Posted on 05/08/2025 8:53:53 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Colorado's economic report card is in, and my beloved home state — formerly a solid A and B student — just flunked every subject.
Once upon a time, Colorado was a devilishly weird purple state — home to moderate-to-conservative Republicans like Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Tom Tancredo, idiosyncratic Democrats like Gary Hart and Richard Lamm, and (outside the Denver-Boulder Axis) a healthy libertarian streak.
It was such a swirl that one of those famous Republicans, Campbell, was originally a Democrat.
That all began to change around 2008 when my purple state went deep blue for Barack Obama. By 2018, the hope'n'change was locked in. The last Republican to win statewide office was in 2016, when Heidi Ganahl was elected to the University of Colorado Board of Regents. The last Republican to win a Senate seat was Cory Gardner in 2014, and he served but a single term.
Colorado's Democrats are no longer hard to pin down. The party is increasingly dominated by the hard left, and the party has dominated the general assembly going back to 2018. Today, Dems hold both chambers by a two-to-one margin. Whatever they want, they get.
How's that workin' out for us?
And Another Thing: After my report earlier today on "Self-Occupied Britain," I feel like Mr. Doom-and-Gloom. Maybe I'll devote my next few columns to an in-depth investigation into those adorable LOLcats.
Before we went Full Indigo, Colorado was pretty well run. This is my state — or was, using figures from before 2018:
- Third in the nation for personal income growth.
- A regulatory burden in the lower half of all states.
- Tied for second-lowest unemployment in 2017 at 2.7% — and that wasn’t unusual.
- Job growth of 2.4% in 2017 — typical for a state that was
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Ping
First of all until the early 2000’s Colorado was solid red.
Now among the other stats it is second worst in crime:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/10-most-dangerous-states-in-america?slide=10
Michelle Malkin did a documentary on how 4 billionaires did this:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rocky+mountain+heist+full+documentary
The Dodgers are now the home team when they play in Coors Field
It’s very hard to go from deep blue to purple or red. We’ve seen purple to red but not deep blue.
Reminds me of blood. Deep blue is very hypoxic purple in between and red is well oxygenated. Kind of works the same way with states.
Also mail-in voting. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was huge vote fraud here. It would be interesting to see what comes from the DOJ looking at the Tina Peters case.
Reminds me of the downhill slide for my home state of Oregon.
What an awesome red state growing up!!!
But, Californication started in the 70’s....
By the late 90’s, the libtardian infestation and takeover was a foregone conclusion.
Good riddance in 2009. Will never go back.
California got “californicated” by people from the NE Part of the country. Damn Yankees.
Plus, the state never adopted an RKBA clause in the state constitution, so it was doomed from the beginning.
Check
Colorado Springs is still mostly conservative but we don’t have the throww eight to derail the maniacs in Denver.
Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
“A bottom-10 destination for people moving in from other states.”
Oh look, a silver lining.
“And John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High.”
And Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way”.
The story goes that Walsh came blasting into Caribou Studios in the Colorado mountains shouting something along the line of “These mountains are mind-blowing and I want to write a song!” Kenny Passarelli, the “house” bassist, said, “Need bass?” And they sat down and wrote RMW. (As told to me by Mr. Passarelli.)
California was still a conservative state through the '70s and slowly began to become infiltrated by leftists in the '80s. I live in a rural, conservative part of the state far removed from most of "fruits and nuts" that many refer to in California.
I grew up in the Bay Area, but we had a place to escape to up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The town I grew up in was great in the 70s, at least compared to what it’s become. Every time I have visited it feels more like another planet.
I remember a California that was family friendly and had a good governor, Ronald Reagan. My aunt and uncle lived in San Bernardino. It was a great place for my cousins to grow up. Now is looks like Juarez.
20 years? We’ve been talking about being Californicated since I graduated high school in 1973.
It was well underway at the time.
I made a trip to the SF/Bay area in 2018 with my son and his then wife. We are all from SE Texas. While there, my ex daughter in law made a statement that she felt like we were behind enemy lines. No one disagreed.
Heh, heh. Commence flaming .
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