Three factors largely contributed to this change: shrewd remapping of legislative and congressional districts, dramatic changes in the way campaigns are funded, and the failure of Republicans to unify behind a comprehensive budget solution.

Redistricting

In 2001, Democrats captured majority control of the state Senate for the first time in 40 years and used that leverage to stymie the process for congressional redistricting. . . . Democrats used their majority on the legislative reapportionment commission to draw state House and Senate boundaries to their liking. Although the Supreme Court tossed out their egregious gerrymander of the state Senate, Democrats shrewdly studied demographic growth patterns to ensure that competitive districts would trend in their favor as years passed.

In 2004, Democrats swept both the Colorado House and Senate. Ironically, Republican House candidates received 60,000 more votes than their Democrat counterparts but were nonetheless outnumbered 35-30.

Campaign funding

Campaign funding changed dramatically after 2002 when voters, besieged by another season of campaign attack ads, were enticed by the siren song of the "nonpartisan" League of Women Voters and Common Cause to approve limits on campaign contributions.

Proponents cynically complained that "large contributions continue to play a major role in who wins" elections and that spending by labor unions and corporations "influences the political process."

It's no wonder that most voters didn't want to wade through the 4,500 words that Amendment 27 etched into the state constitution, but if they had, they would not be surprised by the results:

1.  Corporations are prohibited from donating to candidates, but labor unions are allowed to donate 10 times more than ordinary citizens.

2. Wealthy ideologues hire attorneys so they can spend millions on attack ads, while regular people abide by the law's strict limits.

3.  Candidates must spend more time raising money than talking to voters, yet still find themselves outspent 2-to-1 by unaccountable special interests.

By muzzling business and empowering labor unions, Democrats gained a tremendous advantage. The emergence of Gill, Stryker and their deep-pocketed allies turned that advantage into a landslide - particularly as those legendary "rich Republicans" recoiled from a contest with multimillion-dollar table stakes.

Fiscal fumble

Making matters worse, we Republicans shot ourselves in the foot by fumbling the state's fiscal problems in the wake of the 2001-02 recession.  . . .

Democrats have demonstrated that elections aren't a game played every two years. To Democrats, elections are a biennial report card that gauges the progress of their long-term political strategy. Patience, perseverance and teamwork are their strengths. If they squabble among themselves, they have the good sense to keep it among themselves.

Republicans can disparage Democratic policies, but ignoring their strategic successes is a game plan doomed to fail.

elections aren't a game played every two years. To Democrats, elections are a biennial report card that gauges the progress of their long-term political strategy. Patience, perseverance and teamwork are their strengths. If they squabble among themselves, they have the good sense to keep it among themselves.

I suggest that Democrats and Republicans can successfully work together to create personal savings accounts for all Americans outside the Social Security system, an idea that politicians from both political parties have supported for years and that The Post's editorial page recently endorsed ["Up From the Depths," editorial, Nov. 27]. . . .  

The solution for this problem is to create a national system of personal savings accounts modeled on the successful Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) for federal employees. Federal employees pay Social Security taxes and receive the same Social Security benefits as everyone else. But the TSP program allows them to invest a portion of each paycheck -- along with a government match for part of these contributions -- in one of six investment accounts (or some combination of these accounts), including a government securities fund and a common stock fund. . . .  

Under legislation I will be introducing in the next Congress, an individual personal retirement account -- called a PLUS Account (for Portable, Lifelong Universal Savings Accounts) -- would be established for every American at birth and would be endowed with a $1,000 contribution from the federal government. . . .  Parents and grandparents also would be allowed to contribute up to $5,000 annually to these accounts. Without any additional contributions, and given a reasonable rate of return, the initial $1,000 endowment would be worth $50,000 to $100,000 when each individual reached age 65. 

But the real impact of PLUS accounts would be that, beginning in 2009, 1 percent of every worker's paycheck would be automatically deposited into his own account for the first $100,000 earned annually, with his employer required to match this 1 percent contribution. Worker contributions would be made pretax while employer contributions would be tax-deductible. Both workers and their employers would have the option of contributing more. 

Funds contributed to PLUS accounts would be the legal property of each account holder, but they could not be touched until age 65. Any funds remaining when an individual died could be passed on to a spouse, children, grandchildren or anyone of the holder's choosing (including a favorite charity). Account assets would be protected from creditors and would not be considered in determining eligibility for any federally funded benefits or in calculating estate tax liability. Finally, my plan would simply serve as a supplement to the Social Security system, not altering the program in any way. 

If we begin PLUS accounts at birth and require a portion of every paycheck to be invested, the average American citizen could retire with a rather sizable nest egg. For instance, given a 6.59 percent rate of return (the same rate as the TSP's most conservative fund since 1987), someone who makes $46,000 a year -- the median household income in 2005 -- and contributes 1 percent of each paycheck would retire with almost $300,000. If that same individual were to contribute 3 percent over the course of his working life, he could expect to retire with over a half-million dollars (even if his employer never contributed more than 1 percent). 

The continued success of the U.S. economy depends on increasing savings for every citizen to provide the investment capital we need to ensure long-term economic growth. More important, without increased savings, most Americans will not have sufficient money upon retirement to live the comfortable life they deserve after 40-plus years of work. As all honest policymakers in Washington are aware, Social Security alone cannot sustain the lifestyle retirees want and can have, especially as 78 million baby boomers begin to retire. 

Our nation's saving rate is a big problem. It requires a big solution. We cannot tinker with the federal tax code and expect personal savings to increase dramatically. By harnessing the power of compound interest through individual savings accounts and small paycheck deductions, we can ensure that almost every American will retire a half-millionaire.

As part of its ongoing Jihad against Social Security, the Washington Post published a column by Republican senator Jeff Sessions advocating such accounts, with the usual invented numbers. Basically, it allowed Mr. Sessions to use preposterous rate of return assumptions.  

Mr. Sessions claims that $1,000 invested at birth would grow to between $50,000 and $100,000 by age 65. This implies a rate of return of 6.2 and 7.3 percent. This would only be possible if we assume that all the money was invested stocks (the normal assumption for these calculations is 60 percent) and we assumed that stock returns would be substantially higher than future profit growth projections will allow. 

During the Social Security debate last year I challenged all the supporters of President Bush's plan to produce a set of projections for capital gains and dividend yields that would equal the 6.5 percent to 7.0 percent return for stocks assumed in their calculations. (This was the famous "no economist left behind test.") No one could produce the 3rd grade arithmetic that could reconcile these numbers. (Steve Goss, the chief actuary for SS said that he could do it, if stock prices first fell by 16.5 percent -- an assumption that he neglected to include in his projections.) 

Anyhow, the invented numbers are back in the Washington Post. For these interested in reality, using plausible return assumptions (given the SS trustees or CBO profit growth projections), the $1,000 will grow to about $12,000 to $13,000 by age 65. Maybe we should collect the difference from the Washington Post editors.

TPJ'S BUSH WATCH December 2006
		Approve	Trail Mo	Disapprove	No Opinion	Spread
CNN	12/15-17/06	36		62	2	-26
L.A. Times/Bloomberg	12/8-11/06	42		56	2	-14
NBC/Wall Street Journal	12/8-11/06	34		61	5	-27
ABC/Washington Post	12/7-11/06	36		62	2	-26
CBS	12/8-10/06	31		63	6	-32
USA Today/Gallup	12/8-10/06	38		59	4	-21
Pew	12/6-10/06	32		57	11	-25
Newsweek	12/6-7/06	32		60	8	-28
CNN	12/5-7/06	37		57	6	-20
FOX/Opinion Dynamics	12/5-6/06	38		54	9	-16
AP-Ipsos	12/4-6/06	33		64	3	-31
WNBC/Marist RV	11/27 - 12/3/06	37		56	7	-19
	Monthly Avg	35.50	-0.93	59.25	5.42	-23.75

TPJ'S BUSH WATCH: MONTHLY APPROVAL/DISAPPROVAL AVERAGES
2006	Approval	Trail Mo Avg	Disapprove	No Opinion	Spread
December Avg	35.50	-0.93	59.25	6.14	-23.75
November Avg	36.43	-1.07	58.00	5.50	-21.57
October Avg	37.50	-3.42	57.11	5.36	-19.61
September Avg	40.92	2.64	54.23	4.77	-13.31
August Avg	38.29	0.59	57.14	4.64	-18.86
July Avg	37.70	0.49	56.40	5.90	-18.70
June Avg	37.21	3.05	56.79	5.93	-19.57
May Avg	34.17	-1.58	60.33	5.91	-26.17
April Avg	35.75	-1.35	57.75	6.82	-22.00
March Avg	37.10	-2.54	57.30	5.80	-20.20
February Avg	39.64	-2.42	55.21	5.23	-15.57
January Avg	42.07	1.32	53.27	5.07	-11.20
2005
December Avg	40.75	2.83	54.25	6.33	-13.50
November Avg	37.92	-1.93	56.46	6.09	-18.54
October Avg	39.86	-1.46	55.07	5.58	-15.21
September Avg	41.31	-1.91	53.75	4.81	-12.44
August Avg	43.22	-2.38	52.33	4.33	-9.11
July Avg	45.60	0.60	49.00	5.30	-3.40
June Avg	45.00	-1.50	49.83	5.33	-4.83
May Avg	46.50	-1.10	48.33	5.17	-1.83
April Avg	47.60	-1.28	49.00	3.20	-1.40
March Avg	48.88	-1.13	46.00	5.13	2.88
February Avg	50.00	-1.00	46.29	3.71	3.71
January Avg	51.00		44.71	4.00	6.29

CNN Poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation. Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 2006. N=1,004 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
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