Beware the Wily Hicken-gipper

I ran across a quote today I thought would make a good pop quiz.

So, who said the following?

“I believe we should be providing the best quality government in the most efficient manner. The cornerstones for good government are engaged citizen feedback, dedicated customer service and continuous improvement. It is not the role of government to solve every challenge. The role of government is to create a collaborative environment and to provide the resources to facilitate solutions that spring from the community itself.”

Was it:

A.) Ronald Reagan?

B.) Calvin Coolidge?

C.) Barack Obama?

D.) Barry Goldwater?

Actually, it was none of the above.

The quote comes from yesterday's State of the City speech by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper (which may be his last such speech if Republicans can't get their act together), though it could easily be confused with something that Reagan or Goldwater might have said. Hickenlooper is no conservative. Not by a long shot. But his use of such rhetoric (and it may be empty rhetoric, to be sure) increases the chance that he can sell himself as a centrist between now and election day.

The first two sentences are boilerplate for most politicians, at least since the Reagan era, but it's the second two that really grab me, since they pretty well describe the approach we've traditionally taken in Colorado Springs -- a model we've been relying on even more during this fiscal crisis:

"It is not the role of government to solve every challenge. The role of government is to create a collaborative environment and to provide the resources to facilitate solutions that spring from the community itself.”

The leftist in Hickenlooper betrays himself, just a bit, when he asserts that it's the city's function to "provide the resources to facilitate solutions," since that still gives government a too-central role in true, community-based solutions, in my opinion. These efforts should rely, to the greatest extent possible, on private funding sources. Had I been giving the speech, or writing it for the mayor, I would have made the following changes:

"It is not the role of government to solve every challenge. The role of government is to create a collaborative environment that facilitates solutions that spring from the community itself.”

That's the way we've been doing things in Colorado Springs for years. It's the secret strength that will help this city through these challenging times. If Mayor Hickenlooper really wants to turn that Reaganesque rhetoric into action, and see how it works in practice, we should come on down. We'd be happy to show him around.