Posted on 11/04/2004 9:43:38 PM PST by PatriotCheck
We need to start planning now to elect a successor to President Bush. That man is Colorado Governor Bill Owens. A great man and leader. Very high approval ratings.
Join with me in promoting and encouraging Gov. Owens to consider running. He is term limited and will leave office in 2006 and thus will have the time to run for 2008.
Welcome to Free Republic.
Posting one-line vanity threads and addressing them to every state in the union is frowned upon.
Usually someone has been around a while before they start saying "we".
We need to have Michael Moore run for President in 2008. That way, we can run a houseplant if we want to and still have a comfortable lead.
LOL!!!
I think Bill Owens would make a fine candidate.
And Bush 41 mentioned he is a native Texan. Cool!
but what is his family situation? I heard he was getting a divorce. Is that correct?
The Scotsman thinks he's a "superstar."
http://news.scotsman.com/columnists.cfm?id=1242622003
Love JC Watts & Jeb Bush.
In either order.
How's his marital situation?
I heard he divorced...That may not fly with the "family values" types.
If there is any Owens-2008 Committee already in place, sign me up. If there isn't, I'd love to help start one.
I believe that Owens is the NEXT REAGAN!
There's a picture out there of Dubya and Owens together in 1970 working for Bush. Sr's failed Senate run. I'll find it.
Colorado Governor shows us how to run a state
George Will
October 19, 2003
DENVER -- On a credenza in the office of Colorado's governor sits a 1967 photograph of a teenager from Fort Worth. Bill Owens, a congressional page, stands on the U.S. Capitol steps, shaking hands with a congressman from Houston, George Herbert Walker Bush. In 1970, Rep. Bush ran for the U.S. Senate, and Owens, then a college student, ran Students for Bush in East Texas. The campaign aide with whom he worked was a whippersnapper named George W. Bush.
Today it is just 51 months until the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary -- the 2008 caucuses and primary -- and some Republicans are looking to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains for a possible candidate to become the 44th president.
Owens, who in 1998 became the first Republican elected governor here since 1970, is in his second and final -- he is term-limited -- four-year term. In 1998 he barely won, 49-48. In 2002 he won a 63-34 landslide. He is 52 and looks younger. He has no political plans. He has three children, hence an incentive to return to the private sector. But his record between 1998 and 2004 will, in 2005, lure many Republicans, aware that National Review calls Owens the nation's best governor, to his door.
His is an economically vibrant and largely urbanized state. Half of all Coloradans live in Denver's metropolitan area; 80 percent live in the Front Range corridor from Boulder to Pueblo. Thanks partly to the flight of high-tech workers from misgoverned California, Colorado has the nation's highest per capita concentration of such workers. It ranks first among the states in percentage of college graduates, third in venture capital per capita and eighth in per capita income (up from 18th in 1990).
Today most state governments have budget crises. Colorado's difficulties are much milder than most. One year ago the Washington-based Cato Institute, a free-market think tank, graded all 50 governors. Owens was one of just two governors --the other was Florida's Jeb Bush -- to receive an A grade.
Since 1992 a voter referendum has been required to raise Colorado's taxes. That has concentrated political minds on maintaining a business-friendly environment to generate revenues. The state's tax climate has facilitated what has been decorously called ``entrepreneurial federalism,'' poaching of businesses from states less hospitable to enterprise.
This has enabled Owens' Colorado, facing education and infrastructure spending needs associated with growth, to avoid the equation of conservatism and parsimony. In the 1990s, Colorado's per capita spending increased 44 percent, faster than in 35 other states. Yet Owens used his line item veto to cut 50 times more spending in his first five years than his immediate predecessors cut in 24 years.
Colorado law restricts the growth of per capita tax revenues to population growth plus inflation. This has prevented the spending or accumulation of surpluses. Instead, there have tax cuts totaling almost $1 billion. To limit the collection of surpluses, Owens cut taxes on income, capital gains, interest, dividends and business property -- and opposed other governors' attempts to impose Internet taxation. And when his ``paycheck protection'' executive order ended the automatic deduction of union dues from state employees' checks, 70 percent of the members left the Colorado Association of Public Employees.
Regarding education, grades K through 12, his school-choice program is even more ambitious than those in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Florida. Parents are given what the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, calls the nation's best report card on every school's performance. Owens says schools are rated on ``more than 400 data points.'' If even a few schools in a district fail, struggling students from low-income families can apply for what will be, when the program is fully implemented, almost 20,000 tuition vouchers redeemable at public or private schools.
If a school fails to meet minimum standards three years in a row, the state replaces the school's management. And to give the new managers maximum latitude, the school becomes a charter school.
On a sparkling morning recently in the Mile High City, Owens stepped out onto the statehouse steps where workmen were moving a marker, the one that designates a particular step as precisely 5,280 feet above sea level. New data shows that the marker belongs a few steps lower. That means Denver is even a bit more elevated than has been thought. Time will tell if that is a metaphor for Owens' political career.
©2003 Washington Post Writers Group
Contact George Will | Read Will's biography
townhall.com
I hope the divorce did not involve an affair, because that would really hurt him in the primaries. Also I wonder why Bill Ownes didn't run for Senate this year. He would have easily beaten Ken Salazar.
There's a rumor his separation/divorce involved an illegitmate child. I'd like this to be false, because otherwise I think Owens is one of our best governors to consider running in '08. But a scandal could really derail him. Plus, don't forget, the GOP lost both houses of Colorado's legislature Tuesday, so his legislative agenda is stalled until 2006.
He's on the list at tradesport.com along with 9 or 10 others.
I think with the "Moral Majority" that would really diminish his sway in the primaries. We don't really have an preemptive nominee coming out of the gates, but really in 1996, we didn't either. I would really not like to have someone like Jeb placed forward. The American people, I don't think, would want a political dynasty with the Bushs any more than with the Kennedy's. Although Jeb seems very appealing, I don't think he should be our nominee. I would like to see a Western/Midwestern Governor as our standard bearer. Hopefully, someone from a larger/swing state with cross-party appeal and lots of charisma. Although 2008 would be too early, GOP Nominee in WA Dino Rossi will be an up and comer if he mananges to squeak out a win...he will have to prove himself as the chief executive of a very blue state.
Most of the governors of these states are Democrats or are either tagged as unpopular (Guinn, Taft, or Perry)or are untested Republicans (Huntsman). States that should be good solid locks and producers of Republican governors have Democrats (NM, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin).
I personally like Senator Gordon Smith, Senator Bill Frist, Gov. Mitt Romney, Former Congressman J.C. Watts, Governor Sanford, Former Governor Mike Leavitt, Former Governor Keating, Senator John Ensign, Gov. Bill Owens and former Governor Marc Racicot. All of these would make a fine president...I think Santorum will have a really tough reelection battle as PA seems to be trending more and more D. The Senators have the Senator issue with a long list of votes to scrutinize/attack. Congressmen generally never move on to be President (much like John Kasich-R OH) as much as like both of those men. I am concerned Leavitt and Romney being LDS will drag down their national appeal. Racicot, although chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign seems to have dropped out of the lime light, but depending on if he gets a cabinet position...maybe....
Condi has never run for office before...Powell would be a turnoff for some of his actions as of late (his chance to run/win was in 1996 against a tainted Clinton). Sanford is unmarried and is generally untested still having just recently won election in 2002....
Any thoughts...
I DO know that He signed legistlation in Colorado to practically kill gun shows. That is a mark against him in my opinion.
That's right, Reagan was divorced but it didn't matter. It depends on the circumstances, if there was an affair or any whiff of one, that's another matter.
Also I wonder why Bill Ownes didn't run for Senate this year. He would have easily beaten Ken Salazar.
It's too bad Campbell didn't run, win, then give up his seat and have Owens assign his replacement.
Thing is the candidate runs not on his birthplace (W was born in Connecticut, his Mother was born in NY and his Father was born in Mass.) they run on the state they represent.
(in response to your "he is a native texan")
I beleive more importantly is what the candidate feels about important issues and yes their values. How does he feel about illegal aliens? Is he strong on national defense? Whats their voting records? That's what is important. What do they have hidden in the closet? A person can be destroyed by what is hidden and than surfaces.
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