Posted on 11/10/2008 8:19:32 AM PST by Reagan Man
Barack Obama carried Colorado on Tuesday with ease. So did Mark Udall, the Democratic candidate for a U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retirement of a Republican.
The state's senior senator, Ken Salazar, is a Democrat, as is Gov. Bill Ritter.
A Democrat, Betsy Markey, ousted a Republican incumbent in the 4th Congressional District, giving Colorado's congressional delegation a lopsided 7-2 Democratic edge. Six years ago, Republicans were ahead by the same margin. So Colorado has changed from red to blue, right? Wrong, the state's leading Democrats say.
"We're not red, we're not blue," Ritter told a morning-after news conference Wednesday. "We're a state with a significant number of independents and moderates who just want you to govern well."
"The moderate Republicans and the moderate Democrats are, at the end of the day, the people who decide this," Ritter said. "They want pragmatic, solution-driven leadership and I really believe that remains the case." Udall and Salazar toed the same line.
"This is an independent state," Udall said Wednesday. "If you perform, if you keep faith with the voters, then you'll be rehired."
"It's less a question of red or blue than of Coloradans looking to turn the page on the failed policies of the last eight years," Salazar said Thursday, adding that Coloradans "want problem-solvers who will work together across the aisle to put our country back on track." Conservatives held their ground on most of the proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot, rejecting anything involving a tax increase. Amendment 48, which would have defined personhood as beginning at the moment of conception, also failed, but that result might be interpreted as a victory for mind-your-own-business libertarians as much as for liberals.
Dick Wadhams, the state Republican chairman, told the Rocky Mountain News that the GOP faced the triple whammy of an unpopular Republican president, a charismatic Democratic candidate with a well-run campaign, and an economic slump.
"This notion that Colorado has suddenly become a Democratic state is preposterous," Wadhams told the News, predicting better days ahead for Republicans in 2010.
That's not to suggest that Colorado Republicans think that all they have to do is sit tight and wait for the pendulum to swing back in their direction.
"We need to look at our strategy and be sure that we're focusing our resources as good as possible," said U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, who was easily re-elected and has become Colorado's most prominent Republican while still a freshman congressman. "We have to reapply ourselves, pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and go forward. We have hard work to do." But Lamborn said the party's debacle on Tuesday did not mean it needed to re-examine its fundamental beliefs. "The losses we suffered in 2006 and 2008 were not because of flaws in the Republican party platform or philosophy," Lamborn said. "There were flaws in executing the Republican philosophy. That came about through too much spending, which was counter to what the base of the Republican Party expected."
Former Democratic Sen. Gary Hart, now a scholar in residence at the University of Colorado-Denver, predicted a Republican civil war.
"John McCain's struggle," Hart said, "has been that he has had a foot in both camps - the old Republican Party of traditional conservatives and the new, dominant, or previously dominant new Republican Party composed of the religious right and the neoconservatives and the tax-cutters."
"He struggled to keep those two factions together," Hart said. With Obama's victory, Hart said, "they're going to come completely apart, and you're going to see a struggle for the soul of the Republican Party."
Ideology aside, Democratic dominance at the federal and state levels has huge practical consequences for Republican officeholders in Colorado. It will be harder for them to steer federal funds to their districts. It will be much easier for Democrats. Ritter alluded to the fact on Wednesday.
"It's good for Colorado that we delivered our nine electoral votes for Barack Obama," he said. "We have a partner in the White House now."
As an example of that partnership, Ritter said he and Obama were in sync on the concept of a "new energy economy," producing millions of jobs while reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
Ritter has been working hard to position Colorado as a leader in alternative energy development. But it may or may not be a coincidence that alternative-energy jobs are being created in Pueblo and in communities in northern Colorado, but not here in the Springs
Message to Dems: perhaps just a few thousand more illegals brought into Colorado will turn it completely blue, with a little help from ACORN. /sarc
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The Dems won’t be happy until they turn Colo. into Calif.-Lite.
The Democrats cheated in this state. Right before the election I noticed that there were many African-Americans in my neighborhood who had not been here before. Now that the election is over their all gone. Obviously they came here to vote and then left afterward.
The problem is and will be for Colorado is the immigrants from CALIFORNIA. Same thing happened to Washington and Oregon. Happening to Nevada also.
I do too.
We as the GOP need to make sure that we get rid of this voterfraud once and for all. G*dalmighty, that can’t be that hard now, can it? We have turned into a banana republic.
We're hanging tough here in El Paso County with Cong Doug Lamborn. Waiting for some conservatives statewide to rise up and take back Colorado. Of course that means the GOP has to wake up and exhibit some cojones first. Four years ago the GOP held the Governorship, both Senate seats and 5 of 7 House seats. Today, its all reversed. Very ugly.
Colorado is a blue state now. With that millionaire gay out there dishing out money to get all the GOP voted out of office, and the liberals from Kalifornia moving out there, it’ll become the new Kalifornia soon. It’s gone to the Rats.
Once the Republican party dies, we will have a one party state!!
Its all these freakin’ cities! Denver is a microcosm of all that the left glorifies. It seems that in all these large urban areas across the country there is a “hive” mentality.
I am not opposed to city living it is just that corruption is a lot easier to propagate in said environment. If the demoncraps had their way we would all live in a metropolis.
Thank God I don’t and never plan on it.
Yeah and we need an exterminator!
bump
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.