How relevant are Tea Parties to GOP?

What next? The Tea Party movement is simply not going to be co-opted by the Republican Party. It's not a creation thereof, and it'ssimply not made for the kind of team politics required by any political party.

In order to benefit from the movement, the Republicans will have to earn their trust, and prove that they mean to live by what we say are our foundational principles - smaller government, lower taxes, more personal liberty. The Republicans can benefit from the movement, but they can neither control nor direct it.

In any event, the next elections are over 18 months away, the next nomination assemblies almost a year out. What can the movement accomplish in the meantime?

This is a movement tailor-made for the initiative process. To push initiatives that clarify for an intentionally myopic State Supreme Court that TABOR means what it says; that retain our control over an initiative process whose purpose is to rein in the legislature; that reassert our state's prerogatives as a sovereign entity, not merely an administrative district for the federal government.

This answer will make Republicans uncomfortable, since by definition, it doesn't involve getting them elected. But it does involve teaching these newly-created activists how to organize for action, getting them savvy about the political process, and creating results that will get them taken seriously by those who matter right now. It's a valuable tool in the maturation process of a movement that should be the party's natural allies in showing - again - that our ideas, when present free of personal political ambition,win.

It's one reason why the Democrats - even now - are plotting to make the initiative process, the one process in state government they don't control - subject to as much rule-bound litigation as possible. They are co-opting Republican goodwill in cleaning up potential fraud, spinning it as a mutual belief that the citizenry needs to be brought under control.

At the end of the day, Republicans have enough institutional staying-power to be there when the movement has matured. Libertarians are simply not going to get elected to anything, although libertarian-leaning Republicans can. The party may have to wait to reap the benefits of this movement, and certain team members may find themselves uncomfortable with certain agenda items they have to sign onto. News flash: not all Democrats are socialists, although that's the agenda of the party.

Too many Republican office-holders and office-seekers will be unhappy with this answer. But if the party tries and fails to control the movement, it will be seen as irrelevant and meddling. If it tries and succeeds, it will only strangle the baby in the cradle. Colorado has one of the most open and welcoming citizen initiative processes in the country, for the time being. Let's make the best use of it for our ideas, and if we deserve it, the elected offices and day-to-day governance will come our way.

RMN, RIP: What a loss

E. W. Scripps has announced that Friday will be the last day of publication for the Rocky Mountain News. This is a sad day for Denver and Colorado, and given the state's pivotal position in nationalpolitics, it's not too good for the country, either.

The Rocky always had longer articles, better coverage, and sharper commentary than its surviving rival, the Denver Post. But a tabloid format and a series of poor marketing and business decisions left it unable to compete in the shrinking market for dead-tree-based news.

The Rocky was also one of the main reasons that the more liberal Post didn't become the utterly irresponsible caricature of a newspaper that the Star-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times have turned into. With the Rocky now gone, there will be less pressure on the Post to be a responsible outlet, rather than a mouthpiece for the Democratic party and its affiliates.

In past times, the Post would have picked up the important features and much of the news staff of the Rocky. However, the Post, is facing financial problems of its own, laying off some editorial and management staff, and it's unclear how long it will continue to function, even without direct competition.

It's tempting to say that bloggers and other alternative media can step into the breach, and it may well be that a number of the reporters from the Rocky will try to develop their own sites for a living. And indeed, I'm sure we'll be able to pick up some of the slack.

But there's nothing like being on payroll to have the time to write and develop sources and stories. The Denver Press Club still has a bias against those who don't have major media organizations behind them, which limits credentialing and access to information and newsmakers. There's no question this is a serious loss for the area.

Opportunities abound in Rocky sale

As by now everyone knows, the Rocky Mountain News has been put on the block, This at a time when the Tribune Company has filed forChapter 11, when over 30 papers are for sale nationwide, and there don't seem to be any buyers for large-market papers.

The business reasons for this have been chewed over ad infinitum, but the chief culprit is declining ad revenue, which only looks to get worse. (I'd also suggest brand equity; the Rocky used to win the lion's share of the journalism awards, but the Post had a better brand, in part because broadsheets seem to carry greater credibility.)

Editorially, this is an opportunity.

It's an opportunity for center-right bloggers, who will now be able to go after the Post as it inevitably spins off to the left, becoming our version of the "Strib" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

It's an opportunity for us in the Colorado blogosphere to do more original reporting, since it's possible the Rocky won't be there to do it.

It may be a big opportunity for the Examiner, which may try to pick up some of the loose talent soon to be running around Denver looking for work. The online paper is based here in town, and could rapidly turn its local edition into the flagship for the country.

It's also an opportunity for the talent at the Rocky, who could try the same thing on their own. Shed the national reporting, bring in some entrepreneurial-minded management, ditch the printing presses and expensive delivery system, and turn the paper into an online, state- and local-oriented newspaper. Charge a nominal fee for a subscription, and go back to a no-holds-barred style, that takes on the Post directly.

Colorado pension plan in trouble

As some of you may have heard, PERA, Colorado's Public Employee Retirement program, has got a little problem. At latest report, its obligations were down to being about 60% funded, a couple of decadesout, down from 80%, which is considered fully-funded. This is before taking into account paper losses from real estate and other non-equity investments.

The reason that being underfunded 30 years out is a problem is that there are still bills to pay today, and that at some point you start paying out money faster than it can grow. One day, you wake up, and the seed corn is gone and the retirees are at the door.

Yesterday's Denver Post cites a 2004 State AG's report to the effect that there may be some legal limitations to what PERA can do. In all likelihood, benefits to current retirees are sacrosanct, barring a constitutional amendment (aren't you now glad that we rejected Referendum O?) to permit a reduction of benefits.

New hires should be put into the 401(k) without even the option of a defined-benefit plan. Those at or approaching retirement age should probably not have their benefits tinkered with. But some combination of higher contributions by employees, lower benefits, and a higher retirement age (really, who gets to retire on full bennies at 57?) will probably be required.

PERA's Board may have to show to a court's satisfaction that all this is necessary to prevent major street corners from being overrun by former state employees and the inevitable tin cup shortage. At the same time, there's no question that PERA has been operating under one of those unspoken assumptions that the taxpayers will always be there to bail them out, if necessary. Thus the somewhat rosy 8.5% growth assumptions underlying their projections.

We'll probably have to await the 2008 Annual Report to see exactly how bad things are, but there's no question that the sooner we deal with this the better. After all, better to ask public employees now to contribute more to their own financial security than to ask you, 15 years down the road and a few years away from your own golden years, to work for a few more years.

Coloradans leaned right on ballot issues

While the Colorado losses by Schaffer and McCain are disappointing, we fared better on a number of statewide ballot issues. Amendments 47 and 49 went down to defeat at the hands of union-extorted money.

But Amendment 54 squeaked by 52-48, and it may well be the most efficacious of the three, limiting certain campaign contributions from unions and vendors of sole-sourch serivces to the government.

Amendment 59, which would have gutted TABOR, failed by a comfortable margin. Outgoing Speaker Romanoff completely sold out to this effort, but the artificially-induced budget squeeze will have to be resolved some other way.

Amendment 58, which would have hiked energy taxes going into a recession, likewise suffered the ignominious defeat it deseves.

Referendum O, which would have severely limited the ability of citizens to act as a check on their own legislature's excesses, went down to defeat as well.

And finally, Amendment 46, which would eliminate all racial and gender preferences by state actors, is failing very narrowly with most of the vote counted. That may still change with final returns.

Editor: Meanwhile in Nebraska, an identical civil rights initiative passed yesterday by 58-42%, sustaining some momentum for Ward Connerly's heroic national effort to achieve color-blind law. And Californians passed their Proposition 8, affirming marriage between one man and one woman in contravention of the recent state supreme court mandate for same-sex marriage.