Strategic Vision Campaign - U.S. Congress, Colorado CD3

System Failure: At this crucial time in our history, we need mature systems-oriented Representatives in Congress — and that is the core competency that Root Routledge has developed over his entire professional life. It is the principal value Root brings to this election — Primary and General — to address the system failures we are now witnessing.

Pandemic Emergency: If you didn’t know it before, you know now that we are in the midst of what I’ve been calling for years a “War for the Future.” The impacts reverberating around the World of this Coronavirus Pandemic mark this time as an unprecedented moment in world history. While this pandemic has shocked capitalist system complacency focused on short-term daily markets, it has exposed massive failures of our societal systems. Not just health, of course, but the very structure and functioning of our economic system. We are ill-prepared for this War for the Future and a political landscape that is unlike anything before.

Climate Emergency: Our vision must be future-focused on viability for the long term, which includes building up our ability to respond rapidly and effectively to catastrophe. That includes, of course, the rapidly expanding life-threatening pandemic we are now dealing with; and future pandemics that will surely come. But even before we got hit by the demands of this pandemic, we've had before us the equally life-threatening climate crisis, which although the characteristic system response is on a longer timescale, the threat is strategic in that we are at existential risk due to the irreversible long time-lags of physical phenomena that threaten our very existence in the long run.

Root Routledge is the only Colorado's 3rd Congressional District candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, with the right background, experience and expertise to fight for our future and lead on climate and address our structural systems failures at this perilous moment in history, as a Colorado member of Congress in Washington DC.

Money in Politics and a Grassroots Run for Congress —
a note to the funding cynics:

As a side note for the funding cynics, who think the Primary candidate with the most contribution money should win — my low-budget grassroots candidacy has brought me to the same place — I am here as a viable candidate before you. My grassroots campaign is about getting big money out of politics: Keep in mind the Primary Election and General Election are entirely different ballgames. Your focus should be on who offers the best chance at turning the corner for a viable future once they get to Washington. This crucial election is not about who is a nice popular person, who has the most visibility or money; given the catastrophic system failures we are experiencing, it must be more of a needs assessment and who has the core competencies we need to address it — with the best chances of success.

Medicare For All: The sobering Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic makes it abundantly clear, even to skeptics, why we need bold systemic policies for a viable future. Healthcare must be viewed as the fundamental human right for everyone it is everywhere else. Who in America would our nation not care for as this pandemic sweeps over us? The most vulnerable? Medicare For All is the solution that is ready to go. In the House, Pramila Jayapal has sponsored HR1384 Medicare For All; the companion bill to the Bernie Sanders sponsored comprehensive Senate Medicare For All bill. Of course, I will fight for this legislation. People need to get to the doctor for medical care without having to incur any out-of-pocket expenses. Only a naïve professional politician or a corporate CEO would think everyone can simply "pay-as-you-go"; i.e. "buy-in" to ridiculous notions of "public options" for corporate designed healthcare insurance.

Green New Deal: The same goes for our climate emergency, where the Green New Deal, HRes109 in the House and the Bernie Sanders sponsored Senate version, are comprehensive systemic approaches to a just transformational future in which we can, not only repair our country; but prepare our country for the series of "shock events" we must continue to endure and address with ongoing resiliency.

Strategic Focus on Systemic Failures and Causes: If you've done your homework comparing the candidates' offerings, you would know that Root is the only candidate with a strategic focus, understanding and perspective on the existential threat of our systemic emergencies — pandemics, climate and ecosystem collapse. These are all "viable-future gateway issues". I understands the big picture and strategic threats and policies we need, which is why I wrote a 164p book, titled: Strategic Vision for a Viable American Future, available in pdf form via a link on my campaign website to my eNewspaper website.

An industrial consultant for over 30 years; Root is a scientifically educated systems engineer with a PhD in Industrial Engineering (Dissertation was on Systems Safety), an MBA, and MS in Environmental and Ecological Statistics, with a deep understanding of business and industrial systems, ecosystems, climate dynamics, climate impacts and policies. Root brings a lifetime of experience addressing wide-scale complex systems problems, which is precisely what we must be dealing with — urgently! We must act now. We are out of time.

I am asking for your support, and I need your donations even in these difficult times. I ask for your vote as a delegate to your Democratic County Assembly in March and April; and to the District Assembly, which was scheduled for the evening of Friday, April 17th; but now will be some form of virtual assembly. Please read on and I think you will agree. Thanks for your support.

One of "Us" is Running for U.S. Congress!

"Not Me, Us" is the theme of Bernie Sanders' Campaign: I am one of "us" — a fixed income 73-year old Vietnam Veteran senior with grandkids, fighting for our future, for our children and grandchildren and theirs. With a deep passion, I love our Mother Earth, which we have so damaged due to unconscious neglect, over population, over harvesting, pollution, materialist greed, wars and a corrupt corporate capitalist paradigm. The sole focus of this ideology is growing more money for those who already own most of the money — the more the better, the faster the better — where, they argue, all good for society will drop out from that single myopic goal. Wrong! It never has trickled down. That is blatantly clear from the multi-trillion dollar corporate bailout money the Republicans forced into the emergency pandemic support act just passed.

Climate, Money and People

Climate change is the greatest market failure in history, and we are at the precipice of runaway heating. We are out of time. We must turn the corner now and act. That is why I'm running for Congress. We are in the fight of our lives for a viable future.

The Perils of a Corporate Capitalist Paradigm: A fraudulent lie to its core, this paradigm is a fundamental cause of the crisis we face. As Exxon and the entire fossil fuel industry has shown, it does not respond to the environmental costs it dumps onto society. We need to put a cost on carbon.

Business As Usual is Killing Us: Based on unfettered and unbounded growth, this paradigm has been perpetrated for decades by the neoliberal dogma of both Republicans and corporatist establishment Democrats, who continue to hold all the political power. It is the reason moderate centrists "status quo" Democrats, to say nothing of the far right Republicans, are not where to look for solutions. They don't understand the scale and urgency of the problem; and they have no idea how to address this strategic threat.

But, to give the people more power through democracy threatens this power structure; that's why we need the transformative movement Bernie Sanders' Presidential campaign is leading, for the people to have a say in the future of this planet. And the chickens are coming home to roost — Business As Usual (BAU) is killing us and all life on our beloved planet. We need a systemic understanding and approach to the future on the scale, magnitude and urgency of the challenges that face us. As a scientifically educated systems engineer and industrial consultant, I have a lifetime of experience addressing system problems.

Inequality is at its Core: Inequality sucks the life out of society and the power away from the people. Money is ever more concentrated into the fewer and fewer hands of a tiny oligarchy, which we refer to as "the one-percent", but more accurately by a tiny fraction of even that (see the graphs at links to p60-65, "Income Concentration: Who's Getting the Income" and "Wealth Concentration: Where does the Money Go?"). Their only focus is on making more and more money — not solving society-wide problems. Market fundamentalism seems to be their only mindset. All while everyone else in society suffers austerity, and our environment and planet suffer a growing catastrophe.

Values — Money-versus-Life: An effective change requires a transformational strategic vision for a viable American future that reframes our values worldview. We need to replace the “sacred money-and-markets story” with a “sacred life-and-living-Earth story”. We need to focus on strategic factors that affect the wellbeing of people, communities and society; instead of growing more money for oligarchs. Right now we have "socialism" for corporations and rich oligarchs; and the cruel brutality of "rugged capitalism" for ordinary working families. And our policies seem completely disconnected from a moral view of nature, its spiritual value, and its ecosystem services; let alone the ethics of its intrinsic natural value in its own right.

The Competition

Do your homework before you vote; compare our websites and public statements.

Republican 10-year incumbent Scott Tipton is on record as a climate change denier (see my website for details). He has no idea what to do about our climate emergency, because he doesn't believe it's caused by human activity. That is his strategic weakness and he is a soft target for someone who knows about climate dynamics, climate impacts and climate policy — candidate Root Routledge.

The other two Democratic candidates are a conventional establishment politician, Diane Mitsch Bush, who as the CD3 nominee in 2018 brought in $1.9 million and lost to Republican Scott Tipton by a wide margin of eight points, missing the year of the "Blue Wave" Congress. Yet, in her rerun campaign she is offering nothing new and has no significant focus or background on the climate crisis. In her video brief to delegates Diane tries to position her wide loss as a "win", by the fact that she "cut Tipton's lead in half". Perhaps with more money she can cut the loss in half again, if you think that's a good bet.

And the other being a family-business corporate CEO, James Iacino, who recently moved from Denver to Montrose in CD3 to run in our district, and who flies his own airplane to events around the district. James is the centrist establishment businessman candidate. Iacino also has no significant focus or background in climate or systems analysis, other than running a business. In fact, until recently you couldn't find the word "climate" anywhere on his website or his campaign materials. To his credit, in his 2-minute video to delegates, James has recently brought climate up front with his support for the important effort to promote sequestering carbon in agricultural soils. This tactical policy ("...we have a plan...", James says), is actually part of the strategic comprehensive Green New Deal, and Bernie Sanders' program, "Revitalizing Rural America: Empowering Farmers, Foresters & Ranchers to Address Climate Change and Protect Ecosystems" (p33 of Bernie's GND plan). Root has done his homework, and knows what's already out there ready to fight for; neither James or Diane has, judging from what they suggest and promote.

Yet, each of these establishment candidates has brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars for this Primary Election and spends it on an entourage of staff and consultants.

The Primary Election and General Election are two different games. My only needs, in this Primary Election, are for travel to get around to all of our 29 counties, and campaign material printing costs. As a low-budget grassroots campaign, I do all of it myself, including: my website and social media presence; campaign materials like flyers and ads; managing my campaign finances, schedules, contacts and travels; and quarterly FEC filings. That is how I can accomplish this with a low budget, and still be a viable candidate. I am here. Should I become the Democratic nominee, as the only Democrat in the game at that time, I will have no problem raising the grassroots money we need for the general election.

Root Routledge, PhD, for U.S. Congress

Strategic Vision for a Viable American Future

One of "Us" is Running for U.S. Congress!

What Root is About as a Candidate

Root's Campaign

Climate, Money and People

The Competition