Jon Caldara Interviews Fred Barnes--The Colorado Model

Independence Institute's Jon Caldara interviewed Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard about the recent cover story--the creation and exportation of the"Colorado Model":

There's something unique going on in Colorado that, if copied in other states, has the potential to produce sweeping Democratic gains nationwide. That something is the "Colorado Model," and it's certain to be a major topic of discussion when Democrats convene in Denver in the last week of August for their national convention.

While the Colorado Model isn't a secret, it hasn't drawn much national attention either. Democrats, for now anyway, seem wary of touting it. One reason for their reticence is that it depends partly on wealthy liberals' spending tons of money not only on "independent expenditures" to attack Republican office-seekers but also to create a vast infrastructure of liberal organizations that produces an anti-Republican, anti-conservative echo chamber in politics and the media.

Colorado is where this model is being tested and refined. And Republicans, even more than Democrats, say that it's working impressively.

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal points out that this "infrastructure," pioneered in Colorado, will provide the basis for Barack Obama's "liberal shock troops," mobilizing the Left across the country:

But liberals aren't just on the march on the presidential level. This year, liberal activists are spending parts of the fortunes of their wealthy donors to transform politics at the state and local level.

In 2005, billionaire investor George Soros convened a group of 70 super-rich liberal donors in Phoenix to evaluate why their efforts to defeat President Bush had failed. One conclusion was that they needed to step up their long-term efforts to dominate key battleground states. The donors formed a group called Democracy Alliance to make grants in four areas: media, ideas, leadership and civic engagement. Since then, Democracy Alliance partners have donated over $100 million to key progressive organizations.

Take Colorado, which has voted Republican for president in nine of the last 10 presidential elections. But in 2006, Colorado elected a Democratic governor and legislature for the first time in over 30 years. Denver will be the site for the party's 2008 presidential convention. Polls show Barack Obama would carry the state today. This hasn't happened by chance. The Democracy Alliance poured money into Colorado to make it a proving ground for how progressives can take over a state.

Unless conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans on the center-right choose to do something about it--organize, raise funds, and take the battle to the Left, instead of always playing catch-up and whining, they will continue to be outspent and outwitted--and left unelected.

To the video: