In years past, several Colorado politicians were touted for national office.
None of them managed to make the leap. Former Sen. Gary Hart might have come closest, but he got caught with his pants down, more or less. Former Sen. Bill Armstrong was touted as presidential timber, or at least vice presidential material, in the 1980s, and then the boomlet fell apart.
Ditto for former Rep. Patricia Schroeder. Former Gov. Dick Lamm sought the nomination of the Reform Party a decade ago, and couldn’t even get that.
But unlike them, Gov. Bill Owens might be ready for national office. As he demonstrated upon his return from Iraq last weekend, he can spin with the best of them.
By many accounts, Iraq is on the verge of a civil war, especially after the bombing of the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra, which was followed by reprisals.
And that means that the American occupation is succeeding. Owens quoted Maj. Gen. Timothy E. Donovan, chief of staff for the coalition. “He said we were kicking their rear. He said their old tactics weren’t working and they had to do something to change the dynamic, and that is incite a civil war.”
At first I was going to accuse our governor of unduly sanitizing a military statement, for I seriously doubt that any American soldier would say “kicking their rear.” Soldiers just don’t talk that way.
But back to the spin. Here things are on the verge of catastrophe in Iraq, and he says this indicates success because the American-led coalition has forced the insurgents to change their tactics.
This is spin because if the exact opposite were the case, if Iraq were as secure and placid as the selected audience at an American presidential fund-raising appearance, then the same thing could be said – that this indicated success.
That’s the art of spin. It’s the ability to interpret events so as to indicate that your position is the correct one.
I discovered it many years ago when I covered the Grand County government and spent a lot of time at the courthouse in Hot Sulphur Springs. One year, the sheriff had reams of statistics that demonstrated that crime was on the upswing, everything from dogs chasing livestock to bar fights and ski thefts, and so he needed a larger budget to hire more deputies and clerks.
The increased staffing must have worked, for the next year’s statistics showed a drop in crime. At budget time, the sheriff told county commissioners that the reduction in crime indicated his department was doing a fine job of keeping the peace, and could do an even better job with a bigger budget.
I complimented him on his ability to convert any turn of events into a need for a bigger budget, and he said he was a piker compared to educators. “Test scores go down and drop- out rates go up, and they need more money to cure the problem,” he pointed out. “And if the test scores rise and more kids stay in school, then they’re on the right track and should be rewarded with more money.”
So if violence is increasing in Iraq, it just means that American forces have been doing such a good job of pacifying the country that the opponents have had to change their tactics.
Just ask the governor. And if he wants to run for president, maybe I can hire on as a speechwriter, for I would enjoy the creative challenge.
Has the unemployment rate risen? “This is good news, because it means American businesses are shedding costs and becoming more competitive in the world markets.”
Did the federal government fail in delivering timely relief at a major disaster? “The response of individual citizens fending for themselves is heartening and shows that good old American self-reliance is alive and well.”
Is the national debt somewhere past astronomical and still growing? “This demonstrates that we Americans have so much confidence in our great future as a nation that we are willing to borrow against it.”
Our governor used to just blurt things out, as with “All of Colorado is on fire” in the summer of 2002. But he’s learning to spin like the big-time pols. Nowadays, he’d probably just say that “the natural forest-thinning process is in place, and we look forward to the enhanced forage opportunities for our precious wildlife.”
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
