Why Colorado's Trump supporters hold firm

A version of this was in all editions of the Sky Hi Daily News Aug 9, 2017

The polarization of our media, our tendency to get our news from either liberal or conservative biased outlets and sources, causes some head scratching since we have hard time understanding what the “other side” is thinking.  Those from the liberal viewpoint cannot  understand why 38% of Colorado’s electorate is persisting in supporting  President Trump  since the news  they hear from Washington  is so negative . Conservatives take comfort in that   even if he fails or has not yet undertaken  them, they approve  his efforts on issues important to them. He is channeling their attitudes, enjoying his sticking a finger in the eyes of the establishment, no matter how crudely and unpresidential he acts. They have not lost their faith in him to deliver on issues. My  own conclusion: it will take evidence of the magnitude of the Nixon Watergate tapes to prove Trump’s  Russian ties illegal or a stalled, downward turning economy to shake their faith.

Donald Trump’s job approval  is low which should be troubling for the state GOP.  Hillary Clinton won the state with over a 5% margin and Trump appears even weaker now.  This makes it an uphill climb for them  in future state, Senate, and congressional elections, assuming the outcome would be influenced by Trump’s coattails. That is an assumption Democrats should not rely on, since “all politics are local” and traditional Republican loyalties and values could “trump” Trump.  This is still a purple state trending  bluer.

Per a recent Gallup state by state poll averaging  the first 6 months of his term, Colorado is one of 17 states where Trump’s  job approval rating is below 40%.  In 17 states his job approval rating is above 50%, but the national average is around 40% over the period. Real Clear Politics, a  tilting conservative site that publishes all national polling results,  confirms the national Gallup figures as well. Between 52-56% of those recently polled disapprove of Trump’s job.  Trump  is  now in the low 40’s in the same  rust belt states that gave him his electoral victory. He would lose those states today. An August 2, 2017  Quinnipiac poll shows Trump with 33%  national job approval, but even then 76% of Republicans still approve his job performance. One demographic that has supported him in the past, white voters without a college education, now disapprove of him 50-43%.

The political weekly , The Colorado Politics, published  a story that Trump supporters were holding firm. (July 21, 2017 https://coloradopolitics.com/six-months-trump-doesnt-shake-colorado-believers

) . Their team of reporters, including Joey Bunch,   interviewed some  Colorado 2016 Trump supporters to see if and  why they still supported him.  Of those interviewed, most liked  his brash attitude- and his anti-Washington appointments and attacks.  They like where his is going on “religious freedom”,   school choice ; more aggressive military action ; immigration; gun rights; Supreme Court  and cabinet appointments; pro life; anti EPA regulations, rollback of entitlements,  and “getting the ball rolling” on jobs and the economy.  Those interviewed  did not take the Russian connection investigations  seriously and blamed  media coverage for being a distraction.  I noted that of those interviewed repeal/replace Obamacare received no specific mention. A Magellan poll  taken in April  showed similar findings on some issues but revealed  60% Colorado voters would rather have Obamacare fixed, not repealed.

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2476

http://magellanstrategies.com/colorado-voter-opinion-survey-release-part-2-2/

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/02/the-still-conservative-states-of-america/515592/

http://theweek.com/speedreads/716802/trump-losing-base-democrats-have-lost-white-working-class-internal-polling-shows

 

The power of slogans for good and evil (updated with comments on Charlottesville)

A version of this appeared in the Aug. 16, 2017 editions of the Sky Hi News

In political marketing successful slogans can determine the winner.  Donald Trump’s win was largely due to  a visceral and effective use of a slogan, "Make America Great Again". The most effective slogans inspire people,  and give them hope. They can also resonate with their worst fears and prejudices as the racist demonstrators in Charlottesville, VA illustrated last Saturday.

The slogan the Democratic Party has crafted recently, “A Better Deal” , did not exactly touch my heart.  Something that is  just relatively better is not a very inspiring goal. One that might be a positive umbrella with wide appeal could be something like  " for an America, a land of opportunity" . It promotes Democratic platforms of inclusion, supporting the integrity of democratic institutions and voter rights, a rational immigration policy, and helpful to daily  lives of more people from student loan relief and low cost trade schools, raising the minimum age,  and affordable access to health care.

Slogans can also be deceptive and difficult to fulfill. Donald Trump's slogan " Make America Great Again" was  vague enough that voters could imagine   their own  hopes and fears fitting under the  slogan’s umbrella, unless it was more exactly defined. It had an inspirational , nationalistic ring . Fact checkers found he  often lied about statistics and examples he cited to support his slogans and he offered few concrete "how and what" plan details to reach those goals. Trumps's attacks on Clinton's character and hard line immigration policies  fell under the  larger Make America  Great Again banner with the operative word "again" , a time past which meant to many before women's lib and the civil rights movement. There are in-depth post election studies  that showed  racism and sexism motivated a significant number of Trump voters in the  2016 election.

Trump's economic message was a promise he would make America great again by putting American interests first by going it alone without the burden of multinational agreements and reducing regulatory and tax burdens on business and individuals. We would return again to a nation of manufacturing instead of importing from countries to which we had exported our jobs . His  economic message went  virtually unchallenged  by Clinton, a fatal error, and her slogan, "Stronger together" never quite caught on. Her message strategy was not about togetherness for all. Instead, she appealed to certain demographic segments.

Trump’s sub slogans appealed to white supremacists and he has done little to criticize their use/misuse. Throughout the 2016 campaign and in Charlottesville, VA this past weekend, instead of calling out the KKK, alt-right, and neo Nazis, he condemned bigotry "on many sides". This was a glaring example of his continued reluctance in the campaign to say anything specific that would lose racists' support. White supremacists used another Trump slogan, "Take America Back", to rally their demonstrators and some wore Trump buttons. Democrats, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) and some other GOP senators strongly and quickly called Trump out for not condemning the supremacists as evil doers. The next morning, an unattributed White House statement did "include" as bigots supremacist organizations by name. The following Monday, the President himself called racism evil and called out the KKK, neo Nazis, and white supremacists by name, to his credit.

Hate slogans provoke hate and threats of violence are met with threats and acts of violence. The only way out of such a vicious circle is for moral, religious and political leaders to point a different way. In the midst of the violence in Charlottesville there was another image, of a line of robed clergy singing of love and peace in spite of the KKK and Nazis intimidating them with tiki torch marches and Nazi slogans the night before.

A contrast with Donald Trump's initial message was Ronald Reagan's winning and  inspiring 1980 election eve address: " These visitors to that city on the Potomac do not come as white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still…a shining city on a hill....."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/17/racism-motivated-trump-voters-more-than-authoritarianism-or-income-inequality

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/14/trump-denounces-white-nationalists-after-violence/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/far-right-groups-blaze-into-national-view-in-charlottesville.html

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/cory-gardner-calls-out-trump-we-must-call-evil-by-its-name/article/2631371

https://coloradopolitics.com/republican-sen-cory-gardner-demands-trump-lay-blame-white-nationalists-hatred/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/13/leading-republicans-call-on-president-trump-to-den/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_campaign=pushnotify&utm_medium=push

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/12/us/charlottesville-unite-the-right-rally/index.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2017/06/new_research_on_role_of_sexism_in_2016_election.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/28/fareed-zakaria-america-becoming-irrelevant-under-t

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_geoffrey_skelley/just_how_many_obama_2012_trump_2016_voters_were_there

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/28/fareed-zakaria-america-becoming-irrelevant-under-t

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_geoffrey_skelley/just_how_many_obama_2012_trump_2016_voters_were_there

http://theweek.com/speedreads/716802/trump-losing-base-democrats-have-lost-white-working-class-internal-polling-shows

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-congressional-map-is-historically-biased-toward-the-gop/

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/08/gop-could-still-win-midterms-in-2018-despite-low-approval-for-trump.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-try-co-opt-populist-rage-hilarity-ensues-090005021.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fights-in-advance-of-saturday-protest-in-charlottesville/2017/08/12

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/democrats-continue-line-behind-bernie-sanders-health-care-232205359--abc-news-topstories.html

Profile in Courage awards go to Senators McCain and Graham

My profile in courage awards go to Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham who lived up to JFK's beloved book highlighting the bios of eight political leaders who voted their consciences and principles in spite of political and popular pressure to the contrary. McCain's no vote on the "skinny" repeal/replace bill and his urging to return to regular order to create legislation was dramatic..Graham's defense of AG Sessions was based upon his concern about the damage to rule of law that would turn democracy upside down. I am posting a link to his remarks in full. Pay attention to the last part of his reasoning. It is profound regarding his concern about democracy and the rule of law and the damage Trump is contemplating doing to it.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/lindsey-graham-holy-hell-jeff-sessions/index.html

Sen.Cory Gardner owes Sen. John McCain thanks for his vote against GOP health bill

A version of this appeared in all editions of the Sky Hi News, August 2, 2017

Colorado Senator Cory Gardner owes Sen. John McCain  thanks for McCain’s  deciding vote against the Senate “skinny” bill to repeal/replace Obamacare. A Magellan poll of Colorado voters showed 60% wanted Obamacare repaired, not repealed or replaced.  By the time of Gardner’s re-election  campaign in 2020,  it  is now more likely that Colorado voters will  have forgotten  how badly the GOP bill would have hurt Colorado citizens. The full impact on Colorado of the bills he supported would have been felt in the middle of his re-election campaign, but by 2020 the issue will have been relegated to memories of what could have happened.

Voters may forget that not only did he vote in favor of all GOP Senate repeal/replace bills, he was a leader in designing the GOP’s preferred version of repeal/replace legislation. Gardner was one of the committee of GOP senators who crafted that  original version of the bill. The CBO score on that bill  would have resulted in 22 million losing  access to affordable health insurance among other hurtful impacts.  

Gardner will be facing re-election in 2020 in  a state that turned blue in 2016 with Hillary Clinton winning the state with a 5%  plus margin. Had the Senate voted in favor of the parliamentary ruse  to send their “skinny” legislation to a conference committee, no one knows what would have come out of negotiations with the House version, but it would not have been skinny  since the GOP’s Senate original version differed little from the House version. Even the skinny bill  itself would have left 16 million without insurance and cause a 20% increase in premiums, per the Senate Budget Office score and Gardner voted for that, too.

Here is how Colorado would have been hurt if Gardner had had his preferred way. Over  400,000 in Colorado alone could have lost  their health insurance over the next ten years . Rural hospitals and urban charity hospitals would  have lost many paying customers, causing some to close. Medicaid expansion under Obamacare could have been eliminated.    Colorado  could  have voted to restore the loss of Medicaid expansion  at the cost to taxpayers of $15 billion over ten years.

22% of Colorado adults  with  pre-existing conditions could have been dumped into a “high risk” pool in which the premiums could have to be raised to the point of being unaffordable . Seniors between 50 and 65 could have seen premiums increase by $2 thousand a year. Women could be charged more than men again for  coverage of their special services, from prenatal to maternity care, cancer screenings, mammograms, birth control pills,  assuming those benefits would even  be offered . However. all guarantees  of benefit inclusions were removed in both House and Senate versions. GOP versions removed medicaid funded coverage of 60% of elderly in nursing homes.

If Gardner is banking on  many voters forgetting how much he did not care  about their health insurance, count on his opponents to try to remind them.  Gardner’s worst nightmare might be if Colorado governor John Hickenlooper (D) is his  opponent.  Hickenlooper  will be the most effective and credible  reminder  of Gardner’s votes, since Hickenlooper led the bipartisan committee of governors to  urge a no vote on the GOP dominated  Senate’s repeal/replace attempts.

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/22/cory-gardner-senate-health-care/

http://magellanstrategies.com/colorado-voter-opinion-survey-release-part-2-2/ 60% in Colorado in April wanted Obamacare to be fixed, not repealed

http://www.skyhinews.com/news/colorado-health-care-series-part-4-experts-warn-to-beware-effects-of-dismantling-obamacare/

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/16/hickenlooper-kasich-letter-opposing-health-bill/

https://www.coloradostatesman.com/report-gop-health-plan-would-cost-colorado-15-billion-or-leave-hundreds-of-thousands-without-care/
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/13/denver-health-other-hospitals-worry-about-newly-uninsured/

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/29/cory-gardner-health-care-obamacare-repeal-vote/

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/politics/sen-cory-gardner-moving-denver-office-after-protest-arrests

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/02/the-still-conservative-states-of-america/515592/

https://coloradopolitics.com/hickenlooper-face-nation-healthcare/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/poll-most-time-end-effort-repeal-obama-health-074755459--politics.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/22/senate-panel-begin-bipartisan-hearings-stabilizing-health-insurance-market/589555001/