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Headline RSS Feed'Blue wave' sweeping Colorado, affecting regional, local races
October 31, 2008 —
Even as national polls appear to be tightening, Sen. Barack Obama seems to be running away with Colorado.
Obama is leading in Colorado by 10 points, according to a Public Policy Polling report released early this morning. The news of his lead is coupled with information from the Secretary of State’s office that about 1.3 million Coloradans have already voted this year, which is about 60 percent of the total votes cast in the 2004 general election.
Democrat Mark Udall also appears on course for victory. He now leads Bob Schaffer 56-41 in the race to join Democrat Ken Salazar in the U.S. Senate. Salazar beat Pete Coors to win Colorado’s other Senate seat in 2004.
Reliable polling data isn’t available in the race for the 2nd Congressional District seat, but Republicans report their candidate, engineer Scott Starin, has been given a limited amount of funding in his race against millionaire Democrat Jared Polis. The lack of funding is an indication that Republicans aren’t pouring a lot of money into the traditionally Democratic 2nd CD.
The news on all fronts has some Republicans worried that local Democrats will ride the momentum of the larger, national races to victory.
“We think we can hold our own,” said Eagle County Republican Party Chairman Randy Milhoan. “We also think there’s a chance for a blue wave coming across the entire state. That’s pretty much what happened in the last election. We’re hoping not.”
Milhoan, a long-time Republican and 40-year Vail Valley resident, said he has never seen such an energetic campaign season on both sides of the aisle. Colorado’s status as a battleground state, he said, is a leading cause of the state’s heightened political awareness.
“There’s also a lot of disaffection with the Bush administration right now and it’s created a lot of energy, especially among Democrats,” he said. “So we’ve had to rally back as hard as we can.”
The Republicans have set up a campaign office in Eagle – only a few blocks away from their opponents' Obama/Udall campaign headquarters. The “clubhouse” atmosphere, and help from a McCain national campaign staffer, have helped add a charge to the Republican movement in Eagle County, Milhoan said.
Nonetheless, Republicans in the Rockies seem drowned in a blue deluge – and many are calling for the party to re-examine its campaign principles and methods.
“I think it would be a good idea to look at what we’ve done and what we haven’t done and where we should go,” Milhoan said. “I’m hoping we can make it happen, both locally and at the national level.”
While he admits the Republican party has issues, Milhoan thinks the Obama campaign deserves a closer look, too.
“Barack Obama has raised over $100 million that is totally untraceable,” he said. “I could be a union, I could be a corporation, I could be a terrorist. I could buy prepaid credit cards and give them to my associates and they could donate. And it’s amounted to over $100 million, and I think it’s a travesty. I think it's pathetic is what I think it is.”
In the near hysteria that precedes a national election, however, Milhoan agreed there isn’t time right now to investigate Obama’s campaign rund-raising strategies.
For now, Eagle County Republicans are focused on holding back the blue tide on behalf of county commissioner candidates Debbie Buckley and Dick Gustafson, hoping the Democratic flood doesn’t sweep Democratic candidates Jon Stavney and Peter Runyon into office.
For more information on Eagle County Republicans, call their office at (970) 328-3049 or visit www.eaglecountyrepublicans.org.
For more on Eagle County Democrats, call their office at (970) 328-3888 or visit www.eagledems.org.
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Simonton: 15,000 to vote early in Eagle County, 100 percent turnout expected
October 30, 2008 —
In some ways, the job of a county clerk and recorder is to stay out of the news – which is exactly what Eagle County’s Teak Simonton is trying to do as she and her staff prepare for the largest election turnout in Eagle County history.
News may be made anyhow by voters themselves as election officials around the country prepare for what may be the largest voter turnout in general election history.
Simonton said she expects 100 percent of Eagle County’s active voters to turn out by the time polls close Nov. 4. The county has already mailed 12,000 absentee ballots to voters and received about 7,500 of those at their Eagle headquarters.
Early voting, available at El Jebel, Eagle, and Avon, has also seen a turnout of 2,500 people. Simonton is expecting about 15,000 to have voted before Election Day – or about 60 percent of the active voting public.
“If anything maybe we’ll have some inactive voters come out of hiding and push the active number higher – above the 23,000 mark,” Simonton said.
The 2004 turnout among active voters was 89 percent – or 20,500 people. This year the clerk has prepared for 23,000 voters – and is expecting to see as many as 24,000.
The population of Eagle County is estimated at 49,085. Do the quick math and it seems we’ll have a 48 percent turnout in the election this year.
That doesn’t mean activists are relaxing at home, waiting for the turnout to happen on its own.
“I just want to shout out: PEOPLE!” said Eagle County Democratic leader Debbie Marquez. “With all these (early voting) opportunities you’ve got to get out and vote, now!”
Republican leader Randy Milhoan spoke with me and said he was on his way to the county clerk's office to take care of some business, and is expected to talk with me later about the outlook for Republicans in Eagle County.
In 2004, George Bush won 8,533 Eagle County votes and John Kerry won 9,744. Ralph Nader received 118 votes.
Also in 2004, Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar beat out Republican candidate Pete Coors 10,110 to 7,636.
Learn more about voting in Eagle County at http://www.eaglecounty.us/clerk/elections.cfm
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How Obama will win Colorado November 4
October 28, 2008 —
I sat down with an Obama staffer this past January and asked him a simple question: “Do you think Obama will win the Colorado caucus on Super Tuesday?”
Polling at the time showed a dead heat between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, but the Obama staffer told me Colorado would come out strongly for Obama. News from teams on the ground – not pollsters – gave him a confidence which seemed almost rash, and I waited for a “knock on wood” from the staffer.
The staffer’s knock-on-wood never came, but victory most certainly did. In the primaries, Clinton grabbed victory in Pueblo and a few rural counties in Eastern Colorado, but Obama came away from the caucus with a landslide: 80,113 votes (66.6 percent) to Clinton’s 38,839 (32.3 percent).
The reason is because national polling is not as accurate as many might think. There are polls, more polls, and polls which are a collection of polls. Hundreds of calls are made every hour, every day, as polling organizations do the math and crunch the numbers, trying to figure who will win the mandatory 270 electoral votes in the general election this November.
Many might think that such polls are simply a matter of calling up voters and asking a series of simple questions, but demographic information plays a large role, too.
And that’s where pollsters go wrong.
It’s a vast and difficult thing to have your finger on the pulse of the nation at large, so pollsters make up the difference with demographic information such as the state’s voting history, a county’s voting history, combined with the age, race, and income of the pollster respondent.
Pollsters also call land lines almost exclusively, and many voters (myself included) don’t have land lines any more.
It’s difficult to get more than a general sense of the feelings of the nation at large, but we can certainly get a sense of what’s happening in Colorado.
Colorado has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968 except for one – 1992.
This year, however, Colorado will once again shift to the blue, and here’s why:
Based on fundraising maps, newspaper endorsements, and a bit of Colorado intuition, it’s clear to see that Obama will win Pueblo and Boulder – two of our largest population centers which have voted Democratic in the past. He will also win all the mountain counties, such as Summit, Grand, Pitkin and Eagle, which all voted for Kerry in 2004. The race will be close in Fort Collins, and McCain will likely win Colorado Springs and Grand Junction.
The advantage Republicans gain in Colorado Springs and Grand Junction, however, will be undercut by Hispanic support for Obama, which is showing itself in southern Colorado from Lamar to La Junta to Durango and Montrose.
Kerry lost Colorado in 2004 by a mere 4.7 percent – the fifth closest outcome of the election. Since then Colorado’s population has been growing, and Democratic voters now rival Republicans while unaffiliated voters make up the largest voting bloc in the state. According to the Rocky Mountain News, of Colorado's 3,193,660 registered voters, 33.2 percent are Republicans, 32.8 percent are Democrats and 33.4 percent are unaffiliated.
But there is more to it than just numbers. Sen. John Kerry was a weak candidate who bobbled his words and reacted slowly to the Swift Boat attacks. His “My name is John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty,” accentuated by a solemn salute at the 2004 Democratic Convention, helped frame that election around the issue of national security. American voters, when pressed, will always err on the side of strength, and fairly or unfairly, Democrats are seen as weaker on national security.
Times have changed and so have the candidates. This election has been framed around change and the economy, health care and education. Within that framework Obama has explained himself clearly, surrounded himself with top-notch advisors, and maintained the calm poise required of a leader in difficult times.
He also has more money than any political candidate in history, and is the first Democratic presidential candidate in memory to have more money than his Republican rival.
In the meantime, green energy has moved to the center of the national agenda for the first time, arguably, in history. Colorado, as home to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, stands to benefit greatly from Obama’s aggressive approach to modernizing our national energy technologies and infrastructures.
What about race? Simply put, race isn’t as much of an issue here in Colorado as it is out East, down South, or in southern California. I don’t have any evidence of that except that I’ve lived here my whole life and that’s just the way it is — call it Western Rugged Individualism. So don’t count on the Bradley effect in Colorado.
And here are the final few nails in the coffin: Republicans are in trouble. George W. Bush has presided during a time of massive economic downturn, two wars (one of which was unjust), and multiple, severe scandals (remember Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzales, and Valerie Plame?). The chances of Coloradoans electing another Republican after so many unsuccessful, embarrassing episodes are very slim.
One never knows what may happen in the general election. I can, however, take a cue from the Obama staffer I spoke to this past January and predict, without a knock-on-wood, an Obama victory in Colorado November 4.
And for the record, I’ll make a prediction that he wins 58 percent of Colorado’s popular vote.
2 Comments on "How Obama will win Colorado November 4"
Andrew Kenneth — October 28, 2008
You are forgetting one other critical factor, WATER RESERVES McCain favours redistribution to Arizona and Nevada, and has publicly stated that. I am surprised this isn't publicised but it is a known fact
Carol — October 28, 2008
If the rally I attended in Ft. Collins on Sunday is any indication, Obama will win Larimer county! The campaign organization and the number of volunteers here is just amazing. Go Obama!
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Photo by Loy Van Vleet
Vail vacation takes an October chill pill
October 21, 2008 —
Everyone needs some chill time. But what about Vail locals, who live year round in a place so meritorious that thousands of people pay good money just to be here for mere moments, for mere days per year?
People on vacation in Vail sometimes look at me and at the end of a raging weekend, their breath reeking, their ski clothes still dripping with melting ice, their credit cards warped from over-use, and I know what they're thinking: “My god, how do the locals do this all year round?” Are we on some kind of nightmarish, permanent vacation? Do we put Margaritaville and Rocky Mountain high on iPod repeat and cycle endlessly through days filled with skiing and golf and nights full of drinking and casual sex, spinning through spirals of joy in an endless ascension toward some inconceivable ski-and-snowboard ecstasy which none but Vail property owners will ever know?
If you've heard this before, that Vail is an endless series of athletic achievements followed by fine dining and vintage, top-shelf wines, then you’ve clearly met some of our vintage, top-shelf public relations people.
And they’re partly right.
Life in Vail is, or can be, little more than a fast-paced toggling back-and-forth between the beautiful and the sublime.
But for most of us it’s a toggling back-and-forth between ON-season and OFF-season. The ON-season is always frenetic, a time of mental chainsaw juggling. ON-season is scrambling from one place to the next, ironing black-tie clothes just in time for the Black Diamond ball, pushing the fatique out of your smile, picking up that Christmas gift just in the nick of time and working, WORKING, and making hay for 13 hours a day while the sun – as it does 300 days a year – shines with enough brightness to blaze through the entire top 50 percent of your epidermis and leave you lathered in aloe and soaking in the oversized tub in your million-dollar, two-room apartment, wondering desperately when the market will recover.
Off-season, on the other hand, is more tranquil.
October is the best of those tranquil months.
Everything is gray when the leaves fall. One day the weather is 80-degrees and dryer than ancient bones buried in sand, the next the sky is spitting lighting and snow, then rain, leaving an un-navigable layer of ice upon all of our many construction sites.
It’s not a good time to come here on vacation. We know that, and we love it. 
Look, we all understand that if it weren’t for the loyal seasonal visits of second home owners, international vacationers, Mexican aristocracy, Texan families of 12 or more, and those blessed Front Range riff-raff, that all of us locals would be out of a job and living off the land like the Utes who tended this land before us (which, given the sharp decline in bookings this year, may come back again sooner, rather than later). 
But it’s October, and we need a rest. We need to gather in livingrooms and bars and watch Sunday night football. We need to get our construction and road projects finished. We need to hunt for days at a time, wandering through the wilderness out of range of cell phones, off the grid, telling time by the position of the sun.
October is our holiday, a human right as old as humanity itself: Egyptian Pharoes built summer palaces, Native Americans went on spirit quests, and Greek gods were known to leave Olympus and take vacations from guarding mankind, leaving Chaos in charge of humanity from time to time (…hmmmm, perhaps that’s what’s happening now with our economy?)
Even George Bush kicks back once in a while and gets some relaxation (which he recently spent reading Camus’ “The Stranger” on Aug. 11, in a weird, ironic-and-yet-not-ironic twist in the bizarre and painful narrative through which he has lead our country).
The Decider of America has his Texas ranch – and we’ve got October. It’s a gray time, an ugly time, a cold and unpredictable time. The creeks flow at barely a trickle. Daylight savings and darker nights approach. There are no concerts, no events, no fireworks on Wednesday nights.
But it’s also a time of 50 percent off at local restaurants, where once a year we get to act like we can afford a few pounds of Dungeness Crab at Montauk, slathered in butter, washed down with the second-cheapest wine on the menu. It’s also a time when skis are on sale at the Ski Club Vail ski swap, and summertime kayak, rafting, and mountain bike gear can sit out alongside ski and snowboard gear (A-basin and Loveland are, after all, open for business).
Everyone will tell you that the reason to come here is for the skiing, the people, the summertime golf and fly fishing, the blue-bird powder days, martinis, beer, shots of jager and anything else you might want. But for us, more than anything, we live here for October, when this outrageously beautiful place belongs wholly, and completely, to us.
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