Jeffco Pols - Recent Comments

But let's be clear:

Steve Harvey — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:13:04 GMT

I challenged some aspects of your diary, and you responded (and in fact continue even now to respond) to strawmen which weren't the aspects I challenged (with all sorts of nonsense about "pixie dust" idealism that had nothing to do with anything I actually said, accompanied by a complete disregard of the substantive and meaningful things that I actually did say). That you did so both erroneously and obnoxiously only adds to the discredit you do to the brand name you've been entrusted with, achieving a level of intellectual tone deafness on a par with some of the worst Colorado Pols posters.

There never was any "right-wrong" dichotomy, though you seem incapable of thinking in other terms. My points about priorities (substance over form; competence for office over competence for running for office; commitment to public welfare over commitment to winning elections), never downplaying the functionally realities, were consistently ignored, while imagined comments I never made were consistently addressed. Your attack of the form of my posts (relying on the fact that I spilled lots of words, and stating, wrongly, that I had replied to myself rather than, as was the case, made follow up replies to you and the other poster participating), and remarkably persistent disregard of the substance of my posts, relying on smugness rather than any cogent understanding of the issues raised, just adds to the weakness demonstrated by your need to defend your little patch of turf rather than embrace a willingness to engage on issues. And while you think I was somehow obligated to let the complete misrepresentations that you "left it at" uncorrected, that's just not how interactive media works.

You respond to my post two weeks after I made it, one week after the last post was made on the diary, a month after the diary was published, in order to desperately try to define yourself as the authoritative voice in an exchange that you, somewhat bizarrely, didn't seem quite able to follow. Sorry, but, while it would be nice to be able to simply declare yourself the voice of wisdom and thus make it so, it's what you actually demonstrate that counts. And "Jeffco Pols" or not, what you demonstrated in this exchange is a shallow commitment to a narrow understanding, accompanied by an inability to ingest ideas that don't already fit into that package.

But, please, don't let me dissuade you from your promise to have nothing further to say. Since you're convinced of the transparency of your correctness and my folly, no more words are required on your part, or mine.

Though I am delighted that you have nothing left to say.

Steve Harvey — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:34:40 GMT

I'm content to let my "unique vision" stand on its own. Why don't we just let your "unique revision" do the same?

You responded to my "challenge"

Steve Harvey — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:29:30 GMT

with platoons of strawmen, smugly demolishing imagined points no one had ever made. As I found more focused ways to knock down those straw men, I reposted with those. All of my posts served the purpose that was intended: To point out that candidacies are not ends in themselves, nor even is winning an election an end in itself, but rather both are means to the ends of improving our institutional landscape, and that, under certain circumstances (such as mine, in my district, this year), my distribution of efforts is not only completely rational in pursuit of that ultimate goal, but can also be considered, in light of the ultimate goal, a better testimonial to "seriousness" than the reductionist definition that you employ. I further pointed out that a medium of communication that styles itself "a political blog" might consider examination of the training, background, and public interest-serving activities of candidates to be at least as valuable as a comparison of how much money they have raised in their respective campaigns, and that dismissing such a suggestion with "sure, we all agree that the public should be better informed about candidates, but that's not going to happen any time soon" sort of misses the point of the criticism. You took repeated offense at my expression of these points, and, as I said, mobilized waves of strawmen that had nothing to do with what I actually posted. It's really just that simple.

What is OUR problem?

Jeffco Pols — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:14:59 GMT

We made a simple point in this diary, you challenged it, and we responded to you. We left it at that.

But you just wrote 100,000 words and replied to yourself a half-dozen times over the course of three days. All of this fabulous wordsmithing served no other purpose than to reinforce our point (well, in fairness, it did also prove that you know the meaning of a lot of different words).

If you truly believe otherwise -- that all of this really made it look as though we were wrong and you truly have the only unique vision of how this should all work -- then brother, we've got nothing left to say. Good luck with all that.

"not some pie in the sky dream of making a difference"

Steve Harvey — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:26:42 GMT

IMHO, anyone who runs for office for any reason other than to make a difference is the one who is wasting everyone's time.

What I did instead of spending enormous amounts of time raising money may well increase my chances of winning in 2012 (if I choose to run again) more than raising more money would have done. To eventually win in HD28, we need to sell our brand here. The most important thing for us to do is to create an association between "the Democratic candidate" and the community, reason, and goodwill. Through my community organizing efforts, I've cultivated a small cadre of moderate Republicans in my district who are staunch supporters. Voters who aren't going to simply vote along party lines are looking for competent, reasonable people of goodwill comnmitted to the public welfare. My focus has been on being just that.

By the way, I will never be an absentee or inattentive father, so, if you mean to say that a candidate has a moral obligation to neglect their family responsibilities, my disagreement with you is even more pronounced.

I understand that that is the conventional wisdom.

Steve Harvey — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 03:58:42 GMT

And I've had my own conversations with elected officials over whether it is better to leave certain Republican incumbents unchallenged, and direct the resources that would have gone to challenging them toward races with better odds. I don't know the answer to that, though I do know that there are purposes to being a candidate in an all-but-impossible district to currently win, and I have laid out those purposes at length above. I also know that to be rational about it while pursuing those purposes is, well, rational.

Yes, the line is about winning and losing the election, which is why I never challenged its accuracy. Instead, I challenged its primacy.

Even Jeffco Pols, in another context (the diary on the incomplete Jeffco ballot) acknowledges that there are, indeed, races that are nearly impossible to win. I'm not setting up excuses for my eventual loss; I'm explaining that I'm pursuing the goal that elections serve, and using my candidacy to do so, in a district with overwhelming odds against me, in the most rational and effective way possible.

Pursuing that goal is a 24/7 job for me. Being a candidate, as you define it, isn't. So, as a candidate, I invest the bulk of my time and effort in the things that pay off, in service to that goal, whether I win or lose the election, and invest less in the things that pay off only if I win the election. The less winable the district is, the more that makes sense. The more winable the district is, the less it makes sense. Context matters.

And here's the context: My district has worse numbers than any district the Dems have ever turned. Ever. So, yes, you're right: I have not maximized my chances of winning, because the opportunity costs to doing so were too great. Instead, I've invested my time and effort into things that have an effect, that help to change the context in HD28, and that increase my ability to be a viable candidate if the context in HD28 changes.

I agree that arguing with people on blogs whether it's more important for a candidate in a long-shot campaign to spend huge amounts of time raising money rather than spend huge amounts of time talking about issues and actually affecting social institutions does not serve any positive purpose, other than to address what I consider a fallacy, and to draw emphasis to what I consider more essential. I would be happy to let my statement of my position on the question stand as my statement of my position, without having to waste any more time addressing insistent and erroneous assertions that my statement of my position is somehow "invalid" or immoral. It isn't.

The bottom line remains the same: I'm doing my best to positively affect the social institutional landscape of Colorado. And that's the only goal I care about.

So much to give and it will never see the light of day

JeffcoDemo — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:36:14 GMT

The line is about winning and losing an election, not some pie in the sky dream of making a difference.

Every minute spent responding to these posts means a greater chance that the opponent wins.

Being a candidate is a 24/7 job, to be successful it must consume you.

To suggest that being a candidate is just a part of your full life is just setting up excuses for your eventual loss.

To suggest otherwise is just wasting your time, your campaign team's time, your party's time.

Just to leave no doubt, I'm going to go to the trouble of picking off your strawmen, one by one:

Steve Harvey — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:33:11 GMT

Odd, don't you think, that everyone else seems to "not get it"?

As with all things, some get it, and some don't. I never talked about who does and doesn't; that's your addition to the conversation. Shortly after you posted that, for instance, Blue Cat on Colorado Pols "got it." As I said below, I think that most people who aren't political bloggers "get it." And here's what "it" is: 1) The relative abilities of candidates to perform the job for which they are applying is more important information for the electorate than predictions of electoral outcomes based on relative fund-raising. There's room for the latter, but it should not so completely displace the former; and 2) a candidate who is pursuing the public welfare first and foremost, even above winning the election, and is running because of, and in service to, that commitment rather than as a superordinate goal which trumps that commitment, can be "a serious candidate" in a sense other than the sense of putting winning the election above all other considerations.

Sometimes you promote yourself as a candidate (by boasting, for example, that you outraised your opponent), but then, in other instances, you go out of your way to explain that your "ultimate purpose is not to get elected."

These two are not mutually excusive, nor even in a tension with one another. I am a candidate, and do want to win. I work hard to advance my candidacy, though at the same time I work hard at other things aimed at the same ultimate goal as well. I do not separate them into separate and unarticulated efforts, but rather consider them all part of a single effort, and, as such, make decisions about each, not in a vacuum, but rather as a part of a whole. My decision not to spend all of my available time raising money was a direct result of the fact that I wanted to have that time for doing things that I rationally concluded had a bigger pay-off vis-a-vis that ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is the goal that my candidacy serves, which makes my candidacy important, but not of superior importance to the goal it serves.

You lay blame on the Democrats in your district for not doing more to help a Democrat get elected.

I don't lay blame on anyone; I said that context matters, that the degree of investment in winning of the core Dems in HD28 is part of that context, and if that context were to change in a way which increased the odds of winning, then it could become rational to divert some of my resources from other enterprises aimed at improving our institutional landscape toward my candidacy.

But if you don't care -- if your ultimate purpose is not to get elected -- then why would you expect anyone else to care?

Again, my caring about improving our social institutional landscape and wanting to serve in the state legislature in service to that commitment, and my ultimate goal being improving our social institutional landscape rather than getting elected, aren't mutually exclusive. Nor was I making any comment about my "expectation." I was commenting rather on what is, and on how things would change if the status quo were to change. That's not a statement of expectation. The truth is that I do care, passionately, about the quality of our social institutional arrangements, and am fully and deeply committed to positively affecting that. I enourage others to care about that as well, and if they choose to, then they can choose to support my candidacy in service to that ultimate goal as well. Furthermore, I do care about winning, and do many things to position myself to be able to win if the context changes. That would seem to me to be a very big incentive to help change that context.

You obviously enjoy being a candidate. It's completely transparent, and there's nothing wrong with that. So why do you try so hard to act like you don't really care?

And yet again, "enjoying being a candidate" (which I generally do), and it being a means to an end rather than an end in itself, are not mutually exclusive, nor even in a tension with one another. I have never acted as if I "don't care" (which also wouldn't be exclusive of, or in any tension with "enjoying being a candidate). I've only acted as if I do not consider winning to be the superordinate goal, to the extent that the goal it serves (improving the social institutional landscape) is sometimes served by taking some time and effort away from my candidacy and investing it elsewhere.

We all have a little bit of hubris, but only the truly arrogant pretend otherwise.

I'm very straightforward about who and what I am. Accusing me of trying to hide my hubris is about as desperate as it gets, since the far more common criticism is that I don't make enough of an effort to hide it. And for you to accuse anyone else of arrogance, as you sit there using a pretence of authoritative knowledge to smugly but erroneously declare absolute truths, is just a bit ironic.

The lectures have more than gotten tiresome.

Stop blowing your smoke, and I'll stop clearing it away.

skip the bullshit "holier than thou" diatribes We do understand. You aren't that complicated. This isn't brain surgery.

Nothing "holier than thou" about it; I respect and admire people who focus single-mindedly on winning elections, and do not consider their priorities in any way inferior to mine. The fact that I also do not consider them in any way superior to mine does not suggest a "holier than thou" attitude, but rather a "no less holy than thou" attitude.

and the "you just don't understand" nonsense.

I've never used the phrase "you don't understand;" I've simply argued against your assumptions and conclusions. As is natural in any debate, if I think you are wrong about somethings, I make my arguments about why you are wrong. You can always dismiss any such disagreement with the words in the block quote above. So, are you saing that it's "nonsense" for anyone to ever dare disagree with you, and argue a position that suggests that yours is not the perfect and ultimate understanding of the matter? See above, re: "arrogance".

We do understand. You aren't that complicated. This isn't brain surgery.

I agree that it's simple, and that I'm not that complicated, which is why I'm perplexed by the difficulty you seem to be having with it.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who run for office who both try hard and have a real desire to help their community.

As I said in one of my posts above. The two are not mutually exclusive. Nor are they always and in every way compatable and mutually reinforcing. Some people decide that the way they are going to help their community is by winning an election, and so make winning the election the absolute priority. Some people decide that they are going to make candidacy for office one component of trying to approve their community, and so don't make winning the election the absolute priority. I belong to the latter group. That in no way implies that the former group doesn't or can't exist.

You cannot be a serious candidate if you don't try to raise money.

Within the confines of your definition of "a serious candidate," I completely agree with you here. But, see my discussion below in my "components" post about an alternative definition of "a serious candidate."

just stop blaming us and everyone else for pointing out the obvious.

I haven't blamed anyone for anything. I've simply added in an alternative perspective and some additional information, in order to add context and depth to the superficial and dysfunctionally selective information that you have chosen to supply. I'm critical of the universe you identify as "political relevance," but it has nothing to do with "blame," and certainly not blame for pointing out that poor fund raising greatly reduces the odds of electoral victory, something I have agreed with from the beginning (though in your first post you pretended that I was disagreeing with it, in your first set of strawmen).

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Let's break this down into its components.

Steve Harvey — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:49:49 GMT

Since "Jeffco Pols" is very upset about something I wrote, or something I am, maybe they can point out which of these components is so offensive to them:

1) I agreed to run for HD28 because doing so helps serve my goal of improving our social institutional landscape.

2) Since winning was unlikely under any circumstances, it mostly accomplishes this indirectly, by providing a context for talking to and organizing people, and articulating my efforts with others, in my district and elsewhere, and moving the ball down the field, so to speak

3) Since no one else wants to run, it comes at no opportunity cost to the district, in terms of having a candidate who would perform the role as you believe it must or should be performed.

4) The other efforts that my candidacy augments also augment my candidacy, so that, if the context in HD28 shifts, I will be well positioned to shift my own distribution of efforts accordingly to take advantage of that changed context. I did not "blame" anyone for anything, but merely pointed out that the local zeitgeist, which I am actively working on changing (though not by spending all of my time raising money), is one of those contextual factors.

5) Since raising lots of money, especially in a district that most people consider a long-shot, is extremely time intensive, and doesn't contribute to any other related efforts outside of my candidacy, it is an activity I spent less rather than more time on.

6) I posted initially only to answer the rhetorical question "How serious is he?" If the referent is, as I think it should be, "improving the social institutions of Colorado to best serve the public interest," then I am very, very serious. If the referent is, as Jeffco Pols insists it can only ever be, "focusing exclusively on and investing exclusively in the electoral context, without pausing to consider whether that is the most rational way to contribute to improving the social institutions of Colorado in greatest service to the public interest," then I am clearly not very serious.

7) Relatedly, I communicated my beliefs that a) it is more useful for participants in public discourse about politics, and particularly those who set themselves up as disseminators of relevant information, to focus on the substance, that is, what best serves the public interest and who is most capable of serving the public interest once in office, rather than almost exclusively on the narrow procedural (almost spectator-sport-like) question of who is doing the most to win the election; and b) that treating "doing whatever it takes to increase the odds of winning the election in which one is a candidate" as a higher moral imperative than "doing whatever it takes to most effectively serve the public interest, even as a candidate," is somewhat ass-backwards from my point of view (and, I believe, from the point of view of most ordinary people who are not regular participants on political blogs).

8) I responded to repeated obfuscations of these distinctions, which I chose to draw because I both considered them useful to communicate in this forum, and because I feel most capable of representing my own perceptions and attitudes (such as answering the question of how serious I am), which in turn provoked increasingly heated, and increasingly distorted and strawman laden, responses from Jeffco Pols, who feels that it is arrogant for someone to choose to speak for themselves when Jeffco Pols is perfectly capable of speaking for them.

Now, I'm happy to leave it at that. My position is consistent, honorable, and rational. I've explained each component, including the motivations for publishing them. There is really nothing I posted above which is not reducable to these eight bullet points. Whatever Jeffco Pols' problem is, my suggestion is that you quit doing contortions to make your arbitrary objections to my very reasonable framing of my candidacy some sort of irrefutable truth; they're not, and no alchemy of feigned authoritative wisdom will make them so.

But if your only point is

Steve Harvey — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 05:31:00 GMT

that I don't put winning the election above all else, and if one accepts that that is the definition of "not being a serious candidate," then I agree with you completely, and have never suggested otherwise. But there are so many assumptions and habits wrapped up inside of that, that simply get smuggled in unnoticed, that my reponses have addressed those Greeks in the Horse, rather than the Horse itself. I chose not to let your assertion go unchallenged because I don't accept that definition of "a serious candidate." I think a better definition of "a serious candidate" is 1) a candidate with the skill set and training most relevent to the office for which they are running; and 2) a candidate most sincerly and tirelessly devoted to the advancement of the public welfare. My definition is focused on the ends, and yours is focused on the means. I do not dismiss the importance of the means, but merely think that it can be overemphasized, and that it's overemphasis helps to reinforce and reproduce the reality of its inflated importance. You can disagree with, or disfavor, my definition of "a serious candidate," and I can disagree with, or disfavor, yours, without you being so offended by the fact that we disagree. Or, you can continue to be outraged that I don't buy into your assumptions about what must be most highly valued, and what most be most vehemently condemend.

Your post claims that I blame everyone else for pointing out the obvious. In reality, I've blamed no one for anything, and have never disputed what you are calling the obvious. Instead, I've posted to discuss other issues that are also relevant, but sometimes overshadowed by what you are calling the obvious. And it's you who have had the problem with that.