Democrat Rep. Jared Polis Gleeful Over Demise Of Rocky Mountain News, Credits Progressive New Media

Speaking at Nutroots Netroots Nation (full audio of quote, first 2 minutes):

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who made his fortune selling greeting cards and flowers online, gave a shout-out to the blogosphere Saturday, giving it — and himself — credit for the "demise" of traditional journalism.

"I have to say, that when we say, 'Who killed the Rocky Mountain News,' we're all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it's mostly for the better," Polis said at the Netroots Nation in Your Neighborhood event in Westminster, according to a recording posted online. The group supports progressive politics.

"The media is dead, and long live the new media, which is all of us," said Polis, a Boulder Democrat.

The Rocky shuttered its operation Friday.

Polis also told those at the event that "since we killed the newspapers" and "own the media," bloggers and citizen journalists have a responsibility.

"We can't just kill it and walk away," he said. "It's important for all of us to reach out to some of those . . . on the other side and present the progressive point of view," he said.

Polis, sensing a backlash for his irresponsible and insensitive statements given the present economic downturn, has already issued a mealy-mouthed response (h/t Drunkablog):

The end of the Rocky Mountain News was a blow to all of us in Colorado. We were proud to have a city that had two powerful voices, two daily venues for informing the public, and a diversity of editorial voices. Not only has Colorado lost over 200 jobs, but the voice of the RMN has been silenced.

Indeed, some of the blame rests with new media. While there are many other factors that have contributed such as the recession and a decline in advertising, the very fact that we are discussing this issue here, in the online forum of the DP, is demonstrative of the rise of new media. The newspaper industry has yet to figure out how to monetize online traffic, and until they do, I worry not only about the demise of the RMN but I worry about the future of a strong third estate across our great nation.

Jared Polis

The Post traces the development of the story, from short blurb by a citizen journalist who attended the Netroots Nation conference on Saturday, to a full follow-up by Post staff. Polis' office coughed up the audio, so there isn't a "lack of context" to the quote.

The Post concludes:

Polis said what he said with glee. He giggled as he talked about how progressives shared much responsibility in the Rocky’s passing.

Carroll is preparing a column for tomorrow’s paper that goes into the audio in greater detail – and shows how some key statements Polis told Carroll in yesterday’s interview are at odds with the facts.

There is a footnote for citizen journalists of all political stripes--get the facts straight by providing citations and links whenever possible, and even better, get it on tape so that you can't be accused of taking quotes out of context:

To wrap it up, The Post followed traditional journalistic values to provide fast-paced commentary and news on this story.

Some question whether responsible journalism will survive the Internet. Yesterday is proof that responsible journalism only benefits from the Internet and makes good use of the technology.

The example that mainstream media represents is a high bar we expect citizen journalists of all political stripes to meet.

Or be ignored.

I'm not sure how high that MSM bar has been recently, but citizen journalists should take care to maintain credibility. Leave the partisan hackery to the partisan hacks. Cite sources, and if documents are provided (such as through a CORA request) make them available to readers. Where possible, use audio or video to bolster your claims. And always follow up.

So how about that new media eh, Polis?

Colorado Primary Night Roundup

Ben has a roundup of results, as does Rocky Mountain Right, who's tracking election night results.

First, a hearty congratulations to fellow RMA blogger and friend Joshua Sharf, who was successful in his primary campaign. On to November!

Reflections on the other larger races (CD-6, CD-5, CD-2):
CD-6: So, how long will it take before soon-to-be ex-Secretary of State Mike Coffman to announce his candidacy for the 2010 Senate matchup against Ken Salazar? Just sayin'. Seriously, Coffman's election in CD-6 in November should provide the platform for a run at higher office no earlier than 2014, for an open Governorship (a re-elected Bill Ritter would be term-limited) or for Senate against Mark Udall (should Bob Schaffer lose). A run in 2010 will strain credulity, and prompt the question, is Coffman running for office to represent the people, or to represent Mike Coffman? Coffman should plan on holding the seat for at least 3 terms before remotely contemplating moving any higher up the political ladder in Colorado.

CD-5: Two way primaries provide a necessary level of competition for any party. Three-way (and higher) primaries simply favor the incumbent, and Doug Lamborn certainly benefited from a split opposition. Too bad for Jeff Crank, who would have likely been a much better long-term occupant in CD-5.

CD-2: Ditto on the three-way primary, except in this case, it helped to benefit the candidate--Jared Polis--with the deepest pockets. So now one of the "Gang of Four" has purchased a seat in the House. So that's how Democrats take the money out of politics! Oh wait, nevermind . . .

Guest Column: Supreme Court Unleashes Legal Beast To Trouble Colorado's 2nd District

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

I have never liked campaign finance reform laws. The notion that one can take the influence of money completely out of politics seems, at best, woefully naive and, at worst, ridiculously absurd. Nonetheless, in so many ways our lawmakers and activists continue to try. After they finish attempting to put all sorts of fetters on the evil beast of our political system, the Supreme Court inevitably comes by and proceeds to cut about half the restraints. Of course, this simply creates a very angry beast that has to lurch clumsily about using only one leg and one arm. And people wonder why campaign regulations are always such a disaster. Well, the Supreme Court has, yet again, taken its judicial scissors to the latest Congressional fetter: the Millionaire Amendment of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). And yes, the beast is already crashing about angrily.

Let me try to sum up the bizarre laws at issue in very brief terms. Between the meddling of Congress and the stilted reasoning of the Court, the government may impose limits on how much money people may contribute to any given campaign, but not on how much money the campaigns can spend. Also, there is no limit to how much an individual candidate can contribute to his campaign. The reason for this is that money is speech. Contributions may be limited because they still express the message of support for a candidate but, in being limited, also prevent corruption or the appearance thereof. However, the candidate is free to use as much of his own speech/money to promote his cause as he wants. To limit that would be to limit his speech too directly.

Naturally, this creates an advantage for rich candidates. They can spend their own money without limit while a poorer candidate, who may have rich friends, cannot get as much money out of those friends because of the campaign contribution limits. Thus, Congress passed the so called Millionaire Amendment so that if a rich candidate used enough of his own money, the contribution limits for the poorer candidate would be near tripled while the contribution limits for the richer candidate would remain the same. This would continue until the two candidates had eliminated the financial difference between them.

Now, though, Justice Alito, writing for the majority, has declared in Davis v. Federal Election Commission that this balancing scheme is unconstitutional. Apparently, this imbalance does not directly limit speech, but creates a substantial penalty for a rich candidate who chooses to exercise his right to speech robustly (i.e. spend a lot of his own money and trigger the provisions of the amendment). Thus, the Court has declared that the law must go.

Naturally, the government has objected that this means that rich candidates will once again have a huge advantage in elections given the contribution limits. The Court is aware of this. However, Justice Alito reminds us all that it was Congress who created this problem in the first place with its bizarre attempts to regulate campaign contributions. Congress also has the power to fix this situation. He recommends:

If the normally applicable limits on individual contributions and coordi nated party contributions are seriously distorting the electoral process, if they are feeding a “public perception that wealthy people can buy seats in Congress,” Brief for Appellee 34, and if those limits are not needed in order to combat corruption, then the obvious remedy is to raise or eliminate those limits. But the unprecedented step of imposing different contribution and coordinated party expenditure limits on candidates vying for the same seat is antithetical to the First Amendment.

In my own humble opinion, Congress would be well advised to adopt Justice Kennedy’s recommendations from his dissenting opinion in Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U.S. 377 (2000). He pointed out that all of these attempts to limit the flow of money just serve to create problems or push it underground where there is virtually no accountability or transparency (such as 527 groups). Thus, he suggests that, rather than limiting contributions or expenditures, Congress should simply require that all contributions be reported and made public. Certainly, the internet is more than capable of providing instant access to this information for anyone who wants to know. In that way, the public could judge for themselves whether a candidate was too beholden to any particular donor or interest group and vote accordingly. Now there is a novel thought: trusting the voters to make decisions themselves.

For those of you interested in what the dissent had to say, Justice Stevens seems to think there is nothing at all wrong with this imbalanced scheme. Indeed, he goes so far as to contend that Congress should limit both contributions and expenditures. It seems he feels that if the campaigns were forced to spend less, then the quality of their message would be forced to improve and he would not have to ensure watching so many of these annoying and repetitious political advertisements on television any longer. It is rare that a Justice so plainly expresses his personal opinions and tastes as a matter of law. Preventing the Court from being populated by others who feel at liberty to do so may be the single most important reason to elect John McCain as our next president—despite the fact that he is partially responsible for saddling us with these nightmarish campaign laws in the first place.

In the meantime, we shall watch the beast of our current system flail about in the 2nd Congressional district where the millionaire idiot author of Colorado’s ethics debacle, Jared Polis, just triggered the now unconstitutional amendment and his opponents, Joan Fitz-Gerald and Will Shafroth, are left without the benefit of the increased contribution limits it would have provided them.