A few words on the "Colorado Model"
| By Alan Franklin - Aug 3rd, 2009 at 2:05 pm EDT |
I started working for an organization called the Rocky Mountain Progressive Network in mid-2004. Between that time and today, what started as a blog and a small email list run out of my boss Mike Huttner’s law office has grown into an organization (ProgressNow) with a presence in 12 states and a total email network of over 2.5 million people. We’re described as a key part of what conservatives dismayed by progressive success in our state call the “Colorado Model.” This term is usually used in some kind of shadowy, conspiracy-theory conjuring hushed voice, and includes names like “George Soros” and “The Four Horsemen”—maybe with someone in the background making scary ghost noises.
I’ve never met George Soros so I’ll have to take their word for how scary he is.
Honestly, the term “Colorado Model” doesn’t really mean much to me—for the last five years, though, it’s apparently been my day-to-day life. I got into politics very much by accident after a right-wing activist named David Horowitz came to my school and tried to get professors I respected fired. This made me and a number of my friends at school very angry; we wound up in the legislature testifying against 2004’s failed “Academic Bill of Rights.” At some point during that battle, my current bosses noticed me and offered me this job. Being a middle-performing television salesman and history major wondering what the heck I was going to do after college, I eagerly accepted.
In the last five years I’ve watched with pride as our role in Colorado politics has grown. ProgressNow, working with a network of the finest people and organizations it has ever been my privilege to know, has played an important role in progressive victories all over the state. Using new media technologies and outreach methods first pioneered by Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, we grew Huttner’s list of 600 or so friends and associates into a network of hundreds of thousands in Colorado alone. We have leveraged this network to empower Coloradans to take action on issues before the legislature that impact their daily lives. We have fought against “Lexus Lane” toll roads and unfair price hikes by Xcel Energy. And we have held right-wing politicians rigorously accountable for their record, policies, and statements.
Last week, Weekly Standard columnist Fred Barnes appeared in Denver to discuss the present state of the “Colorado Model.” My boss Huttner was there, and managed to get an autograph from Barnes on the issue of the Standard that features his column about our work (above). Having listened to Barnes’ remarks about our effectiveness, I’m obviously flattered: but a little concerned that conservatives trying to understand ‘the secret’ of our success are missing the point.
For Barnes and his fellow conservatives, it’s all about the money—as he tells the story, a small network of “rich Democrats” who made all these sweeping changes in Colorado politics happen with giant checks. I’m grateful to the donors who see enough value in our work to financially support it, but Barnes’ fellow conservatives know that all the money in the world can’t change reality. If it could, I think it’s reasonable to assume they would have done it a long time ago.
What progressive funders in Colorado did, starting in 2003 and continuing to today, is identify key areas where progressive infrastructure was lacking—the right complains about getting rolled over by the novel “Colorado Model,” but they’ve had the Independence Institute since the 1980s. The fact is, what we built in Colorado is a smarter, more modern version of what the right has had for years in terms of message development and distribution. Advances made in social networking and online outreach created new opportunities, but the simplest explanation for progressive success in Colorado was simply the fielding of equivalent resources to what has dominated the local political scene for decades. As soon as we were hitting back with a progressive message at the same level of sophistication and permanence we were confronting, right-wingers in Colorado began to lose.
Did they lose because we were better at agitating the public than they were? Having been to a few right-wing events, and met the “Swastika Guys” of the world, I’m inclined to doubt it—they still corner the market on visibility and audacity. Did they lose because these scary progressive donors had more money than conservatives to spend winning hearts and minds? Of course not.
They lost because they were on the wrong side of history. They lost because the voters of Colorado decided the “solutions” conservatives were offering to the state’s growing challenges weren’t working. They lost because when the people of Colorado went to the conservatives for answers on issues like education and healthcare, they were given tax-cut rhetoric and diatribes about gay people. They lost because they were no longer effectively representing the people of Colorado.
All that was missing was permanent infrastructure, to spell out the full extent of the right’s failure to govern responsibly for the voting public—we knew we could count on the rest to work itself out, and we were not disappointed. That’s the “Colorado Model” as I’ve lived it these past five years, and my gratitude to those who support our work behind the scenes, however great, can never equal my gratitude for the citizens who made every success we claim credit for possible.
I’ve never met George Soros so I’ll have to take their word for how scary he is.
Honestly, the term “Colorado Model” doesn’t really mean much to me—for the last five years, though, it’s apparently been my day-to-day life. I got into politics very much by accident after a right-wing activist named David Horowitz came to my school and tried to get professors I respected fired. This made me and a number of my friends at school very angry; we wound up in the legislature testifying against 2004’s failed “Academic Bill of Rights.” At some point during that battle, my current bosses noticed me and offered me this job. Being a middle-performing television salesman and history major wondering what the heck I was going to do after college, I eagerly accepted.
In the last five years I’ve watched with pride as our role in Colorado politics has grown. ProgressNow, working with a network of the finest people and organizations it has ever been my privilege to know, has played an important role in progressive victories all over the state. Using new media technologies and outreach methods first pioneered by Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, we grew Huttner’s list of 600 or so friends and associates into a network of hundreds of thousands in Colorado alone. We have leveraged this network to empower Coloradans to take action on issues before the legislature that impact their daily lives. We have fought against “Lexus Lane” toll roads and unfair price hikes by Xcel Energy. And we have held right-wing politicians rigorously accountable for their record, policies, and statements.
Last week, Weekly Standard columnist Fred Barnes appeared in Denver to discuss the present state of the “Colorado Model.” My boss Huttner was there, and managed to get an autograph from Barnes on the issue of the Standard that features his column about our work (above). Having listened to Barnes’ remarks about our effectiveness, I’m obviously flattered: but a little concerned that conservatives trying to understand ‘the secret’ of our success are missing the point.
For Barnes and his fellow conservatives, it’s all about the money—as he tells the story, a small network of “rich Democrats” who made all these sweeping changes in Colorado politics happen with giant checks. I’m grateful to the donors who see enough value in our work to financially support it, but Barnes’ fellow conservatives know that all the money in the world can’t change reality. If it could, I think it’s reasonable to assume they would have done it a long time ago.
What progressive funders in Colorado did, starting in 2003 and continuing to today, is identify key areas where progressive infrastructure was lacking—the right complains about getting rolled over by the novel “Colorado Model,” but they’ve had the Independence Institute since the 1980s. The fact is, what we built in Colorado is a smarter, more modern version of what the right has had for years in terms of message development and distribution. Advances made in social networking and online outreach created new opportunities, but the simplest explanation for progressive success in Colorado was simply the fielding of equivalent resources to what has dominated the local political scene for decades. As soon as we were hitting back with a progressive message at the same level of sophistication and permanence we were confronting, right-wingers in Colorado began to lose.
Did they lose because we were better at agitating the public than they were? Having been to a few right-wing events, and met the “Swastika Guys” of the world, I’m inclined to doubt it—they still corner the market on visibility and audacity. Did they lose because these scary progressive donors had more money than conservatives to spend winning hearts and minds? Of course not.
They lost because they were on the wrong side of history. They lost because the voters of Colorado decided the “solutions” conservatives were offering to the state’s growing challenges weren’t working. They lost because when the people of Colorado went to the conservatives for answers on issues like education and healthcare, they were given tax-cut rhetoric and diatribes about gay people. They lost because they were no longer effectively representing the people of Colorado.
All that was missing was permanent infrastructure, to spell out the full extent of the right’s failure to govern responsibly for the voting public—we knew we could count on the rest to work itself out, and we were not disappointed. That’s the “Colorado Model” as I’ve lived it these past five years, and my gratitude to those who support our work behind the scenes, however great, can never equal my gratitude for the citizens who made every success we claim credit for possible.
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