aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Wish this could happen in Georgia
There’s got to be some liberals with big money up there in Alpharetta. I sure wish they’d put it to work. And use Colorado as a model...
On Friday The Denver Post reprinted an excerpt from Chapter 9, “Move Over, Christian Coalition: The New Political Kingmakers,” of Richistan: A Journey Through The American Wealth Boom And The Lives of The New Rich, by Robert Frank:
The group began with a lunch. Al Yates, the retired president of Colorado State University and one of the state’s most powerful and distinguished African Americans, sat down in the spring of 2003 with his friend Ken Salazar, then the state’s attorney general . The two had grown increasingly frustrated with the state’s leadership. Colorado’s education system was faltering. Its health-care system was a mess. Job growth had slowed following the technology and telecom bust of 2001 and 2002. The Republicans in the legislature and governor’s office were spending much of their time waging an ideological crusade against the Left, introducing bills targeting liberal college professors and pushing legislation banning the discussion of homosexuality in the classroom. They also backed a resolution to support a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Salazar and Yates wanted change. They knew they couldn’t rely on the existing political establishment, so they decided to try to create a political movement of their own.
They started holding informal meetings with leading Democratic thinkers and businesspeople. The group didn’t talk about specific policies, but rallied around broad values associated with “progressive politics” - social justice, fairness and creating greater opportunity for even the poorest Coloradans. Rutt Bridges was one of the first members. Also onboard was Pat Stryker, a low-profile mom who is worth an estimated $1.4 billion from her stake in her family’s medical-supply company, Stryker Corp.
In early 2004, Yates called Tim Gill, a tall, lanky computer geek who made more than $400 million during the tech boom. Gill had devoted millions to antidiscrimination measures for gays and lesbians around the country, so when the Denver legislature started becoming a hotbed of antigay legislation, Gill vowed revenge. “My philosophy during the 2004 election cycle was ‘punish the wicked,’ “ he says, sitting in his art-deco mansion across from the Denver Country Club. “I wanted to stop all the antigay bills from going through.”
The group had one unifying goal: ousting the Republicans.
Aside from funding ads, the group recruited Democrats to run for office. Being a Democrat in the Colorado legislature had become a dead-end career path, since their bills were often quashed by the Republicans. The Gang of Four scouted for bright, aspiring Democrats and helped fund their campaigns. They also funded negative ad campaigns against up-and-coming conservatives, to stop them before they became powerful.
“Marilyn Musgrave started on the school board,” Gill says. “She would have been so much cheaper to nuke when she was on the school board or even when she was in the legislature. We need to be vigilant and find politicians who are bad and stop them when it’s cheap rather than allowing them to get into an expensive position.” [...]
[P]ollsters and Republicans say the Gang of Four was largely responsible for the 2004 upset.
“They all came together and they had a profound effect,” said Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based independent pollster. “But for them, the Democrats wouldn’t have won.”
RELATED: Back in March The Atlantic profiled Tim Gill. Last month it was noted that he and his allies funded 38 percent of the opposition to same-sex marriage bans across the country.
Whether or not we on the left are noticing (the gang of four is too conservative and conventional to be lauded by the netroots), those on the Right are. Here’s The Family Research Council commenting on the same article (scroll down).
