Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

While I’m not yet ready to make an endorsement in the Republican primary race to challenge Michael “Who?” Bennet in the US Senate race in November, my first meeting with Jane Norton (on Tuesday morning over coffee for Lt. Governor Norton and hot chocolate for me) was certainly a positive – dare I say surprisingly good? – first meeting and I look forward to one or more future meetings to help me decide whether I will endorse her.  Nothing in today’s meeting made me think that outcome is impossible or even improbable, but I was not able to cover enough ground in the 45 minutes we had together to cement an opinion.  That said, I was quite happy with Mrs. Norton’s responses on the issues we did cover.

I didn’t take notes so I will not quote Mrs. Norton here in any substantial way, but will rather give the most accurate representation I can of her responses without claiming to be quoting her exactly.

Regarding what motivates her, Norton said that she felt an obligation to try to stop what she perceives as the current government’s assault on our nation’s fundamental principles and the liberty of our citizens.  While I wouldn’t expect a politician to say “I’m running because I’m extremely ambitious", I was intentionally very, even overly, sensitive looking for a self-aggrandizing motive in body language or subtext and I simply didn’t see it.  Of course, I don’t want a politician who has no ego and I don’t think there is such a thing, but Mrs. Norton struck me as sincere when she said that private life suited her fine until our government got to a point where she felt an obligation to get involved again.

Regarding Referendum C, as one might imagine this is a tough subject and one which Jane Norton knows she has to deal with.  Friends of mine who are very politically involved, including current and former state and federal office holders have made a convincing case to me that even if Mrs. Norton was against Ref C at the time, her position as Lt. Governor made support of the measure essentially mandatory since Governor Owens supported it.  The question puts Norton in something only marginally better than a no-win situation on the question – it’s one for which hindsight does not help.  If she were to say now that she opposed it at the time, that poses one major set of problems.  If she says she supported it, that’s a whole different set of problems.

Between not wanting to force this conversation during the first time I met Mrs. Norton, I therefore did not dwell a lot on the past but rather focused on her current views.  On Ref C, she was unequivocal that she would not support it today, that supporters did not spend the extra tax revenue as they promised (I wondered why anyone would have believed they would), and that Ref C has exacerbated Colorado’s current financial woes.  Separately, she mentioned more than once that she is a strong supporter of TABOR.  My sense, but that’s all it is, is that Norton may have had reservations about Ref C at the time it was being debated.  And while some people might want to argue that if she did have those reservations she should have made them public at the time, that’s a much easier to say now, outside of her shoes.  I don’t know if I’ll ever learn what really happened, what Mrs. Norton thought, did, or said at the time behind closed doors regarding the issue.  But I do take her at her word that she believes it has been a failure, that she would not support it now, and that she supports TABOR.

The Ref C discussion led us to a broader topic of government spending, both in terms of size and legality.  Mrs. Norton said that the two budgets she was in charge of when she worked for state government, namely the Health Department budget and the Lt. Governor’s budget, both ended her tenures smaller than when she began them.  I find this to be both credible (since it’s easily verified) and important.  Words are one thing, but that is a concrete action.  Similarly, Norton told me a short story of canceling a program under the Health Department which “seemed like a nice idea” and wasn’t even that expensive but for which she could find no justification under the law.  I asked her if she would bring the same approach to a federal job, i.e. judge government spending based on whether it is permissible under the Constitution, and she said “absolutely".  To emphasize that point, she noted that the word “education” is nowhere in the Constitution and that she has proposed eliminating the federal Department of Education.  I wholly support that proposal, not just because the Dept. of Education is unconstitutional, but also because it is arguably one of the least effective parts of government on a per-dollar basis.

I asked Jane Norton what she thought of the Tea Party movement.  She said that she thought it was perhaps the most exciting political development of her lifetime and that it is exactly what the country needs. 

Was she saying what she thought what I wanted to hear?

Allow me to interject at this point, as maybe I should have noted at the beginning, that my views on issues are not exactly a well-kept secret and that a smart campaign staff would certainly have counseled Mrs. Norton on what I (or any other audience) would most likely want to hear.  And of course I was well aware of that going in and thus, as I said before, perhaps overly sensitive looking for little clues that Norton might believe something different from what she was saying.  But I found no such clues, I am pleased to say.  She seemed entirely sincere in her description of what the Tea Party movement means to her.  While I am not the human lie detector, Mrs. Norton’s answers throughout the conversation were, in terms of political philosophy and on the narrow range of issues on which we had a chance to deliberate, never ones which I would expect to turn off the average Tea Party activist or even the average rational-but-not-very-political Republican or Independent voter.  Quite the opposite.  I found her generally pro-liberty, pro-limited government, and consistent. 

We touched briefly on gun rights (she’s strongly for them) and free trade (strongly for that as well.)

The couple of places where Mrs. Norton’s answers weren’t quite where I would have preferred – but still not disqualifyingly bad answers – were (1) when she said she supports “free and fair trade” (I hate the use of the word “fair” in that context since it almost always means something bad…but Norton was absolutely clear that she opposes tariffs), and (2) when she left more room than I do for the possibility of important human contribution to climate change (but she is staunchly against cap-and-trade or anything like it.)

Since the policy questions were uniformly getting answers which I thought were anywhere from good to great, and since my time with Mrs. Norton was limited, I moved on to questions of style, in particular – and I asked Mrs. Norton this in a very direct way – whether she’s too nice to kick some ass when kicking some ass is necessary.  She assured me that she can and will be a fighter and not just a passive participant in the Senate and will be a consistently strong supporter of “Republican principles".  Not to put too fine a point on it, I said that I don’t want to even consider endorsing someone who might turn out to be “the next Olympia Snowe".  Norton said in no uncertain terms that that will never happen.

Finally (in terms of when I have remembered to mention it, not when we spoke about it), I bought up the issue of John McCain saying, much as I did about Olympia Snowe, that I don’t want to support “the next John McCain” either.  Norton’s response was interesting.  She said that she supported John McCain because she believed that our national security and the role of Commander-in-Chief was (and is) so critically important during this time of (semi-permanent) war, but that she thinks McCain was dead wrong on his immigration/amnesty position and his support of cap-and-trade.  There’s no doubt that there are close connections among Jane Norton’s friends and family with John McCain, but my sense was that Norton will be more reliably conservative than McCain, at least if she acts based on her own principles rather than the influence of others.  Still, it is absolutely valid to wonder just who will be Mrs. Norton’s biggest influences if and when she is actually seated in the United States Senate.

I did not get into social issues during this meeting, though I plan to at a later time.  I think it’s safe to say that Jane Norton is not a libertarian like I am; she is certainly not pro-choice, likely not for drug legalization, etc.  But nobody’s perfect and, to be frank, it’s hard for me to worry a lot about drug legalization while Democrats are destroying capitalism.  I am not going to be one of those people who lets the best be the enemy of the good, much less of the excellent.

So, to repeat my early semi-conclusions based on my first meeting with Jane Norton, I think she’s tougher and more philosophically well-grounded than her nice (possibly too-nice) persona might make one think.  I think it would serve her well to show that she can be aggressive while still being (mostly) nice and that she is a fighter because, at least from the point of view of this blogger/activist, this is no time for “just getting along", no time for “bipartisanship” for its own sake, no time for anything but fighting to reclaim America for its citizens under the banner of respecting our Constitution.

Oh, I should mention that I was impressed by Norton’s mention of a few specific things within the context of the particular topic.  For example, when we spoke about gun rights, she knew that the Heller case was called the Heller case. Again, it’s very hard to gauge someone from one brief meeting, but I am always glad to see politicians whose knowledge of major issues is not “a mile wide and an inch deep". At the same time I understand that it’s very difficult for anyone to get a deep understanding of more than a small number of issues when that person is expected to be able to intelligently answer at least some questions about a huge range of issues.

All in all, my first meeting with Jane Norton was one which makes me believe she is a person I can probably come to support.  I look forward to the opportunity to visit with her more, to reinforce (or, if it happens that way, reverse) that view.  And I hope that Mrs. Norton will, on the campaign trail, raise the level at which she expresses her passion for her principles up to the high level at which it seems clear that she truly believes them.  If she truly believes them, this will serve her well and serve the nation well.  If she doesn’t believe them but was just saying what I wanted to hear (which I don’t believe to be the case but couldn’t objectively say is impossible), then she won’t be able to convincingly raise her rhetoric to the level required to inspire the awakening “silent majority” of Coloradoans who want truly inspired, principle-based, and goal-oriented leadership.

In short, my verdict on my first opportunity to meet Jane Norton: So far, so good.