Dave Chandler

Be a Peace Voter Today

The one candidate running for the U.S. House in Colorado's 7th Congressional District committed to advocating for a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

Be a Peace Voter for Dave Chandler.

A Fresh Approach for the 7th Congressional District

Voters in Colorado's 7th Congressional District are beginning to look for a fresh face and a new, principled way of doing politics and government.

Dave Chandler, candidate for U.S. House in the 7th CD, said today that he is moving up in the 9News poll because voters want more honesty and integrity and straight-talk from people running for office.

"It's not much, that's true," said Chandler. "But I do not take any special interest campaign contributions and that means that I have not spent millions of dollars on negative television ads and nasty mailings. Frankly, I think more and more voters like my approach."

"I'm for campaigning based on issues and speaking your mind," Dave said. "I want U.S. troops out of Iraq quickly. Even if you don't agree with me, you know where I stand. What does Perlmutter's 'redeployment' mean? Where is O'Donnell going to find 75,000 more troops to send into the Iraq quagmire?"

"I'm for a national single-payer health insurance plan to make medical care affordable for poor, working folks, middle class and seniors. My opponents are reluctant to address our health care crisis in any common sense, understandable way."

"I'm for taking global warming seriously and adopting strong conservation measures. After all, we've only got this one planet to live on, it only makes sense to keep our environment clean and healthy. Reducing our dependence foreign oil and fossil fuels is good for our country and the world."

"I'm for cleaning up our government, too. No person elected and employed by the people should be taking gifts from lobbyists, period. And if we get the demands of the special interests out of politics and the government, we can balance the federal budget and have a more open and more honest democracy."

Dave Chandler says this to the voters of the 7th district:

"We can change this country if you will reject the 'politics as usual' that is represented by the Democrat and Republican candidates. Do the right thing and vote your conscience and convictions -- vote for Dave Chandler and principle before politics this year."

PHOTO: Dave campaigned today on the Auraria campus.

"Project Vote Smart" for the 7th CD

All of the candidates for U.S. House in Colorado's 7th Congressional District were invited to participate in the 'Project Vote Smart' National Political Awareness Test. It is quite revealing to see which candidates did and did not cooperated with this highly respected, civic effort to help educate Colorado voters.

This is what 'Project Vote Smart' is all about:

Here at Project Vote Smart, Americans young and old volunteer their time, take no money from special interest groups, and have committed themselves to an extraordinary effort that, if successful, will provide their fellow citizens with the tools for a reemergence of political power not known for half a century. Their idea is one you may have thought of yourself. It is a deceptively simple concept but enormously difficult to achieve and would not be possible without the collaboration of citizens willing to lay their partisan differences aside for this one crucial task.

Picture this: thousands of citizens (conservative and liberal alike) working together, spending endless hours researching the backgrounds and records of thousands of political candidates and elected officials to discover their voting records, campaign contributions, public statements, biographical data (including their work history) and evaluations of them generated by over 100 competing special interest groups. Every election these volunteers test each candidate's willingness to provide citizens with their positions on the issues they will most likely face if elected through the National Political Awareness Test (NPAT).

This is what the National Political Awareness Test provides for voters:

The National Political Awareness Test is a key component of Project Vote Smart's Voter Self-Defense system. Major leaders of the media, major parties and Project Vote Smart repetitiously ask candidates one central question: "Are you willing to tell citizens your positions on the issues you will most likely face on their behalf?" The NPAT is administered to all candidates for presidential, congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative offices.

The National Political Awareness Test (NPAT) asks candidates which items they will support if elected. It does not ask them to indicate which items they will oppose. Through extensive research of public polling data, we discovered that voters are more concerned with what candidates would support when elected to office, not what they oppose. If a candidate does not select a response to any part or all of any question, it does not necessarily indicate that the candidate is opposed to that particular item.

Here are the links to the replies from the candidates for Congress in the 7th district -- judge then for yourselves who will be a responsive and accountable representative for the people of Colorado in the United States House of Representatives ...

Dave Chandler

Ed Perlmutter

Rick O'Donnell

Roger McCarville

Chandler in 'The Metropolitan'

Colorado 7th Congressional District candidate for the U.S. House, Dave Chandler, is a graduate of Metropolitan State College of Denver. Dave is featured in this week's edition of the campus student newspaper, The Metropolitan.

Link: Divided District Up for Grabs | Geof Wollerman/The Metropolitan/MetOnline

Dave Chandler ran as the Green Party candidate for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District in 2002. The 1992 Metro graduate had previously been unaffiliated with any party.

Aside from being environmentally oriented, the Green Party focuses on eliminating private money from elections, ending the war in Iraq and working to limit corruption caused by special-interest lobbyists. “You Can Vote to Stop the ‘Culture of Corruption’” reads the title of one of Chandler’s blogs. On his blog Chandler also points to North Korea’s recent nuclear test as evidence of the Bush administration’s foreign policy failures.

Regarding federal education dollars in higher education, Chandler calls it “still primarily a state government responsibility,” because he favors “decentralization of decision-making and local control.” Despite this, Chandler supports an increase in federal tuition assistance, particularly grants.

“Over-reliance on student loans is a curse for most graduates,” Chandler said. “Grants or zero-interest loans would be the main way I would like to see Colorado college students helped in the future.”

On the topic of illegal immigration, Chandler said in an email, “Let’s be very blunt about this. ‘Illegal’ immigrants don’t come here to have less or the same of what they left. They come here to participate in our rapacious consumption.” He pointed out that the U.S. population is soon to exceed 300 million and that “our planet simply cannot sustain an increasing population with the consumptive behavior we have in the U.S. … That is why illegal and/or unrestricted legal immigration is bad for America and the world.”

“I support only legal, regulated immigration with a path to citizenship,” Chandler said. “My ‘bigger picture’ priority is to raise awareness of our worldwide overpopulation crisis and encourage the U.S. and the rest of the planet’s nations to once again make this an issue to be seriously confronted.”

Chandler hopes to see Colorado become a “leader in research and development of alternative and sustainable energy resources. Through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden and private enterprise, (he) would like to see poor and working people around the globe begin to have better and greater access to clean, sustainable energy sources through technology developed in Colorado.”

A BBC news report today, puts new emphasis on Dave's reference in the above article on human population and our consumption of natural resources.

Link: Global Ecosystems 'Face Collapse' | BBC

Current global consumption levels could result in a large-scale ecosystem collapse by the middle of the century, environmental group WWF has warned.

The group's biannual Living Planet Report said the natural world was being degraded "at a rate unprecedented in human history". ...

... It warned that if demand continued at the current rate, two planets would be needed to meet global demand by 2050.

The biodiversity loss was a result of resources being consumed faster than the planet could replace them, the authors said. ...

... The nations that were shown to have the largest "ecological footprints" were the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Finland. ...

... The Ecological Footprint measured the amount of biologically productive land and water to meet the demand for food, timber, shelter, and absorb the pollution from human activity.

The report concluded that the global footprint exceeded the earth's biocapacity by 25% in 2003, which meant that the Earth could no longer keep up with the demands being placed upon it.

The findings echo a study published earlier this month that said the world went into "ecological debt" on 9 October this year.

7th CD Debate Broadcast This Afternnon

Dave Chandler, candidate for U.S. House for the 7th Congressional District, appears this afternoon in a rebroadcast of Colorado Decides.

Channel 12 KBDI-TV

Sunday, October 22
2:30pm

You can also view the debate here: Streaming VIDEO from Channel 4

The program is also scheduled to air on Wednesday, October 25 at 9:00 pm on Channel 12 KBDI-TV.

Colorado Decides - 7th CD

Dave Chandler, candidate for U.S. House for the 7th Congressional District, appears tonight in a rebroadcast of Colorado Decides.

Channel 12 KBDI-TV

Wednesday, October 18
9:00pm

Chandler, 7th CD Debate on C-SPAN2

The 7th Congressional District debate televised by KBDI-TV Channel 12, will be rebroadcast tonight on C-SPAN2.

Times: 12:35 a.m. and 4:04 a.m

For our insomniac supporters or the undecided who cannot sleep over the importance of their impending decision.

"Best Barb of the Debate"

An astute and insightful comment from 'Colorado Confidential' on the 7th Congressional District debate broadcast on Channel 12 last night.

Link: CD-7 Debate #5: Fresh Meat | Colorado Confidential

The inclusion of two third-party candidates in the fifth of a string of CD-7 debates Tuesday didn’t stem the now-customary caustic exchanges between Democrat Ed Perlmutter and Republican Rick O’Donnell. Following the pattern of several debates last week, Perlmutter and O’Donnell clashed over social security, immigration and the war in Iraq. They were joined for the first time by Dave Chandler of the Green Party and Roger McCarville of the American Constitution Party.

Although the two major party candidates dominated the debate, the new blood was a welcome diversion from the standard Perlmutter-O’Donnell arguments. After so many recent match-ups between the two candidates, they had few new jabs to deliver. Perlmutter did have one card up his sleeve, however. He unearthed something O’Donnell wrote about how a boy’s last year of high school is best spent patrolling the borders in the National Guard.

O’Donnell said he believed in “the wasted senior year,” and that 17-year-olds would benefit from the experience. Perlmutter said O’Donnell had called for mandatory participation from high school boys and noted girls were excluded from the plan. Colorado Confidential plans to investigate the actual contents of the document.

Despite all the peevishness between the Dem and the GOP candidate, the best barb of the debate came from Chandler:

“What Rick wrote about 11 years ago on Social Security, who cares? He’s wrong now on Social Security. Let’s talk about that.”

The debate was hosted by Jim Benemann of CBS 4, Aaron Harber of KBDI Channel 12, and Chris Barge of the Rocky Mountain News.

The debate airs again on Wednesday, October 18 at 9:00pm; and on Sunday, October 22 at 2:30pm on KBDI-TV Channel 12.

KBDI-Rocky Mountain News-Channel 4 Debate

Watch the Colorado 7th Congressional District Debate.

With Dave Chandler
Rick O'Donnell
Ed Perlmutter
Roger McCarvelle

VIDEO

Broadcast Wednesday evening, October 4, 2006 at 8:00PM on KBDI-TV Channel 12.

Jeffco Newspapers Feature Dave Chandler

Dave Chandler, candidate for the U.S. House for Colorado's 7th Congressional District, is part of a feature story today in the Jeffco newspapers (Lakewood, Golden, Wheat Ridge and Arvada).

Link: Third to the Party | Mile High Newspapers

... Dave Chandler, 49, a stay-at-home father, said his campaign budget is substantially less than those of his Democrat and Republican opponents in the race for the 7th. For instance, he said his party, Green, gave him $100 for his campaign.

"Actually, I can't remember," he said. "It might have only been $50."

Chandler doesn't mind. Like most third-party candidates, he's disgusted by the amount of money pumped into the campaigns of his big-party contemporaries, and the smear techniques he believes those funds often finance.

"I've heard that those campaigns may end up costing between $10 and $12 million," Chandler said of Perlmutter and O'Donnell. "I think that's obscene bordering on immoral."

The current race is not Chandler's first as a third-party candidate. For him and others bearing a similar cross, victory takes a backseat to message as they go door-to-door, attend community functions and campaign for a seat they know they aren't likely to win.

Photo: Seventh Congressional Green Party candidate Dave Chandler catches up with his daughter, Hannah, and wife, Kate, after work and school. Chandler, a stay-at-home dad, decided to run for Congress about a year ago.
From Mile High Newspapers