I hope you saw pacified's post in the middle of the night about the Rocky Mountain News/CBS 4 poll showing Democrat Bill Ritter leading Republican Bob Beauprez
by seventeen points in the Colorado governor's race. This comes on the heels of a day in which two newspapers on the Western Slope (the vast region of Colorado west of the Continental Divide)
endorsed Ritter over Beauprez, which dealt a huge blow to Beauprez' efforts to appeal to Western Slope voters by portraying former Denver DA Ritter as an out of touch city slicker and by selecting a county commissioner from Mesa County (Grand Junction area) as his running mate. The Beauprez camp has been plagued by
rumors that he will drop out of the race to be replaced by someone more electable, as if the Republicans have a better option at this point.
Beauprez thought he had the advantage of campaigning in a Republican leaning state, but that's not Colorado. Some reasons Both Ways Bob is losing so badly below the jump:
1. The Denver suburbs, like the suburbs of DC and some other large metropolitan areas, are trending toward the Democrats as they become more racially and economically diverse. Much the same thing is happening in the northern I-25 corridor towns of Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland and Greeley, which is why Marilyn Musgrave is a permanent occupant of the Republicans' "most endangered" list.
2. The Democrats have really found their voice in speaking to rural Colorado about water and the environment. At the same time, rural Coloradans are losing their previous knee-jerk hostility to environmentalists as more locals become visibly pro-environment and as the negative effects of uncontrolled development become more threatening to rural Colorado.
3. Beauprez is suffering from guilt by association with the cast of crazies who are the visible face of the Republican Party in Colorado: Tom Tancredo, Marilyn Musgrave, and Crazy Doug Lamborn. I'll bet the Republicans are really kicking themselves over term limits now -- Bill Owens is the only Republican in the state with a good public image and he can't run again.
4. Bill Ritter is proving to be a much better candidate than skeptics (like myself) had thought. In past campaigns Beauprez has been an attack dog, but the Ritter camp has effectively responded to every attack while letting others promote the "Both Ways Bob" label Beauprez has earned. And I must acknowledge that while I thought Ritter's anti-Roe v. Wade views could only hurt in this pro-choice state, the fact that it is not politically expedient for him to hold those views gives him credibility and provides a stark contrast with Beauprez' reputation for saying or doing anything politically expedient. Besides, when a Democrat says he will enforce Roe as the law of the land regardless of his personal views, and his running mate is a pro-choice woman, it is a little more believable than when a Republican says the same thing.
The big risk for Colorado Democrats is that they will become overconfident and the Republicans can mount a late surge. I don't see that happening; I see a bunch of hungry Dems. The big upside is that 2006 could truly be a change election in Colorado, one that will establish the Democrats the natural party of government here. Let's go for it!