From last year...
What the Hell Happened in Colorado?
Why Republicans held the state for Bush and lost everything else on the ballot.
by John Andrews
12/07/2004
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.
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.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/006osifb.asp
Andrews article is right-on, but overly optimistic in retrospect. He did not anticipate the Rep establishment joining the opposition on their way out the door and taking our best, winning issue (low taxes) with them. It's going to be a long, slow crawl back out of the hole Owens, Anderson and their group have put us in.