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard recently called one of Colorado’s top five birthers.

So you’ve got Sampson, who questions whether Obama is a U.S. citizen, paired up with Gessler, who has the same question about thousands of unsuspecting people.

If that’s not a recipe for news, what is? Who knows what these guys will say to each other?

Colorado’s undisputed number-one birther, Peter Boyles, might show up and add some squirreliness and newsworthiness to the event. Boyles and Sampson have enjoyed a few radio love fests together.

I don’t think Rep. Mike Coffman would attend, but he’s unpredictable, and he’s sort of apologized for saying he doesn’t know whether “Obama was born in the United States of America.”

All this adds up to a potentially lively evening at John Sampson’s “Meet and Greet with Secretary of State Scott Gessler.”

Reporters can get the details here. The fun starts at 6 p.m.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers appeared on KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado Thursday to discuss his opposition to Amendment 64, which would legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana in Colorado.

Suthers offered a bunch of reasons for opposing Amendment 64, and the KLZ hosts asked him a few softball challenges, instead of letting him go off without a douse or two of resistance.

But one unchallenged statement from Suthers struck me as unbelievably ironic, given Suthers hard-driving opposition to Obamacare, even suing on Colorado’s behalf to stop it.

Suthers told KLZ listeners that he’s worried about the broader social impacts that marijuana legalization would have on Colorado, saying:

Suthers: You know, in a libertarian utopia, everybody would suffer the consequences of their own choices, but in America, you’re going to pay the emergency room costs, you’re going to pay the costs of this guy dropping out of school, the public assistance cost, and unfortunately, the prison cost.”

It’s something worth talking about, but Suthers has been one of the leading opponents of Obamacare, which would provide health insurance to tens of millions of Americans who don’t have it.

One of the overarching problems with having so many people uninsured is the social costs, which go beyond individuals getting sick, of course, and include everything from higher healthcare costs and lower economic productivity to crime and increased public assistance.

These types of things, which you don’t find in a Libertarian utopia, worry Suthers when it comes to marijuana legalization. Yet he’s apparently unconcerned about them when he’s fighting Obamacare, because he offers no practical alternative to Obamacare.

As Suthers makes the media rounds opposing marijuana legalization, talk-radio hosts and real journalists might discuss these matters with him.

Partial transcript of CO Attorney General John Suther’s interview on Grassroots Radio Colorado Oct. 11,

SUTHERS: I think we are going to see – we are seeing from medical marijuana and we’ll see even more from legalization — serious problems in our schools, higher dropout rates. And this is the society where we all pay for this. You know, in a libertarian utopia, everybody would suffer the consequences of their own choices, but in America, you’re going to pay the emergency room costs, you’re going to pay the costs of this guy dropping out of school, the public assistance cost, and unfortunately, the prison cost.

GUEST HOST CARISA ZGLOBICKI: Mmm-hmm. That makes a lot of sense. I was wondering if you could touch base on, you know, there’s a lot of talk about the economic benefits of the Amendment 64, and I wanted you to see—you know, hear your side on what that really means.

SUTHERS: Yeah, we’ll take on some tax revenue. But keep in mind, to this very day, the tax revenues that we take in from alcohol pay for about 10% of the social costs we incur from alcoholism. And I think you can project pretty much the same with marijuana legalization, any revenues the government takes in will be a fraction of the social cost that will be imposed.

Read the entire text of the Suthers interview here.