Lessons Learned ; Pot Campaign Provides Teaching Moment
When one spends a good deal of time following politics and politicians, one soon gets used to outrageous claims and over-the- top metaphors. The continual debates over policies, the search for a smoking gun that proves a foe’s bad intentions and the constant campaigning sometimes gets the best of normally rational people and they speak for or against an issue in ways that make the rest of us wonder what’s going on.
Take, for example, Initiative 100 on Denver’s November ballot. People here in southern Colorado likely aren’t familiar with the initiative, but it could have statewide or even national effects. If approved by voters, Initiative 100 would change Denver city ordinances to legalize adult use and possession of an ounce or less of marijuana. Initiative backers go by the moniker SAFER, for Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, and some of their campaign signs read “Make Denver SAFER.” And that has one Denver City Council member hopping mad.
Charlie Brown says the slogan is designed to fool voters into thinking the initiative is a public safety issue and will result in more police officers on the street. He told a Denver newspaper that it was difficult to know what the campaign was about unless one reads the fine print on the bottom of the signs: “Paid for by SAFER and authorized by the Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative Committee.” Apparently Brown believes that voters aren’t bright enough to look beyond sloganeering to discover for themselves what’s on the ballot. He claims he didn’t know what the signs were for until he read the fine print. That’s difficult to believe, since SAFER had to use the initiative process to get onto the ballot because the city council refused to go along.
We have a horse in this race: Our oft-stated position that using police resources to pursue and prosecute victimless crimes is a waste of those resources. So we’ll take the opportunity to point out that Brown’s attitude is troubling because it suggests a contempt for voters by intimating that they’re mindless sheep who are easily duped into voting for whichever issue or candidate has the snappiest, loudest or most clever campaign slogans. In some cases that’s probably true, but our system of government relies on an informed electorate, not one that is led around by public relations firms and campaign staffers. In the information age, there’s no excuse for voters not being informed on the issues.
Campaign ads and slogans are good ways to inform voters what the issues are, but there’s no way to cover the pros and cons of complicated ballot initiatives or referendums in a 30-second soundbite. Besides, the campaigns paying for the commercials have an interest in presenting only one side of the issue. Viewing ads for each side, however, doesn’t make one an informed voter. For that, people have to read the newspapers, attend candidate forums, check Web sites unrelated to the campaigns and discuss issues with others looking for answers. Of course, there are no guarantees that such research will provide all the answers. Ballot measures can have unintended consequences and candidates can change their positions. Would Initiative 100 really make Denver safer? Perhaps, but there’s no way to tell without trying it and analyzing the results at some future point. That’s the way our system works; if something or someone turns out to be other than what voters wanted, change is no further away than the next election. Our political process is expensive and messy, but it’s the best one available for a free society.
Amtrak could be on track for improvement
We don’t believe for a minute that our voice stirred the federal government to take steps to begin to wean Amtrak from the U.S. Treasury, but we hope we can be forgiven for thinking we made some contribution. Amtrak’s board recently approved separating the Northeast Corridor from the rest of the passenger rail system, a first step toward making the corridor a separate division.
We’ve long argued that Amtrak couldn’t continue to function as it has for the past few decades. Its conflicting missions of serving most of the nation while also turning a profit doomed the project to failure from inception. It’s simply not economically feasible to run trains all over the country on the chance that travelers will opt for rails over highways or airports, but congressional representatives have an interest in keeping service available to their constituents. It makes sense to break up the nationwide system into a series of regional routes that will serve the needs of local riders as they see fit, rather than the one-size-fits-all service we have now.
The Northeast Corridor is the only portion of Amtrak that is paying its own way, while the rest of the system relies on millions of dollars in subsidies from the feds, so it seems reasonable to make it a separate entity.
The success of the lines in the Northeast likely stems from the concentrated population in that region. Commuters use Amtrak to get to and from work because the rails go from where people live to where they work. In most of the rest of the nation, however, the population is more spread out and rail service doesn’t serve the public very well. Travelers are more likely to opt for the freedom of their own cars or the speed of air travel.
Breaking off the profitable Northeast Corridor could allow that division to try different ways to improve service. If it works there, there’s a possibility those improvements can be instituted in other populated areas, such as between Chicago and New York or along the coastal corridors, to draw more travelers to trains.
Creating an independent division in the Northeast Corridor won’t solve Amtrak’s many problems, but it’s a step in the right direction.