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After noticing that Citizens United received a judgment in their favor last week to be treated as a media outlet to release and promote their new film Rocky Mountain Heist, I sent an email to them requesting a copy of the film for posting to YouTube. I expected they would grant my request given the short time until the election and my presumption that they would appreciate any additional exposure for the ideas in the film.

In response I received an invitation to attend a Denver premier showing of the film Wednesday night at the Hyatt Regency. See http://youtu.be/JvSfl2FXfP4 to get a flavor of the evening. While most of the conservative movement in America seemed to be there last night, there was not a single Leftist in sight. No signs, no bullhorns, no shoving, no cops, no litter, no bodyguards blocked the way. Just a roomful of conservative luminaries completely open, walking the walk, talking the talk, unthreatened and unafraid, completely accessible. Cool.

I had a chance to meet David Bossie so I asked him if I could publish the film on YouTube. He turned me down and explained it was necessary in order to defend Citizens United’s copyright to the film – certainly a reasonable position since, upon further inspection, I found that Citizens United publishes their films for a fee on their website. My mistake was to presume their only interest was partisan when in fact they’re also in the business of selling views of their documentary films. I was naïve to think they made films solely for the greater good. People have to make money too and good for them that they’ve found a way to profitably work in conjunction with serving society by resisting encroaching totalitarianism.

Rocky Mountain Heist had its genesis in The Blueprint, published in 2010, which I finally got around to reading last week. It is a beyond-eye-opening education in todays American politics.

From Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer, The Blueprint – How the Democrats Won Colorado, 2010.

“After Amendment 27, campaign spending in meaningful quantities could only be accomplished through the “independent sector”–a collection of nonprofit organizations that stepped into the role once occupied by political parties. . . a garden of think tanks, political 527s, 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations, new media outlets, progressive watchdog groups, and assorted activist organizations. . .” p 40-41

“. . .while nonprofits were no longer allowed to coordinate their activities with candidates or political parties, they were perfectly free to coordinate among themselves. And coordinate they did.” p 71

The poetic phrase from one leader I spoke with last night was, “Political parties have become eunuchs.” Another leader explained to me that coordination between financial politics and party politics still exists, albeit informally where no tweets, no emails, no texts, and no communications that leave an audit trail can follow.

While some probably think political parties received karmic justice in campaign finance reform, my guess is that the majority of Americans don’t yet appreciate the financial separation of political money from political parties.

Americans who watch TV see the thousands of political ads produced by organizations “not paid for by a candidate and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee,” that spend hundreds of millions to produce and deliver political content to the electorate. He who pays the piper calls the tune and it’s the profit-motivated, “independent sector” paying the piper today. It’s fair to assume they’re calling the tunes too.

Prior to campaign finance reform when political parties themselves received the bulk of political funding, the case for corruption was that politicians could be directly bought. If the electorate came to dislike the politician, however, the first stop on the complaint trail was the politician. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing.

Today, candidates are disclaimed from responsibility in much of the TV advertising. This pulls the legal restraints off political spending, an arguably good thing for 1st Am. free speech advocates. It, however, relieves candidates from responsibility for the message, a bad thing for the electorate. And the “independent sector” is empowered to issue national-grade political media, insulated from the political restraints that the electorate can exercise over politicians.

This appears to be a systemic disconnect between political content producers and the electorate. And though I’ve seen no evidence of misrepresentation in the political content produced by Citizens United, the Leftist “independent sector” groups don’t seem up to that same standard. Big Leftist money can make big misrepresentations without direct consequences, and that’s what The Blueprint and Rocky Mountain Heist accurately document.

I applaud the exposure Rocky Mountain Heist gives to Colorado’s “Gang Of Four” and their political corruptions, but the analysis stops short of a systemic cure. The Blueprint and Rocky Mountain Heist present de facto evidence of a broken campaign finance environment. The fact that the system equally burdens both parties doesn’t save it in my view, since the electorate still comes out shorted from voting accountability.

It appears that dividing the interests between politicians and political message organizations led to veiled power structures beyond the reach of the electorate. This division seems repugnant to the idea of an informed citizenry exercising electoral control of a constitutional republic. It certainly opens the door to corruption by encouraging off-the-record illegal coordination between financial organizations and candidates.

Perhaps more public disclosures can cure this situation. In addition, perhaps a change in the relative legal status of candidates and the independent sector could work. For example a legal requirement that a political messaging organization must obtain a candidate’s endorsement before releasing media involving that candidate might indirectly restore some control to the electorate.

For us visual learners, Elbert County had some great scenes last night. I opened my eyes from an après dîné catnap about 6:00 p.m. when the Cards still had hope from their lead off double against the Giants, and one of those spectacular Colorado sunsets began to carve the sky into a giant jack-o-lantern. It would have been more than enough to just take those pictures and call it an evening but my lovely spouse kicked me out the door. Smart woman.

At 60, the Halloween costumes most people wear no longer frighten me, even the everyday ones. You just see right through all that makeup to the personality. What’s inside is usually a good person, an earnest person, a whole gamut of persons. No one who comes out stays hidden for long. So the gamut pageant came out to do political business under a sharp sunset.

I visited the two Elizabeth political scenes. There was a third one in Kiowa but I rolled it. A fair number of cars on Main Street in Elizabeth reflected highlights from the warm glow escaping the upstairs windows at the Falcon Lounge. Climbing the stairs, I heard the full-throated intensity of a speakeasy just around the corner, and I wondered if the cops knew this place existed and how would I slip out the back door unnoticed when the vice squad came crashing in with nightsticks swinging. I’m not as nimble on the stairs as I once was.

Sliding past the end of the bar, Cathy and Denise’s space transports you into the center of attention. It was loud and the runway is short. I could only sort out words from people right in front of me though the room is small enough, close enough, and warm enough to make eye contact with everyone else. There was a political purpose on the table, but everyone I spoke with was informal.

I suppose some people do business in a bar, or a golf course, using genteel mediums to lubricate their deals. I didn’t see any of that. It was just a decompressing and rich adult time, and who could ask for more.

Moving on over a couple blocks to the Left’s conclave, I should have had my camera ready to capture the looks on many of their faces as I entered that sanctuary of all matters governmental. What a picture! – no mistaking their shocked looks for playful Halloween horror.

Elbert County’s Left, in person, for the most part, treat me with kindness and sometimes even sympathy, kind of like a stray dog I suppose. While I wouldn’t trust a couple of them to walk behind me in a dark alley, most of them aren’t too bad.

Unlike the scene at the Falcon Lounge with its hair letting down and masks coming off, in the brilliantly lit foyer of Frontier High School it was all business. I may have corrupted the sanctuary through the introduction of a politically alien macrobody, may have unavoidably changed the experiment through my observation, but not having been there before I arrived, I’ll never know.

What I heard were people very concerned about things gone wrong in Elbert County. And their certainty that things had gone terribly wrong in Elbert County matched their certainty that they could and should wield governmental power to “rule with kindness” and “bring all citizens to the table” to correct those wrongs. It was a very egalitarian vision, designed to invest voters, though in practice the playground environment of citizen councils seems to turn out more Darwinians than democrats.

I don’t know how one possibly sustains their rose colored impression of governmental power, particularly nowadays with all the internet transparency about things. Moreover, I don’t know how these folks got into such a state of Panacea, ruled by the goddess of universal remedy. When has that ever happened?

But for this room full of Leftists in that foyer, quantum improbabilities presented no bar. A mathematician might infer such an event through a harmonic string vibrating into a parallel universe, but I don’t hold with such fictions. I think this universe is all we have. I’m virtually sure the portal to the Frontier High School foyer is not a worm hole.

And call me an unfaithful conservative, but I don’t dislike most of these Leftists, except for the few haters. I respect their good intentions. How could you not respect utopia? That would be like disrespecting heaven. I respect their intensity, misguided though it may be. And they didn’t eject me from their sanctuary, though if shunning looks from Jerry and Sue Bishop could kill, I’m a rotting corpse today.

But standing out, naked in the harsh fluorescent light, the words of Dorman’s unequivocal promise to immediately reopen the Elbert County Oil & Gas zoning regulation deliberation with an intent to change the law back to something akin to what the current commission rejected two summers ago – kind of a back-to-the-future version of progressivism – captured my attention.

A legal tussle with the State of Colorado over the ownership and control of expensive, income-producing private property in Elbert County would be much more serious than a trip to court with a meadowlark. I know Dorman wasn’t sick that day of zoning denouement two summers ago because I have him on tape. Maybe he doesn’t listen as well as he thinks he does.

Though no one can predict the future with certainty, Dorman’s recent written statement that his election “can change the balance on the Board of County Commissioners,” suggests he’s already worked a new balance out with a partner on the BOCC.

Given the quasi-judicial nature of the job of county commissioner, now that Dorman has promised to form a new majority to pass a law before even seeing a legal zoning proposal, one should reasonably expect him to recuse himself on such future decisions on this subject matter since, you know, he’s already compromised his judicial objectivity.

Nah. That ain’t gonna’ happen in Elbert County.

Well, that was the big impression for me. The Left wrapped it up and I made good my exit before the brawling got started. One more thing about that event. It never had a chance at being a balanced room with people from a spectrum of political opinions looking for real debate. There was only one right answer to every question, and everyone in the room already knew it. I didn’t see any cheat sheets passed around, but my spidey sense was tingling. Conservatives were right to avoid the setup.

I went back to the speakeasy for a drink and a friendly bartender. Politics of a more limited nature still flowed there. And I think that is best. Humility first. Things are complicated enough. And no one sees the future, except those crazy mathematicians.