This column originally appeared on The Denver Post’s www.PoliticsWest.com on March 27, 2008.
By Jessica Peck Corry

Last night in a crowded bar in Denver, an unlikely thing happened. A leading conservative sat down with a libertarian Republican to begin building a bridge toward a united future.

The duo, Jim Pfaff and Sean Duffy, represented opposite ends of the debate on one of 2006’s most contentious ballot issues — the ill-fated Referendum I that sought to strengthen legal rights and protections for same-sex partners. Duffy was the public relations guru behind the campaign, representing lead backer and libertarian Democratic millionaire Tim Gill. Pfaff, president and CEO of the Colorado Family Institute, served as the effort’s lead opponent.

Duffy calls himself a “pro-life, pro-gay” Republican, jokingly claiming that he’s been kicked out of the Republican Party multiple times only to come back for more abuse. You may remember him as the right-hand man of former Gov. Bill Owens, a conservative Republican. “At the end of the day, as Republicans, we should all just want the government to leave us alone,” he told me.

And Pfaff, while frequently identified by his ties to Focus On The Family’s Dr. James Dobson and his commitment to “life” issues, says he wants to work with Duffy and other libertarian Republicans to begin rebuilding the Republican Party in the West after years of Democratic gains. In the last few years alone, five traditionally Republican Western states have elected Democratic governors. Pfaff is passionately eager to work through differences because he says he wouldn’t want to live in a pro-life socialist America. Socialism, he says, ultimately leads to a loss of all freedoms.

Over pints of Guinness, the two tell the story of the mutual admiration for each other. If this was your snapshot of the Republican Party’s two leading ideological factions, you’d have to wonder: What’s the problem?

The problem is huge. Republicans are facing an identity crisis of immense proportions. And social issues like gay rights and abortion are only the beginning. With George W. Bush at the helm, the federal government has maxed out our collective credit cards to continue funding the expansion of entitlement programs and an unpopular — but difficult to end — war.

For Republicans taking a stand against such reckless governance, they risk getting slapped with an “extremist” label. It’s no wonder so few of them are willing to stick their necks out.

It’s a reality already playing out in the early stages of Colorado’s closely-watched 2008 U.S. Senate race, where Bob Schaffer, a former Republican Congressman from Fort Collins, is taking on sitting U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs. While Schaffer should be given a gold star for his six years in Congress, he is being viciously attacked by liberals as a result of his fiscal restraint.

This is a man who fought consistently for a balanced budget, introducing a constitutional amendment to require such. Also a strong supporter of innovative education reform, Schaffer had the courage to vote against the unfunded mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act, reform legislation championed by many in his party, including George W. Bush. His efforts fell on deaf ears under the modern re-election formula that requires little more than bringing massive cash infusions from Washington to one’s home district. Schaffer kept his promise of a three-term limit pledge, returning to Colorado after serving in Congress. He now serves on the state’s Board of Education, most recently calling for transparency in board member spending, requesting that all reimbursement requests by board members be posted online for the public to see.

Jessica Peck Corry is a public policy analyst with the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo.
A March 9 Denver Post report suggests that Schaffer’s record makes him extreme, with the article relying on an analysis of congressional records done by Keith Poole, a University of California political scientist, who according to the article “has created a more comprehensive picture, analyzing every roll-call vote in the U.S. House and Senate since 1937, ranking each of 3,425 lawmakers relative to one another on a scale from most liberal to most conservative.”

But how do you define “conservative” and “liberal” in today’s political environment? Washington would be a better place if only we could elect more people dedicated solely to voting against spending increases. Amidst concerns about rising inflation and unemployment, and coupled with the fact that the average American works until May every year just to pay his or her tax burden, a little tax relief could go a far way.

How does a candidate earn a “moderate” label? Most likely by supporting just enough spending increases to make Democrats play nice. It’s not a world I want to live in when we have a federal deficit that spins out of control and a Colorado state budget that legislators are still struggling to balance even in the aftermath of Referendum C’s nearly $6 billion tax increase.

Conservatives and libertarians should follow the lead of Pfaff and Duffy, putting aside their differences on social issues to elect viable candidates dedicated to protecting the working families and small business owners who suffer most when government spending expands. Now, after years of watching Republicans falter, here’s something I can toast to.

Pamela Anderson’s Political Lessons

By Jessica Peck Corry

This column originally appeared on HumanEvents.com on March 26, 2008.

Everything you need to know about politics in 2008, you can learn from Pamela Anderson.

While it’s easy to dismiss Anderson’s political views, you shouldn’t. The thrice-married 40-year-old Canadian immigrant best known for playing a ditzy lifeguard on the popular syndicated show Baywatch, provided incredible political insight during a recent appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. Yes, I was watching, but only because it was on at the gym.

During her interview with DeGeneres, which aired on March 20, Anderson offered her endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over his rival Hillary Clinton, saying, “My heart is with Obama, my head is with Hillary.”

It was a tough decision for Anderson, but she ultimately sided with Obama because he “touches so many people. . .so many young people are voting. This is my kids’ president, so I feel really emotional about this race. And I think most people do.”

Let’s get this straight. Anderson’s intellect — if you can call it that — is telling her to support one candidate, but her heart is telling her to go with another. She is aware of this, and still chooses emotion over reason. And while it sounds crazy, Anderson’s views are representative of those held by millions of American women. Ultimately, you simply cannot vote for Barack Obama unless your heart tells you to.

As a woman in my late twenties, I’m committed to using my brain — and not my heart — to make my voting decisions. Amongst my girlfriends, this puts me in the minority. As a registered Republican, I often feel like I’m alone on an island of men. Not a bad place to be most days. Until Obama shows up.

The handsome, articulate socialist is the greatest threat the GOP has faced in decades in its efforts to tempt women back to its side of the political aisle. And as a happily married mother of two girls, I worry about the future of my country and my family. Obama’s appeal is simple — based on feelings and devoid of rationale thought, his presidential administration would promise an expansion of government dependency like we’ve never seen before.

Nothing could be worse for women. And Obama is winning the war of words.

In a debate at Howard University last year, Obama encouraged redefining the way we think about socialism in America. “Are we willing to make the investments in genuine equal opportunity in this country?” he said. “People aren’t looking for charity. We talk about welfare and we talk about poverty, but what people really want is fairness. They want people paying their fair share of taxes. They want that money allocated fairly.”

The public’s subsequent acceptance to Obama’s eagerness to change the way we talk about entitlements in this country is based on emotion. A little question for Obama and Anderson — what exactly is fairness?

While Obama likes to boast of his opposition to tax relief for America’s wealthiest families (and job providers), he fails to mention that should he be elected, America’s middle class would face an enormous new effective tax burden. As the Wall Street Journal’s Steven Moore has concluded, Obama in the White House could lead to a 39.6 percent personal income tax, a 52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax, a 28 percent capital-gains tax, a 39.6 percent dividends tax, and a 55 percent estate tax.

Why work at all, when more than 50 cents of every dollar you earn goes straight back to the government? And for small business-owning families like my own, his tax increases could make hiring additional employees prohibitively expensive.

While the initial fiscal bite of an Obama presidency would be painful, the long term consequences could be devastating. Obama preaches to women that we need government to succeed. It’s a message long screamed from the pulpit, but with a new messenger on the stage, it becomes believable.

Democrats have long depended on emotion to win elections. In a 1918 New York Times account, New York Democratic party chair E.S. Harris said the following: “The tendency of the woman voters of this state will be to join the Democratic Party. The fundamental difference between the two great parties is due to the fact that the Democratic Party has always maintained that administration and legislation should be for the whole people, both in form and result. The Republican Party has always championed administration and legislation for the special interests, claiming indirect benefit to the whole people. The inevitable result has been that Republican policies have been business policies; Democratic policies have been humane or social policies.”

As recent history would dictate, Republicans have not been the party of smaller government. When my children first learn about our two-party political system, I fear they will identify Republicans as the big spenders. This presents a gigantic problem for modern GOP candidates. Women are not going to vote for the “socialist-lite” they get with most Republicans, when they can get the real deal with Democrats.

The result: We’re left with a partisan gender gap that has single women in my age group—18-30—saying they are twice as likely to vote for a Democrat than a Republican in the upcoming presidential election. The consequences could be dire for Republicans. In the last presidential election, 22 million single American women in this age group sat the election out. With the prospect of Obama taking the top of the Democratic ticket, these women say they are more likely to vote. Time will tell.

Instead of slowly embracing the growth of government as inevitable, Republicans must take a different approach, demanding that women be treated as equals and capable of living our lives free of government handouts. We must empower women to start believing that they can make it on their own.

In January, Obama told reporters that his strategy for attracting women was to make sure “they know what I have a track record of, what I’ve done on critical issues that are important to women. Not just equal rights and equal pay, not just things like childcare and daycare, and early childhood education, but opportunity that is in many ways disproportionate.”

In other words, Obama will continue to perpetuate a victim message that appeals to women — but is largely disassociated from reality we live and work in. Let’s just hope that most of us are smarter than Pamela Anderson.

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Jessica Peck Corry (Jessica@i2i.org) is a policy analyst with the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo., where she specializes in land use, higher education, and civil rights policy.”

This column originally appeared in the Colorado Daily on March 10, 2008.

Boulder Home to Victim U.

By Jessica Peck Corry

We shall overcome.

This was the chant of dozens of CU students who ditched class late last month to condemn the “racist” column of a misguided University of Colorado journalism student. How sad.

The source of controversy has been well documented. Max Karson, a columnist for the Campus Press, wrote a poorly worded satirical column, titled “If It’s War the Asians Want…It’s War They’ll Get.”

If activists were smart, they would have ignored him. This kid is not a racist, as they claim. Rather, he’s just a bad writer. Instead, Boulder’s victim machine jumped into full force. Concerned students met with university officials to discuss possible sanctions against Karson, using the incident as an opportunity to proclaim the university’s racism (in typical Boulder fashion, however, Karson was excluded from such dialogues).

As a result of the column, the Campus Press temporarily has suspended publication of its editorial section. The staff is also being punished with diversity training. That’s right, I said punished.

Diversity training is racist. Having sat through more than my fair share of it, I’ve got the drill down. You sit in a room—sometimes segregated by race, gender, sexual orientation, or some other characteristic—and for hours at a time learn about why all Whites are racist (even if they don’t want to be) because they benefit from “white privilege.” You then must confess your racial sins and pledge to be an “ally” to militant multicultural causes. Finally, you are given a dictionary-length list of politically correct terms acceptable for conversation. An example: A janitor is no longer a janitor. You must now call him (or her) a “particle inspection engineer.”

Fighting for a color-blind or class-free campus isn’t enough. In fact, such visions are today seen as backwards and ignorant. But that’s a column for another day. Ultimately, diversity on the CU campus is about accepting a liberal mindset plagued with guilt. There is no room for conservative deviations from this well-established norm.

If I was on the Campus Press staff (and I once was), I’d refuse to participate in the training. I’d instead use that time to hone my skills as a journalist. After all, while we may sometimes forget, the purpose of college is education and not indoctrination.

CU students of every race need to quit feeling sorry for themselves and get back into the classroom. There is no excuse for failure in a place like Boulder. Especially not some kid who doesn’t know how to use satire effectively.

But it’s not just the liberals who are doing the whining. Conservatives also get into the game on occasion. Over the years that I’ve run the Campus Accountability Project, I’ve gotten calls from timid religious or political minorities who were concerned that their perspectives weren’t welcome in the classroom. Had they spoken up in class? No. Had they gone to the professor’s office hours to discuss the ideological imbalance? No. They’d sat in the back of the room, silent in their frustration.

Similarly, I was disappointed when a group of Jewish students contacted me a few years ago—angry that university officials had allowed a library exhibit sympathetic to Palestinian causes. The Jewish students, believing that Palestinians are terrorists, wanted it to be shut down. I suggested that they instead contact the university about having their own exhibit.

I fear for our future when so many of today’s students call for censorship, having lost faith in the process of vigorous debate and believing that they must stop their opposition’s arguments from ever being heard. Free speech is no longer sacred.

If the CU community is wise, it will take this opportunity to quit feeling sorry for itself. There is a lot more to overcome in this life than some kid’s bad satire.

Boulder is a beautiful place, filled with open-minded people eager to make this world a better place. And for those individuals who find themselves appalled by the content of this column, please feel free to contact me. But not until after you’ve done your homework. Don’t let me become your excuse for failure.

Jessica Peck Corry (Jessica@i2i.org) serves as the director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project. Currently, she is a member of CU’s Blue Ribbon Diversity Commission.

CARROLL: Confusing the issue
By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Why would any group subject itself to the brain damage and expense of collecting perhaps 100,000 signatures to put a measure on the Colorado ballot that would change . . . nothing?

What would be the point?

For proponents of Initiative 61, which the state title board approved late last month, the point is betrayed in the ballot title’s opening line:

“Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado Constitution concerning a prohibition against discrimination by the state, and, in connection therewith, prohibiting the state from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, and public contract- ing . . .”

Hmmm, sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Why, those are also the opening words of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, which was approved for the ballot last year as Initiative 31 and which would outlaw government affirmative action programs involving preferences of the sort described above.

Backers of the new amendment have a very different purpose. They want to save preference programs, and they do this in the next sentence. It says the state can also take any action “consistent with the United States Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court” - which of course preserves every single program that Initiative 31 would outlaw.

So Coloradans could face two ballot measures this fall that begin with nearly identical language claiming to ban programs based on preferential treatment. Yet only one would actually do so. Confusing? You bet. Now you know the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this column. The reason a group would subject itself to the trouble of putting a measure on the ballot that would change nothing is to confuse voters and undermine honest debate. It is a strategy of remarkable cunning and cynicism, but whether it succeeds is another matter.

Last week, an attorney for Jessica Peck Corry, a proponent of Initiative 31 - the real anti-preferences measure, remember - filed a formal motion for a rehearing on the pro-affirmative action measure. The motion’s arguments might provide all the fodder the title board needs to muster the courage to kill 61 when it takes up the matter Wednesday.

From the recording of the original hearing, it is clear that at least two board members were uneasy about the nature of 61. Does banning preferential programs in one sentence and then permitting them in the second really comply with the requirement for a single subject, they wondered?

And what would the measure actually do?

The attorney for the amendment, University of Colorado law professor Melissa Hart, was understandably reluctant to answer. Indeed, she was reluctant to acknowledge that preferential programs exist.

“I think there’s obviously a great deal of interpretative debate about whether affirmative action programs constitute preferential treatment or don’t constitute preferential treatment,” she declared unhelpfully at one point. Yet if preference programs don’t exist, then why the need to mimic Initiative 31 and confuse voters?

Hart prefers to call government programs granting a preference to members of one race or sex “modest equal opportunity programs.” That’s her privilege - she can call them purple tomatoes if she likes - but then why not directly ask Coloradans to preserve affirmative action in all of its forms rather than pretend to outlaw some of them?

I’ve always believed the title board and state Supreme Court should give every reasonable benefit of the doubt to citizens trying to put initiatives on the ballot - unless the measures made little sense or their advocates flagrantly violated the rules - so I don’t envy the board as it takes up Corry’s request. But whatever the ruling, supporters of Initiative 61 have already broken new ground in the abuse of initiative process - no minor achievement, when you think of it.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.