John McCain was in Defiance, Ohio Thursday. A city of about 17,000 that sits 55 miles southwest of Toledo and only 45 miles east of Fort Wayne, Indiana. One would think being so close to two larger cities in two red states that are starting to lean Obama, McCain would draw a huge crowd. No such thing. Not only did McCain’s new pal Joe not show up for the rally, neither did many others. In fact, only 6,000 were on hand to see John McCain and out of those were 4,000 elementary, middle, and high school children, and their teachers. The entire Defiance School District of 2,500 attended along with at least three surrounding schools districts in the area busing their schoolchildren and teachers to fill the remaining seats.

Last week when John McCain was in New Mexico, he almost drew 1000 people. The beginning of October Michelle Obama was in Boulder Colorado, 9,700 people showed up to hear her speak and no one had to bus any children in to fill the seats. When Barack Obama was in Denver on Sunday, he had over 100,000 people show up to hear him speak, a couple hours later he arrived in Ft. Collins Colorado to 50,000 people waiting to greet him. People drive from all over Colorado and neighboring states to listen to both Barack and Michelle Obama and Joe Biden. The Obama’s will be appearing together in Pueblo Colorado on Saturday, that’s about two hours or so from north Denver suburbs but I know many from the north will be making the trek south.

You know John and I feel since you always refer to me as your friend that I may call you John; it does not help matters when your staff is throwing real supporters of yours out of your rallies because of the way they look, because they “might,” protest. Especially in Iowa, at a University, with the college kids whose votes you need.  Yes, there were a few who had protested at another one of your rally’s but the rest were honest to goodness supporters. Too bad, most had already cast their votes. Perhaps that is why only a couple thousand adults showed up in Ohio.

Colorado has a wicked storm brewing over the Rockies’ in the form of Colorado’s Republican Secretary of State, Mike Coffman. Coffman also happens to be running against Democrat Hank Eng for the seat being vacated by Republican U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo in Colorado’s 6th  Congressional District. A lawsuit was filed in Denver’s federal court Friday against Mike Coffman to force him and his office to reinstate the more than 30,000 registered voters that were recently purged by the Secretary of State. 

Advancement Project, who filed the lawsuit, states Coffman illegally disqualified 26,931 voters by removing them from voter rolls between July 31 and October 31. Federal law prohibits purging voters within 90 days of Election Day unless they have died, been convicted of a felony or requested removal.  In addition, they claim another 14,089 voters were missing from that same list when a comparison was done; those names disappeared between August 15 and October 13.

As if that were not enough another 5,000 newly registered voters aren’t registered due to a check box on the new voter registration forms. In the IDENTIFCATION (Required) section voters were to enter their Colorado driver’s license number, OR Department of Revenue ID number OR if you have neither “must provide the last four digits of your Social Security number”. It goes on to say, “If you do not have a driver’s license number, a Dept. of Revenue Id number, or a Social Security number, you must check the appropriate boxes.” The “NOTE” at the bottom of that section states, “If the identification section is left blank and you do not check the boxes indicating you do not have identification you will not be registered to vote”.  One check box says “I do not have a Colorado Driver’s License or Dept. of Revenue Identification Number”, the other box says “I do not have a Social Security Number”.

Thousands of people put their Social Security number and did not check the box saying they don’t have a driver license; others put both their driver license and social security number without checking any box. What’s the problem? Mike Coffman told County Clerks these applications cannot be registered until “corrected”. While two big Republican counties who have Republican clerks have disregarded Coffman’s order saying other laws favor the voter there are still thousands of new registered voters that as of this writing won’t be given a ballot.

Colorado’s Attorney General and Bush appointee, John Suthers, says in his opinion that “people may use their SSN only if they don’t have a Colorado driver license or ID…” Why wasn’t it worded like that on the registration form, the current wording is confusing. Most people have their SSN memorized but not their DL so it’s logical many would put the last 4 digits of their SSN as a matter of convenience. If a person put their SSN, with or without their Colorado DL number, why would they check the box saying they don’t have a DL if they do? 

According to Mike Coffman, "Voters can rest assured that maintaining accurate voter rolls is our top priority”. I can assure you Mr. Coffman that not many are resting including I’m sure Hank Eng knowing that you are counting the ballots.  

In the final destruction of all the wonderful laws passed by a thoughtful Congress and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to protect the American people from the excesses and corruption that caused the Great Depression, your totally incompetent governmenthas  taken the final steps to maximize the corruption of our financial system. The last two major independent investment banking/ stock brokerage houses have now officially become commercial banks. Don’t believe me? See:

http://federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20080921a.htm

My parents told me about the abuses of the Great Depression and how the stock brokers owned by the commercial banks robbed people of their life savings by having people buy stocks in failing companies, and that money was then used to pay back the bad loans to the bank that owned the stockbrokers.

Bush is destroying our nation.

If you are not yet registered, you still have time. The last day to register to vote in Colorado is October 6th. If you are not sure about your status, you can verify your voter registration information online. It will take you less than 5 minutes.

If you have not requested your Mail In Ballot, do so now. We are trying to get as many voting by mail-in ballot as possible to avoid the electronic voting machine problems. You can avoid the long lines, the cold weather, and the grumpy voters by sitting at home taking your time to cast your votes.

You can print off the Colorado Mail-In Ballot Application, fill it out, sign it and mail, fax or email it as a PDF to your County Clerk’s office no later than Tuesday, October 28, 2008. However, don’t wait that long, the election is November 4, 2008 so the sooner the better! It is strongly advised that instead of requesting a mail-in ballot so late you instead go to one of the early voting locations in your county and cast your vote.

If you are a first time voter and you register by mail to vote in the State of Colorado, you are required to submit with your application one of the following forms of identification when you return your Mail-In Ballot Application. DO NOT include original documents with the application. Please submit a copy of one of the following forms of identification:

(Cross-Posted to DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)

Last night, I was in Pueblo, attending the Pueblo Dems’ annual picnic, and this was my message to the 100 or so Democrats gathered at the Pueblo Greenway and Nature Center:

All Hands On Deck!

Throughout the media this morning, you’ve probably heard that we have 60 days until the election. Not in Colorado. In Colorado, folks start voting in less than 30 days! Ballots will be printed and could be sent out by county clerks as early as October 3. By my calculation, that’s 28 days.

28 days to change the world.

By 45 days from now, at least a third of Coloradans who will vote will have already voted. Based on what we’ve seen in 2006 and in the primaries this year, it is safe to assume that less than half of the voters will actually vote in the traditional manner by showing up on November 4th at their precinct polling place.

If you were waiting for the “sprint to the finish line” to get involved, well… we’re there.

Colorado is razor-thin close, and many national experts estimate that Colorado will decide the Presidency. But we don’t only have a Presidency on the line; Mark Udall is facing blistering attacks from those who fear his Colorado values coming to the U.S. Senate, and his vote may be the critical one that gets us to a 60-vote filibuster-proof Senate that can help a President Obama. We have a great opportunity to finally be rid of Marilyn Musgrave in the 4th Congressional District, with Betsy Markey leading most recent polling. And a wave of hard work from volunteers could make Colorado the focus of national attention when we finish with a clean sweep by bringing in Hal Bidlack and Hank Eng to Congress. Finally, the Colorado Republican Party is focused like a laser beam on the 2011 redistricting, and they know they have to take out key Democrats in the State House and State Senate to do so; we’ve got to work hard there.

So, like I said, it’s all hands on deck time. Now, I wouldn’t ask any of you to do something I don’t do myself. Longtime readers of DemNotes know that I spent 2006 criss-crossing the state walking precincts with local candidates. We’re going to do that again this year, walking with candidates all over Colorado, helping with our sweat and shoe leather. And I’ll be staffing phone banks — we’re going to be doing some phone banking tonight at our local party headquarters right here in Canon City.

It’s time.

Knock on doors. Stuff some envelopes. Make some calls.

Without the work of every single Democratic activist, we won’t be able to do this. But if we all work together, we will change the world, and we’ll look back on 2008 as the year Colorado did something pretty darned amazing.

Yesterday, watching those poor people lining up for buses to yet again flee a hurricane, my heart broke.

With all our riches how can there still be people in America who are so obviously so impoverished and helpless?

Unfortunately, it is because our system of education is broken, failed, shameful.

How can any politician believe that property taxes from impoverished areas can pay for world class schools and world class teachers?

A factor in our broken system of education is that first, teachers are underpaid so that schools for teachers "sometimes" fail to attract the most talented people.

Second, the curricula are not teaching prospective teachers how to really teach.

I want every teacher in America to receive the same starting pay as computer programmers and engineeers.

I want better curicula for preparing teachers.

And I want 3,000,000 more, high paid, talented, dedicated teachers who are fully prepared to teach THE LOVE OF medicine, bioscience, math and engineering, starting in the first grade.

Let us all work for an America where everey child has absolutely equal and excellent education, so that in the future no American is so unprepared for life that they end up helplessly standing in line for buses to flee for their lives.

Please donate, tax deductible, to these goals at http://www.fluni.com

I cannot think of anything more consistent with the core values of our Democratic Party.