Posted on 12/07/2004 3:04:33 AM PST by RWR8189
Why Republicans held the state for Bush and lost everything else on the ballot.
RED-STATE JOHNNIE HAS THE BLUES. Times are hard for Colorado Republicans, these days. Yes, we again carried Colorado for President Bush. With a GOP voter-registration edge of 186,000, we darn well should have. But that was all we did. Down-ballot, this was the ugliest election for Colorado Republicans that I've experienced in my 30 years in politics. And as president of Colorado's state Senate, I saw the devastation up-close.
While Republicans were winning U.S. Senate races from Florida to Alaska, netting a four-seat gain, Colorado lost a seat the party has held since 1995, when Ben Nighthorse Campbell crossed the aisle following the Gingrich sweep. Senator-elect Ken Salazar heads to Washington as one of the Democrats' only bright spots--along with Barrack Obama of Illinois--in a bleak, 44-seat minority.
While Republicans were picking up five seats in the U.S. House, boosted by Texas' hard-fought redistricting victory last year, we lost a western Colorado seat that should have been safe. (Attorney General Ken Salazar convinced our Democrat-led supreme court to nullify Colorado's 2003 redistricting bill). Congressman-elect John Salazar rides east with Ken on a wave of celebrity over their being only the fourth congressional brother-brother act in history.
And if this weren't enough, Colorado was the only state to suffer a bicameral switch of legislative control in the last election. Democrats won seven seats in the Colorado House, and one in the state Senate, to grab a majority in both chambers for the first time since 1960.
Dems capped off their near-sweep by succeeding on three of five big-government ballot issues in metro Denver and statewide. This boosted their turnout and helped bleed Republican coffers, even on the two issues which failed.
The somber weeks since the November election have seen a lot of soul-searching among Colorado's GOP leadership. We've huddled together and tuned in, figuratively, to radio WTHH: What The Hell Happened in this 2004 election? Why did a state so reliably red for so long--a state that's gone Republican in seven of eight presidential races since I came here from the Nixon White House in 1974--vote deep blue all down the ticket below Bush-Cheney?
IT'S BEEN SUGGESTED that the big Republican voter-registration edge hides a quiet leftward shift in Coloradoans' political preferences, driven by the heavy migration from California and other West Coast states we've seen since 1990. But if that were so, Bush wouldn't have won here by several points while Senate candidate Pete Coors, a shade less conservative, was losing by a similar margin.
"They don't like us any more" is too easy an out; it doesn't fit the facts. Neither does the other comforting excuse: "They buried us in dollars." It's true that Salazar significantly outspent the wealthy Coors, and Democrats did pour almost $7 million into legislative races, twice what Republicans spent. But to really explain what happened you have to look at the 3 M's--money, message, and motivation--of which the finances are actually the least important.
It was motivation, above all, that powered this Democrat victory. Democrats were driven and hungry from decades in the political wilderness. Republicans were complacent and soft from too long in power. Their motive for winning was to get in there and do things. Ours, it often seemed, was merely to stay in there. These attitudes translated into discipline and unity for Democrats, indulgence and disunity for Republicans. GOP factionalism was endemic and fatal.
The message gap was a consequence of this motivation gap. Democrats talked about making Colorado a better state, about not letting Republicans cut cherished programs, and about the GOP's supposed obsession with "gays, guns, and God." Republicans talked about . . . what? Other than denying their charges and hurling some back, we pretty much punted. Republican candidates picked their own issues locally. Churchill would have called it a pudding with no theme.
Our campaign had what one analyst termed a sort of Nixon-Ford tiredness and blandness. I had considered, back in 2003, framing a conservative Contract with Colorado to provide a single, statewide framework for all 75 state Senate and House races. But after sizing up the competing intra-party fiefdoms and tensions, I decided not to start that fight. Mea culpa; I should have fought.
So because of the yawning gaps in motivation and message between Republicans and Democrats, there was naturally a money chasm between the parties as well. Duh. They had the foresight and will to enact lopsided campaign-finance rules giving labor the advantage over business. We lacked the toughness to either defeat or circumvent those rules. They recruited several leftist millionaires to carpet-bomb us with 527 spending. Our millionaires were mostly AWOL.
The dollar disparity hurt, sure, but it was a symptom of a much deeper problem for Colorado's GOP. A political party is an idea before it's a checkbook, an organization, or a platform. The idea that has inspired Republicans from Lincoln to Reagan to George W. Bush is an optimistic, assertive defense of ordered liberty and traditional values. That idea lost its voice in the Centennial State. Recovering it will be Job One for us in 2005.
John Andrews of Denver, a member of the Colorado Senate since 1998 and its president since 2003, leaves office on his term limit next month.
Unless, of course, there's more than a glimmer of hope that the Bush administration will promote or overlook continued illegal immigration.
?......Must be,......'Boulder'......?
/English as a second language in Colorado?
Dumbass RINOs were so busy selling out the state to developers, they forgot that liberal Californians would be moving there to fill all those shacks the developers were slapping up.
It happened in Oregon and Washington. After leftists soiled their own nests in California, they couldn't stand their own smell and left. They have fanned out to Californicate other states. They will ruin every place they land.
Yep. We took a bushwhacking in CO. You can't beat something with nothing. The Democrats learned that lesson there. We'd better learn it in time for 2006.
It's bad when people make their own state a mess and then just figure they can move out ----- how's it ever going to be fixed that way? It's so common for liberal Californians to complain when they get to a new area how it just isn't progressive like their wonderful California was.
I SMELL FRAUD / sarcasm ;O)
All too true. We have yankees from the northeast who sh!t where they ate (ie elected liberal politician who regulated and taxed everything until the states economies were in shambles) and now they've moved here to GA to befoul this state. Not to mention hundreds of thousands of illegal and a few legal South and Central Americans who bring instant third world mentalitly with them (of course here they get the government to rob the rest of us to pay for their housing, their childrens' education, and their health care)
As a Californian, I sympathize with y'all in CO. I know what its like to be in the minority. But my beliefs are NOT determined by who wins or loses elections.
Since I'm from Colorado, I'll sum it all up for you.
RINO's, Owens, Illegals, Leftist Press, California Transplants.
I may get flamed for this, but I feel the majority of the responsibility goes directly to Gov. Owens and the RINO's that love him. At the Republican State Convention, 68% of the votes went to Bob Schaffer and 32% to Coors. Gov. Owens initially endorsed Schaffer for Senator and things looked good, then he got Coors to run, pulled his support and alienated the base (Owens allready alienated the 2nd Amendment vote five years ago with his "close the gunshow loophole" nonsense). Once the strong right wing base was screwed out of the chance for a real Republican, the support for Coors was only lukewarm and the energy was gone from the campaign.
Then the leftist press went at Coors full bore. Result, we now have to contend with Salazar for the next six years.
As for illegals, this state if filling up with them. I have no proof that any of them voted, but you can be sure that all of their relatives that hide them out all showed up in spades for Salazar.
As for California transplants, (and left coast Boulder types) there are more of them every day. Mark my words, the front range is going to be the next Los Angeles. Why farm in one of the largest irrigated parcels of land in the world if the land can be sold for more than you can EVER make farming. Water is like gold out here and water rights bring huge dollars.
I'm sure the Owens crowd will take great insult from my remarks, but I call it as I see it.
Bump.
I suspect the Colorado Republican Party did a poor job of
selecting cantidates.Colorado citizens seemed have a bit of
trouble with the facts of Coors policy not matching his
talk of Bible and support of the Marriage amendment.
suspect as well the desire of many to stifle Government.
i.e. elect a Republican but put the opposition in to make
the game more interesting. I was not greatly impressed with
any of the choices -but find it impossible to vote for any
Democrat until they repent of their national sins.
I can't picture folks who care about illegal immigration voting Democratic. Democrats have been even more friendly to illegal immigration than Bush.
The real problem, I think, is that the California refugees are moving east. Unfortunately, there are so many of them that it's not just the conservatives moving out of the state anymore.
Actually, not all those leaving CA are left wingers. Some of us went looking for places were traditional morals still hold sway.
I wouldn't have voted for the drug-pusher GOP Senate candidate under any circumstances.
This is what happens when you have inter-party squabbling. If the Republican party here does not start unifying we will end up like the Republican party of California.
I remember being taken to task at a gun show by the Colorado State Shooting Association rep for suggesting that Owens sold gunowners out. His lecture to me was all about the sublime strategery of Owens actions. A true believer.
Like I asked some fellow conservatives before the election, would you prefer a candidate who wants to lower the drinking age to 18, or would you like a candidate who wants to let kids under 18 have an abortion without parental notification? It's an either/or situation. The choice was easy for me.
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