UF Health Care Research Report: Part Two
The Utah Foundation has posted the second half of its research report on controlling Utah health care costs. Part two "examines healthcare reform concepts suggested by the Employers Healthcare Coalition, a group formed by members of the Salt Lake Chamber." To read the current report, click here (see also executive summary and press release).
Winning the Political Game
Today’s Tip: Events Drive Politics
(Reprinted from an earlier UPD edition)
If you want to be successful in politics, you must plan and hold events. This applies both during a term of office and in campaigns. Events force good things to happen, even for very local politicians. If you are a state legislator or a city council member, for example, but you aren’t planning and holding events, then you’re missing major opportunities.
Events such as speeches, fundraising dinners, debates, hearings, annual conferences, panel discussions, town or neighborhood meetings, press conferences, media interviews, town celebrations, etc., all can help you make political progress.
What happens when you schedule an event? You are forced to:
- sGet people involved, often opinion leaders and experts
- Establish policy and clarify your positions
- Prepare communications materials, focus your messages and hone your arguments
- Interact with the news media
- Develop contact information and mailing lists
Those are all very positive things for a candidate or an office holder. Most political leaders develop their key policy positions when they are writing speeches or preparing for media interviews. Giving a speech forces you to grapple with the important issues and to develop your policy and positions. Holding a fundraising event not only nets you some campaign cash (hopefully), but it provides a lot of good exposure and forces you to get organized and get supporters helping.
Without events, not much happens in politics. But it’s surprising how many political leaders don’t go out of their way to proactively plan events. They attend their regular meetings and take what speeches and other opportunities are offered them, but they aren’t aggressively creating events. There are many more good event opportunities to take advantage of than most politicians realize. The old political maxim that events drive politics is true.
Wise Words
“Live each day to the fullest. Live each day with enthusiasm, optimism and hope. If you do, I am convinced that your contribution to this wonderful experiment we call America will be profound.”
—Ronald Reagan (Source: The Federalist Patriot)
Blog Watch
At New West, Tracy Medley asks: "Are Utah's Republican legislators shutting their Democratic colleagues out of redistricting plans for the state's fourth seat?" (see also here, here, and here).... Utah Taxpayer says: "Sandy officials are allegedly trying to change the distribution of restaurant tax revenues so that cities spend the revenues instead of counties. Currently, counties impose restaurant taxes and spend the revenues generated by this tax. ... However, we predict that Sandy's real goal is not to take the counties' restaurant taxes but to allow cities to impose -- with legislative approval -- their own restaurant taxes. This appears to be an attempt by Sandy City to find another means to subsidize Real Salt Lake's soccer stadium".... In response to this op-ed by Micron CEO Steven R. Appleton, Jesse Harris says: "Sen. [Orrin] Hatch writes technology-friendly bill? In other news, Hell is reporting temperatures in the teens, cats and dogs are living together, and terrorists all gave up making bombs to dedicate themselves to giving friendship bracelets to Israelis. Seriously, this is surprising. The same man who heavily lobbied for the DMCA, extended publishers' copyrights by another 20 years, proposed that we blow up someone's computer if they use Kazaa, and wrote the INDUCE Act is proposing heavily limiting the scope of patent lawsuits. Has Orrin finally seen the light? Color me a skeptic. His track record on technology issues is abysmal, making him more of a Luddite than Sen. Ted 'Tubes' Stevens. (I'm sure they smash looms together on the weekends.) If this bill does what Micron thinks it does, then I'm all for it, but I'm not counting Hatch as a changed man just yet. He's got a lot of penance due for his previous bad bills" (see also here and here).... At Out of Context, Robert Gehrke says: "Mitt Romney and his faith have been keeping Time blogger Andrew Sullivan busy during the Thanksgiving doldrums. Sullivan's Romney discovery came Wednesday, when The Rasmussen Report released a new poll that said 43 percent of voters would not consider voting for a Mormon. More intriguing to Sullivan was Romney's numbers among evangelical Christians, 53 percent of whom said they wouldn't vote for a Mormon. Writes Sullivan: 'So this emerges as a delicious irony: a candidacy made possible by sectarian politics could subsequently be made impossible by the same forces. I'm sorry if I have little sympathy for Romney's plight. Live by fundamentalism; die by fundamentalism.' ... Mormons are not true Christians, Sullivan concludes, but that's not even their biggest problem. Their biggest problem, in Sullivan's eyes, is the church's track record on race relations and denying blacks the priesthood until 1978. Also, Sullivan discovers, Mormons wear funny underpants. He even posts photos. In the age of terrorism, North Korea nukes and $9 trillion in debt, a presidential candidate is judged by his underwear. Can you imagine the campaign ads? 'Vote McCain. He wears boxers.' Could someone's drawers be Swiftboated? Of course, Sullivan says, Romney's faith doesn't matter to him, as the previous three days worth of posts clearly show. Maybe it doesn't matter to Sullivan, but it seems to reflect the popular perception of Mormons and the fact that it's not just the illiterate or ignorant who have uncertainty about the faith before they buy into the idea of a Mormon president. And the questions that people have about Mormons don't have easy, quick answers. Romney's got a few months to come up with some good answers if he is going to be a legitimate contender. ... I do know one thing: I'm totally sending missionaries to Sully's apartment" (see also here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). |
