Station:   KLZ, 560AM

Show:      Grassroots Radio Colorado

Guests:    Baisley

Link:        http://grrc.podomatic.com/profile?p=1

Date:       September 8, 2014

Topics:     Sharia Law, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev, Benghazi, Islamic State In Syria (ISIS), Muslim Brotherhood, The Giver, Trust Me…, BF Skinner, Clockwork Orange, Religion, Don Ytterberg, Caucus, Assembly, Primary System

Click Here for Audio

 

HOST KRIS COOK:  Mark, welcome to Grassroots radio.

COLORADO GOP VICE CHAIRMAN, MARK BAISLEY:  Thank you, Kris!  Always a pleasure to join you.

COOK:  Always love having you on here, because I’m a little put out.  You’re on with Randy Corporon, on Wake Up! with Randy Corporon, quite a bit — like weekly, right?

BAISLEY:  Yeah.  You know, and I have to tell you, the first time that I was on your show, while I was talking to you, I got a text from Randy.  And he said, “Are you cheating on me?”

COOK:  [laughter]

BAISLEY:  I told him, I said, “You know, Kris is a lot prettier, but Randy, you’re still my girl.”

COOK:  Aw!  [laughs]

BAISLEY:  So–.

COOK:  I’m really not sure where that puts either one of us, in the universe, here.

BAISLEY:  Nor me

COOK:  That’s funny.  So glad that you’re here and, you know, we’ve got so many important things to talk about.  We’ve got an election coming up, here, in November, obviously.  I’m pretty sure that you’re aware of that.  You knew that, right?

BAISLEY:  Heard of it, yeah.

COOK:  Yeah, there’s something going on in November. And, uh, it’s — here’s where I’m at and I’m curious where you are, because I feel like we have the advantage this time.  I feel like this is a good year for Republicans, it’s a good year for Rs up and down the ticket.  What — where are you thinking we’re at, at this point?

BAISLEY:  Yeah, you know, I think that the Democrats, fortunately, cannot help themselves but to assist Republicans into victory this time around.  And, you know, I think two years ago, they able to delay things enough –the results of the policies they were enacting over the prior four years. I think they staved those off for 2012 on beyond the November election, just enough to get Barack Obama reelected.  Um, and now I think we all know better.  Well, you and I did, and most folks listening in.  But, I think there’s a lot of that sheen has come off the hood of the car for folks that voted for him both times and I’m hoping that it really rubs off onto all of the rest of the ticket, especially in this off year.  And here in Colorado, when we’ve got the big races of governor and United States Senator, and of course, all the other state wide races as well, I think we’ll– I think that we will do well. I really do. And I’m — we’ve got good candidates.  Their messaging sometimes is pretty good, sometimes it leaves — we’re trying to make it better.  There’s — I think there’s a lot of professional look-see polling and all that, that the messaging is coming out in ways that might make you and I look like a dog, you know, with its head turned.  But I think it might be a little more effective than we might imagine in the one-two punch that they’re delivering in the unaffiliated and on the Democrat side, that just might stay home this time.  But anyway, I — to answer your question, in the basic, I do think we’ll do well this time.  I think we’ll take the state Senate.  It would be so great if we could take the state House as well, but I think we’ll be able to call Bob Beauprez governor, finally, and Cory Gardner Senator.

COOK:  Okay.  Well, and I hope so, because I –you know, you look at that unaffiliated, and Colorado — I don’t know if we’re unique but it is definitely an interesting situation — an interesting situation where we have about one-third Democrat, one-third Republican, one-third unaffiliated, in terms of our voting bloc.  And those unaffiliateds, they go this way and they go that way, and they get swayed by this message and that message, and seems like they have trouble processing, kind of, what the long term effects are of the policies they are voting for.  What I’m inelegantly segueing towards is your Townhall article.  [laughs]  So, —

[Laughs]

COOK:  You’re like, “What is she talking about?”  You’re Townhall article came out this morning.  Absolutely spot on. The title of this article is Suicide by Democrat.  If you folks haven’t read it yet, I heartily encourage you to go out and do so.  Mark, you’re an amazing writer.  And I love the things that you bring out.  And in this article, the thing that struck me was how these folks continue to vote Democrat against their own interest.  You want to talk about that a little bit?

BAISLEY:  Yes. So, and I open up this article talking about, effectively for Colorado, Amendment 68.  Now, Townhall, as you know, is a nationwide publication, so I need to talk on a national level and a lot of times it’s very apparent that I’m talking from Colorado or mountain perspective, and so on.  But this really does reach across the country, because I was looking at Amendment 68 and I’m scratching my head about this.  Boy, do you remember, it was years ago, when Terrell Davis was the star of the Broncos, and he wore number 30 on his jersey.  And Amendment 30 was yet another way of funding K-12 education.  This has been going on term after term, cycle after cycle that the folks on the left keep coming up with new ways to raise funding for education.  So, you have to ask– and let me pause for a moment and say this article in particular is a revelation of the unfolding of thought and process of thought in the mind of Mark Baisley, so it may be a scary place for a lot of people to walk through, but, this is how it all came out, is I looked at this and I go, “Okay.  Are we starving our school district to where we need to come up with a new source of funding every election cycle?”  But you don’t have to look far to learn that we have,– we, as the United States, spend more money per student and we have the high– we spend the most on salaries, or the highest teacher salaries of any other nation in the world.  Period.  That’s just a fact.  So, why is it that we keep having to raise more and more funding toward that. Well, the truth is, we actually are losing our support. The funding — the revenue sources actually are starting to dwindle and the folks in the education world do keep coming up with newfangled ways, and Amendment 68 is one of the things we’re seeing a lot across the U.S. right now, where it’s tied to a lottery, or it’s tied to a sales tax, or tied to a gaming thing, where they’re getting away from the more direct taxation of income tax or property tax, where everyone is just worn out.  You know, they’re like, “Don’t tax me further.”  And so you’re getting messages like Amendment 68 that says, “Hey, you know what?  This isn’t going to cost you any more taxes than you’ve already been paying.”  Well, they’re doing that because people are just exhausted.  And that goes to the point, why is it that funding is going down for schools and supporting those retirement plans and all of that?  Well, it’s because it’s the cause and effect of our economy.  When our economy is doing well, then there is a greater, a more vibrant, a more healthy tax base.  And the funds just show up, just as a matter of course.  Cause and effect.  If we do well, our property’s worth more, our income is up where it ought to be and there’s money automatically going in to K-12.  But that’s not the case, right?  We’re in the malaise.  I call it the Democratic Party malaise, yet another.  And so, they’re not getting that.  So, it just made me think, why is it that we have 90% of educators voting Democrat when if they thought about it for more than a thirty seconds, they’d realize that if they were to vote for conservatives, who would support a healthy economy and keep government smaller, then the revenue would thrive in for their profession, for their industry.  Why wouldn’t’ they do that?  And so, that’s where I started.

COOK:  And that’s a great place to start.  I have a theory and we can talk about it when we come back.

[commercial break]

COOK:  […] Before the break we were talking about why wouldn’t people involved in the education system– the teachers and administrators and so forth — why wouldn’t they vote for better business policies, better economic policies that would fuel that business revolution that would then fill their coffers?  Do you have a theory on that?

BAISLEY:  Well, I think it’s just the culture there.  You know, I have spent a lot of time talking with edcucators, been a big supporter of K-12 in particular, helped launch a STEM charter high school and middle school in Highlands Ranch, and been a big supporter of the Odyssey of the Mind project in Jefferson County Schools through my company, and so on.  But, and I have given speeches to teachers where I’ll ask some of them, “Who teaches Geography?” as an example.  I’ll say, “Now, there is, frankly, a dry subject. Who cares about who knows what the capital of Missouri is, and so on?”  […] However, then I put geography in the context of orbits, and being an aerospace guy– I’ve worked in aerospace for some years and I can relate orbits to geography and that whole industry in Colorado being like 150,000 jobs.  And we have Ball Aerospace headquartered here, and we have the presence of all of the big aerospace companies, of course, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, and Northrup Grummond, and so on. And then we’ve got NORAD and we have other satellite operations here in Colorado, quite a few jobs.  And after a while, teachers get to realize, “Wow! If I understand how what I do here in the classroom fits into the world around me, the society around me, I realize just how phenomenally important my job is, how relevant geography is, how exciting geography is, and what is expected from someone who graduates from high school and has taken geography classes, what would be expected for them to understand about geography if they were to work at Lockheed Martin, right down the street from STEM high school, for instance.  And I think they just get disconnected.  It’s one of those industries, like a lot of them,  where they have their own language and they kind of cocoon themselves.  But if they were just to open up and understand how they affect and interact with the community around them, I think that might light it up quite a bit.  But I think that’s the reason.

COOK:  Well, that’s an excellent point, and I hadn’t really thought of, because they do cocoon themselves.  You know, they are the experts, and they’re there — I hate to say this, because this is going to sound terribly arrogant.  I don’t mean it that way.  But they feel like they’re doing God’s work.  They feel like they’re doing, you know, this work is so terribly important, just in and of itself, because you’re educating children. It’s for the children, and how often do we hear that?  We heard that with the Amendment 66 campaign.  You know, it’s for the children.  How could you deny putting more money into these kids, and that’s the general feeling that you get when you’re faced with something like this Amendment to change the gambling arena for the benefit of the children, or change our income tax rate for the benefit of the children.  You get that over and over again.  The fact is, and I think you’re absolutely right, those kids fit into a larger context, and the teachers do as well.  So, your thinking is that maybe, if they understood that, maybe they’d be able to think a little bit further down that chain and to understand how a good thriving economy would assist them, assisting– you know, it’s this whole symbiotic relationship, is that right?

BAISLEY:  There you go!  Yeah!  The unfolding of thought.  I think they’re doing God’s work, too.  And that’s just the — once they realize that the students that they are launching, –that it’s not just to get them to pass a test or to get them to score well for the sake of their certification or whatever.  But rather, if they can launch those students into self-reliance and ambition, and put into them — add to them, what you and I got to hear, even in public schools growing up, a love of America – a love and appreciation for who we are and what we’ve been given as an exceptional society, as an exceptional nation — to love liberty, to understand how rare it is to have the liberty that we have, and to love that and to embrace it, to embrace free enterprise, the free market forces, and to ride those waves, take advantage of them for your own ambitions, because the “in turn” from that is that they will then keep the economy moving and then pay for K-12 schools, and that teacher’s retirement.  It’s a win-win-win for all of us! But I think, more than anything else, what gets in the way of that in their — in that small culture of educators, is the union.  It’s union talk. The union gets in there and they’re really good at messaging, and that’s a lot of what has to do — a lot of the point of my article Suicide by Democrat, that the Democrats have figured out messaging that works really well and gets the spun up on one thing to the detriment of most of their lives.  And that’s not just educators, but Jewish Americans, and Black Americans, and so on.

COOK:  Right.  Well, and it goes back to something I harp on a lot on this program:  identity politics.  […] [You fit into this teacher box, so you’ll believe x, y, z, and you’ll think a, b, c, and you’ll do 1, 2, 3, –because I’ve slapped that label “teacher” on you.  They do it with women and blacks and Hispanics.]  It’s so infuriating to me.  That they simplify and denigrate people down to this base common denominator and decide that because of one single characteristic, this is how you must think, and they’re going to message to you that way.    Why do you think that resonates?  I would — I rebel against that.   But why do you think that resonates with so many people?

BAISLEY:  Oh, I wish I knew the answer to that one, but —

COOK:  [laughs]

BAISLEY:  There is — you know what, I called it in– uh, forgive me for harkening back to the article but I just spent so much time putting the thoughts together

COOK:  No, that’s fine!  That’s what I want to talk to you about.

BAISLEY:  But it’s — I think they are appealing somehow to women’s natural rebellion against subjection. But, and that’s what they do.  I think they have figured out just the right thing to say, because look at 90% of the anti-Cory Gardner ads, and it’s appealing to that one thing and they get woman after woman to come on and say, “Cory Gardner, you’re evil,” you know.  “How dare you?” and so one.  And it just amazes me that while they’re promoting thatm “Hey, Republican” — or excuse me, “Voting women in Colorado, we are going to ensure that you have the right to abort — you have the right for pro-choice, but at the same time, they don’t talk about, and what we need to talk about, and what I heard you talk about last hour and that while they’re holding that, you know, rattler in front of them they’re holding that candy cane behind them that says that, “We’re going to take away your right to protect yourselves with a weapon, where to send your children to school, whether you can decide what your own 15-year-old daughter receives in prescription contraceptions, or abortion surgery, with or without your knowledge.  It’s amazing. If you– every time I hear that commercial from Mark Udall that says, “Hey, no one — not Washington, no politician, no one has the right to tell you what you can do with your life,”  I want to slug the television set!

COOK:  [laughs]

BAISLEY:  It is –.  Here’s the guy who — How ironic is that?  That they are giving that message that is such 180 degrees from the truth, and yet that one foothold that they have in there, somehow, trumps all other reason.  And I don’t fully understand that yet, but I think we just — as Republicans, need to get a lot smarter in our messaging that points that out.

COOK:  Well, I think you’re absolutely — I mean, think about that message that you were just talking about from Udall, that, you know, no one should get between you and how you live your life. That’s a conservative message.  They’re using a conservative message to reach their voters!!! They have absolutely no intention of acting like that once they’re elected, but it’s a conservative message that is reaching the voters. So, from that perspective, maybe we can take a little bit of solace or some encouragement that that is what they determined actually resonates with the voters.  Because I think voters, especially here in Colorado, in general really are conservative, don’t you?

BAISLEY:  Yes I do.  And what a great point.  Even Andrew Romanoff, he makes his commercial that says, “Hey, what we really need is a Balanced Budget Amendment.  He talks on a commercial, saying, “When I was in the House, we always balanced the budget. And that’s because Colorado has a Balanced Budget Amendment.  That’s what we need for the United States of America also!”  Well, guess what!  His opponent, Mike Coffman has sponsored — has co-sponsored a balanced budget amendment every year he’s been in Congress.  You know?

COOK:  [laughter]

BAISLEY:  But you’re so right.  These are Republican, conservative, Constitutional conservative positions and they are hammering at us, or kind of trying to draw a distinction almost to the voter that they are the conservatives, and we’re not.  So, I think you may have a great point, there, that they know that the conservative message is what will play well, so they’re just lying!

COOK:  [laughs]  Basically, yeah!  Whether they’re asking voters believe what I say, not what I do.  Is what it boils down to.  Republicans, in general,– and yes, we have some exceptions, Mark, and we have some outliers.  We have people who turned off the Liberty movement.  You and I know that.  But, in general, Republicans are going to follow that prescription.  They’re going to look for lower taxes.  They’re going to look for more pro-business, you know,–and at least nominally pro-business types of policies, much more so than the Democrats ever will.  But the Democrats are the ones who are saying, “We’re going to do all this for you.”  How do you point out the hypocrisy?  How do you get beyond that?  And we’ve got one minute before our break.

BAISLEY:  Well, as I conclude in this, –and we probably, — we can talk about it later if we go further.  But I — we used to be afraid of Socialism and Communism. I don’t think that that resonates with people’s concerns anymore.  These days, we need to talk about where they are really headed ultimately, and that’s Sharia.  That’s something that I think does put it in context.  Um, Ladies, if you don’t want politicians controlling you, don’t be trusting yourselves to the Democratic Party, because they’re headed all the way for Sharia, I’m certain of it.

COOK:  Yeah, I do agree with you.  We’ll talk about that more when we come back.

[commercial break]

COOK: […]Mark, before we went to the break, we were talking about the coming of Sharia law.  And you believe that this is the ultimate aim of the Democrats?

BAISLEY:  Yeah. You know, back in 1963, if you’ll recall, John F. Kennedy was the last Democrat who really stood up against Communism, right?  He stood up against Nikita Kruschev at the Cuban missle crisis.  And he was a bold president.  And really–it was really something else.  And I–I’ve just been convinced, looking back on it that this whole battle of standing up against Communism, which is, you know, the ultimate version of Socialism, I think that just died with the Democratic party along with John F. Kennedy in Dallas.  It just — they haven’t had that fervor against it since John F. Kennedy.  And nowadays, — I even got in a debate with a guy who — it was just — I just ran across.  I don’t even remember how we struck up conversation, but it was in a Panera Bread in Highlands Ranch and he was older than me and he was really pushing for all things Communist.  He didn’t use the word Communist–Communism.  But as he described how he thought the world ought to look, or how America ought to look, I said, “You’re a communist!  And he wasn’t the least bit offended by my saying that.  And that shocked me.  That he — and as soon as I said it I thought, “I probably shouldn’t have said that to a guy I just met.”  But it didn’t bother him at all!  And that was the bigger shock to me and I think that it’s just become a — we’ve just kind of become numb to all that and I think it’s because the Democrats have very successfully — the leadership, the core, or the soul of that party has successfully been transformed from somewhat of a mainstream party in America to a Socialist — at the very least — Party.

COOK:  Right

BAISLEY:  But they’re not slowing down.  Look at all of the signs that have been yelling at us for a long time, the Benghazi situation. I mean, what’s going on with that?  I investigated that quite a bit.  I’ve written a — multiple articles on it, one called “Benghazi for Dummies” if anyone wants to look that up on Townhall. Um, and I lay all of that out, but more information is coming out as folks that were involved in it back (inaudible) beyond that night are talking now,  so more of that’s coming out.  But Obama is capitulating to ISIS, and even his bowing to King — what’s his name, the king of Saudi Arabia, you know, just, I –

COOK:  I’m blanking on his — yeah.

BAISLEY:  All that stuff, it just adds up to a terrific concern for me that where they’re really headed is the  ultimate control of the people, which is Sharia.  \

COOK:  Well, and I do believe that you’re right.  The Muslim Brotherhood in America definitely has a stronghold in the White House, in our government–in our federal government and their objective is to bring Sharia to the United states.  So, that’s something that is terrifying.  That’s something that is hard to convince Democrats and Unaffiliateds that it’s going on.  I feel a little bit like I should invest in tin foil when I start saying that not amongst friends.

BAISLEY:  Right [laughs]

COOK:  So, you know.  So that’s part of the problem.

[The following represents notes and transcribed portions from this interview.  All portions, except where identified as transcribed sections, are paraphrased from the questions and responses between the host and the guest.]

COOK:

• What would lead rational people down that path?

BAISLEY:

• Think of the founders’ leap — even a leap of faith, that was –.
  • Modern day example that brings clarity
    • A economic development project in the US  Virgen Islands
    • In St. Croix, largest of 3 US Virgin islands which had the largest oil refinery in the region, it closed, putting people out of work.
    • They’re trying to attract businesses to come in
    • But they’re adding in all these clauses, saying they shall:
      • Hire local
      • Invest in education
      • Things that make sense but in the end dissuade investment
      • But when it’s all stacked up, you have to ask, why would any company submit to that?
• Let liberty and free enterprise happen!!!
  • Keep taxes low
  • And let the economy thrive
  • But we lose the trust factor
  • We have to let go of the controls.
• Benjamin Franklin’s adage about security and freedom: one can’t exist without the other

COOK:

• Freedom is dangerous and unpredictable, and sometimes people choose wrong!

BAISLEY:

• It’s messy, isn’t it?
• But it’s a good kind of messy

COOK:

• The Giver — it’s a theme about the freedom to choose.  Shouldn’t we have the right to choose, even if we choose wrong?  Of course we should.  But people want security and assurance.  Your article has a list at the end — hit me in the gut, when I read it.  “Trust me with the details of your life, and I will give you order.  Trust me with your safety and I will give you comfort.  Trust me with you riches and I’ll give you security….”  That is so much what Dem voters are looking for, a security blanket.

BAISLEY:

• That’s the truth!
• It would be relevant to read the rest, now
  • Trust me with your ambitions and I’ll give you predictability
  • Trust me with your health, and I’ll relieve you of your shame
  • Trust me with your children, and I’ll give you assurance
  • Trust me with your faith, and I’ll give you answers to every question
  • Trust me with your lives, and I’ll give you shelter
  • The promise of Communism/socialism, the promise of Sharia
• Surrender that over, and get this good, steady, predictable order in your life
  • It’s beyond dignity and freedom according to BF Skinner
  • It’s a Clockwork Orange
  • It’s those things that we should have been afraid of happening for a long time
  • It’s the easy simple answer in humanity that when folks surrender, the people in power complete their destiny
  • We’re not cattle, we’re a fearfully and wonderfully made species that just does not exist in that sort of reality, it’s not our natural state.

COOK:

• This is the end of striving.  They’re asking us to stop reaching, and they’ll never get it,

[commercial break]

BAISLEY:

• I think the bigger question is, “Boy, that sure sounds like religion to me.”
• And I think this reflects the eternal human struggle:  to not confuse our church with our government, they’re not the same.
• We should not look to our government to be our church.  Sharia does that.

COOK:

• There’s a certain trickery going on.  To distract our attention
• Voters want these things  — these emotional needs, that need to be fulfilled and the Dem party is promising to fulfill them for you.
• What is the Republican Party doing to address these needs?

BAISLEY:

• Ok, big hugs to you for what you just said
• When someone else just totally grasps what you’re trying to say
• These are the emotional needs and appeals that the Democrats are offering to fulfill
• What is the RepublicanParty doing, we have to get better at that.
• The typical answer is, “Voters, we’re not doing any of that for you, because that’s not the role of government”
• We need to be reminded of who we are as Americans
  • It’s still in our DNA
  • We need to convey the inspirational thought that there is assurance to be had,
    • but it has to happen through the achievements and hard work and family and science and knowledge and service and paying people rightly in exchange for their services and products
    • We can get back on that track
    • Americans should be:
      • Ambitious
      • Strong
      • Free enterprise
      • Patriotic
      • But it’s an extremely hard sell.
        • That’s why Republicans are always at a disadvantaged
        • I don’t have an answer to it, but looking and listening to our candidates across the state… and seeing their messaging.
        • We’re going to get there, but we’re not there yet

COOK:

• Do we have our elevator speech, yet?

BAISLEY:

• I do.

COOK:

• The Vice Chair is doing the heavy lifting in this state. I find it unfair that you are stuck in that position, but so glad you’re there.  you’re a rock star

BAISLEY:

• I don’t feel stuck in the least.
• When it all started, when Don Ytterberg threw his hat in the race for ????

COOK:

• I wish Ryan Call was doing as good a job, in doing outreach

BAISLEY:

• Ryan and I appeal in our personalities and our style and where we live to the full spectrum of folks that we need to bring together and turn out.
• We do our best as a party… Caucus assembly and primary system — to get the best candidates.
• From there, we just have to get them elected.