STATE RACISM DOESN’T WORK
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ON THE ROPES

Remove all the political pettifoggery, obfuscation and claptrap, and one thing becomes clear: decisions based on race and gender are racist and sexist. Period.

That’s why a recent poll regarding the November ballot issue that would end racial and gender preferences by the state indicates the measure will win by a landslide.

A Qunnipiac University/Washington Post/Wall Street Journal poll surveyed 1,300 likely Colorado voters and found that 65 percent support the proposed state constitutional amendment to end preferences. Only 15 percent plan to vote against it. For opponents to the measure, the odds are almost insurmountable.

The initiative will appear on the ballot as Amendment 46. If approved, the amendment would read: “The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any group or individual on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public contracting, or public education.”

The overwhelming support of the measure perplexes some academics and political pundits. Rather than accept the fact that Coloradans object to racism and sexism, some have decided that supporters of the measure are simply confused. They have argued that people who signed the petition, which contained a few simple words, were misled.

The Rocky Mountain News quoted Colorado State University political science professor John Straayer explaining that voters don’t know a lot about the amendment, so they tend to “automatically say, ‘Oh, you don’t want to have preferences. Fair is fair, equal is equal’ … When people focus on it a little more, look at the ads, more people will become cognizant of why those preferences were put in in the first place.”

In other words, they might come to a conclusion other than “fair is fair, equal is equal.” They might come to a conclusion that “fair is fair,” but sometimes an unfair policy unfairly benefits me. Or they might conclude that “equal is equal,” and sometimes unequal benefits me.

The instinctive reaction - the one in which Coloradans are repulsed by the idea of race or gender-based preference by the state - is the moral and intelligent reaction.

Racism is the simple act of basing behaviors and words on race; sexism is the act of basing behaviors and words on sex. An enlightened society bases behaviors and words on more relevant considerations, such as intelligence, character, experience, education and achievement. Race and gender don’t enter the equation.

When the state bases college admission - or hiring decisions, or anything else - on skin color and sex, the state engages in racism and sexism. It really is that simple.

When racism and sexism somehow become justified, as people rationalize them with circumstances and needs and the desire to counter historical bias, it doesn’t change the basic fact that’s apparent when people read the simple wording of the proposed amendment. Their reaction: racism and sexism are wrong.

Racial and ethnic minorities don’t need favorable treatment, as if they’re somehow less capable than others. Women don’t need favorable treatment to compete with men. On merit alone they will reverse conventions and ignorant prejudicial practices of the past. Racism and sexism have always been wrong. They cannot be made right by counter efforts at racism and sexism on the part of the state.

Colorado voters are on the verge of institutionalizing genuine civil rights, with an amendment that forbids state officials from basing decisions on sex and race. They support it instinctively and overwhelmingly.

That’s because racism and sexism have no place in this modern world. They’re the remnants of a bygone era, when good ol’ boy networks, cliques and conformity could survive in markets limited by primitive communication, low-end technology and barriers to entry that no longer exist

In today’s highly technical, well-connected, decentralized and intelligent markets, only merit, innovation, intellect and prosperity compete. Today, nobody can afford decisions based on gender or race. That’s why Coloradans instinctively cringe at the thought of state decisions based on gender and race - decisions that are sexist and racist. There oughta be a law, and it looks like there will be one soon.

From the Rocky Mountain News:

Voters favor amendment to eliminate racial, gender preferences
By Bill Scanlon

Friday, June 27, 2008

Colorado voters overwhelmingly favor the idea of ending racial and gender preferences in such areas as college admission, contracting and public-sector jobs, a new poll says.

That poll, of 1,300 likely Colorado voters, found 65 percent of them would support a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to end the preferences, and only 15 percent would vote against it.

Political analysts agree that the huge lead will shrink by November but also say that the measure generates an automatic favorable response from voters and will be difficult to defeat.

The Quinnipiac University/Washington Post/Wall Street Journal poll was taken June 17-24 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.7 percent.

Voters don’t know a lot about the amendment yet, so the tendency among most voters is to “automatically say, ‘Oh, you don’t want to have preferences. Fair is fair, equal is equal,’ ” Colorado State University political science professor John Straayer said.

“When people focus on it a little more, look at the ads, more people will become cognizant of why those preferences were put in in the first place,” he said. “But I don’t know if that’s going to tighten it enough to kill it,” Straayer said. “With a lead like that, it stands a good chance of passing.”

Political analyst Katy Atkinson, a registered Republican, agreed that the amendment numbers will get closer by November, but still predicts an easy victory for it. “The idea of preferences goes against everybody’s egalitarian streak,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything racist or anything like that. Just the idea of giving somebody an extra preference rubs people the wrong pay.

Denver political analyst Floyd Ciruli isn’t sure the proponents have sealed a victory yet.

“It starts with a big presumption in favor of it,” Ciruli said. Coloradans believe in merit, so their first thought is no, there shouldn’t be racial preferences for who gets into college, for example, he said.

© Rocky Mountain News

a href=”http://origin.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_9553901″>Wadhams: Dobson’s lack of support won’t hurt McCain
By Chuck Plunkett
The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 06/11/2008 04:46:16 PM MDT

Colorado Republicans need to focus on fiscal restraint and small government — and avoid social issues — if they want to reassert themselves against the well-funded and well-organized Democratic Party that has emerged in the Centennial State over the last four years, a panel of experts told The Denver Post on a PoliticsWest webcast.

Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams also said that Focus on the Family founder James Dobson’s comments that he would not vote for the party’s presumptive nominee, John McCain, won’t hurt the Arizona senator.

“I got to tell you, I constantly go to Republican events and speak to them and participate in them and I don’t perceive that attitude among social conservatives in Colorado,” Wadhams said. “In fact, our delegation to the national convention, I haven’t done an actual count, but we have a significant number of social conservatives and they are solidly behind Sen. McCain. And so I just don’t perceive any problem on that front.”

Dobson, the evangelical Christian leader who endorsed President Bush in 2004, opposes McCain. He said in February, “I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are.”

Wadhams predicted that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would be John McCain’s pick for vice president. Panelist Eric Sondermann, an independent political analyst and founder of Denver’s SE2 consulting firm, said that would be a bad choice because Romney doesn’t “break the mold, he is the mold.”

David Harsanyi, a Denver Post columnist and author of the recent book “Nanny State,” said that Romney’s Mormon religion would be an issue in the general election if he were a vice-presidential candidate.

The PoliticsWest panel features Wadhams, Sondermann, Harsanyi and Jessica Peck Corry, a public policy analyst for the Independence Institute and a blogger for PoliticsWest.

“I’m concerned about the social issues,” Corry said. “Republicans — we were coming off the booming ’90s and we had the luxury in the state legislature of debating whether or not the Pledge of Allegiance should be mandatory everyday.”

“We don’t have the luxury to have those types of debates now when people are hurting,” Corry said. “We need to get government out of people’s lives, and if I could preach anything or suggest anything to candidates today it’s: ‘Don’t take the bait and start defining what people should do in their own lives.’ Because that’s why, I think, in large part, Republicans did so poorly” in elections during the last four years.

Wadhams agreed, saying: “I think that Republicans are united on economic issues locally on the legislative races. And I think in terms of the U.S. Senate race and the presidential race, it’s national security and fiscal responsibility.”

Chuck Plunkett: 303-954-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com