RTD, the Unloved Transit Agency

RTD Fastracks announced earlier this month that it would be getting $304 million dollars in loans for rebuilding Union Station as a "multimodal transit center". That's a fancy way of saying it is where many of the bus, light rail, and commuter rail will all come together. The press release (pdf) also is excited about $40 million for each of three corridors in the proposed 2011 Federal Budget. However, this probably is nothing more than what is expected as there is no word on this or other circumstances changing the $2 billion dollar shortfall caused by a projected $3 drop in sales tax revenue with only a $1 billion dollar drop in construction costs.

RTD's preferred solution to the problem is a four cent increase in the sales tax in the RTD district. I doubt that the program will get the funding increase as the whole project is about as attractive as a corporate business meeting. The thing is described in terms like "multimodal", "enhanced", "alternative", "sustainable", and other buzz words. I'm a fan of things like commuter rail since it is terribly useful for when a car is not an option and a great deal better than the standard bus. The thing is that the project, indeed RTD itself, does not do a good job of conveying what it does and why it is important.

Look at the name for starters. RTD stands for Regional Transportation District. Is that not the most bland name possible? No sense of geography, history, or even the smallest hint of excitement. And there are at least three other transit agencies alone using that acronym: Sacramento Regional Transit District in California, San Joaquin Regional Transit District centered on Stockton, and the Southern California Rapid Transit District in LA. Contrast that with New Mexico's Rail Runner Express. Even with the unnecessary and silly addition of "express" to the name it is still head and shoulders above something like North Metro Corridor or Southwest Light Rail Line.

In addition there is the streak of libertarian-ish voting on the part of Coloradans, even residents of the Denver area. People are unlikely to be swayed by arguments based upon numbers and facts when the emotional feeling about RTD is, "Hey, why are you back asking for more money for this project? Didn't we give you a sales tax increase back in 2004? And we don't even use/like you that much in the first place."

The Ninth Amendment

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Any Republican who goes on about 'inventing rights not found in the constitution' has not read it. This does not mean that new rights can be invented, but it does mean that those rights that come out of the common law as precedent and tradition are just as real as those listed in the constitution.

So the GOP Was Going to Steal It, Eh?

Being that today is the fifth day of November in the two thousand and eighth day of the common era it is the day after elections in America and I would now like to direct your attention to an article by Greg Palast and widely circulated after it got into the Rolling Stone on October 17th 2008 entitled It's Already Stolen. Is it still up? If not here is a bit from the heart of the 'expose':

Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.

While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.

As the results show Barack Obama winning Colorado's nine electoral votes by about 52.5% to 45.9% (at this time) I'm pretty confident that the prediction of a stolen election was dead wrong. For one thing for it to have been right there would need to be more than 335,000 people who could not vote yesterday or during the long early voting period. That would give Obama another 14% margin. You really think there are that many Democrats in Colorado who didn't get to vote and they're not all blogging about it and calling their paper? Bull. To put it bluntly. Secondly the results were only 1% lower than the final Pollster result of a 7.6% spread. That's well inside the margin of error. Heck, the actual final pollster composite was 51.9% for Obama rather than the 52.5% he got, obviously a few of the undecideds broke for him.

I think today the liberals who promulgated this fear mongering should hang their heads in shame at least here in Colorado. We'll see about the rest of the country, but I expect that despite the deplorable shenanigans that could make a difference in tight races we had an okay election on the whole. My message is that this election has not been rigged or stolen by anyone on the national level and people who say otherwise do a disservice to our democracy.

On Political Screen Names

I am a fine one to talk posting as I do under a handle of my own about politics. If I thought there was something intrinsically wrong with a nom de plume I obviously would not be doing it myself. What I think is wrong is to take a name and abandon it. A handle, an anonymous identity, should be a way of showing an aspect of yourself to the world. Especially when it would harm you in the rest of your life.

Where it goes over the edge is if you use the identities, if you are posting under multiple names, to be your own chorus or to abandon a name as soon as someone challenges you.

And a name should be a name rather than a title. If you have to put "patriot" or "rules" in your name, you aren't or don't. That's what I've got to say for now.

Udall Ahead, but Not Winning Yet

I would love to say that Mark Udall is doing well. The thing is that even though polls show him with a fairly consistent 5% lead over Bob Schaffer he has yet to reach a consistent 50%. This means that he is still vulnerable because around 15% of the electorate is still undecided and that number is actually higher now than it was six months ago.

Lest you think this is a Colorado thing check out the aggregate polling for John McCain vs. Barack Obama in Colorado. Six months ago the undecided percentage in Colorado was approximately 6% and now it is is about 3%. The overall lower percentage is a function of the exposure of the presidential race vs. the senate race in the state. But the fact that the percentages are going in opposite directions is very significant.

Do not take this the wrong way. This is not me spinning the numbers to make it more favorable to former congressman Schaffer. The Republican brand is deeply unpopular this year due to the state of the economy and the behavior of the Bush administration. And this will probably mean that Udall wins in the end. However, the numbers make clear that he is a lackluster candidate. He just happens to be a lackluster Democratic candidate who's a little bit better than the lackluster Republican.

I think this is not because of his liberalism, which is not terribly strong, but because he is neither an inspiring speaker or a good advocate for his causes. He is cast from the mold of the typical Democrat running for statewide office in Colorado in the last decade. They are hungry to win so they put up mildly competent candidates who have the right credentials who look good in comparison with the doctrinaire Republicans with a whiff of corruption about them. The only reason these Democrats win is because Republicans have become so bad. There is nothing in the organization or ideas that would predict positive "we have better ideas" wins for the Democrats, it is all because the Republican party has been subverted by the 'anti-government'/anti-intellectual zealots and people who'll mouth the rhetoric of the same to win.

When the Republican party starts rebuilding and expelling its crooks and Focus on the Family crusaders will start the countdown to the end of Democrats holding the balance of power in this state.