It's true. And the Los Angeles Times this morning has written a great article this morning telling us all why it is true:
When President Obama claimed the Democratic nomination en route to the White House, he planted his party flag in this Rocky Mountain capital, vowing to end Washington's dysfunction and find elusive consensus around issues such as immigration, guns and abortion.
Running as a different breed of Democrat — one more pragmatic and sensitive to the unbridled ethos of the region — Obama captured several Western states that the Republicans had won four years earlier, and came surprisingly close in two others.
Afterward, there was heady talk among Democrats of making the Mountain West a reliable part of their presidential base, safely tucking Colorado and Nevada alongside the blue bastions of California, Oregon and Washington, and turning Republican-leaning Arizona and Montana into a pair of tossup states.
Clearly, sine the 2102 election, none of that has happened. The interior West has grown even more competitive, as the GOP has rolled up big midterm victories last year in Colorado and Nevada and kept control Arizona's capital and, from all appearances, pushed Montana completely off the table for Democrats.
Wit the ups and downs of our party, the Republican comeback after two losing presidential campaigns, and the demographic changes remaking the face of many western states, the Rocky Mountain West, and what happens there could go a long way toward deciding which party wins the White House in 2016.
With no candidate on either side hailing from the region, and no special affinity for likely Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton or any one of the GOP hopefuls, the fight is likely to be close, especially in Colorado, which has lately seen more political upheaval — shifting control of the state Senate, a pair of lawmakers recalled in a fight over guns, a rural secession movement — than just about any state. For whatever reason, the right wing and conservative religious base in Colorado since 2012 has risen up faster than a wildfire to try to stop the progress of Dems across Colorado.
But clearly, things have shifted, with the regions libertarian streak having returning in many areas:
Even Obama supporters, including some who helped put him in the White House, say he has fallen short of the goals set forth that August 2008 night in Denver, and of the political aspirations that followed. Washington appears more dysfunctional than ever, immigration, guns and abortion remain political flashpoints and the national party is still viewed in much of the libertarian-leaning West with the same degree of suspicion.
"As a candidate there was more hope for Obama," said Dave Hunter, a veteran Democratic strategist in Montana, which Obama came close to winning in 2008, only to lose badly four years later. "But the reality, once he became president, was that he looked more like a typical Democrat than many people thought he was going to be."
Seen from a broad view, the conversion of the Rocky Mountain West to a presidential battleground constitutes one of the big Democratic achievements of this young century, limited though it may be.
For decades, the interior West was solidly Republican territory, the land of white conservatism, Barry Goldwater and the Sagebrush Rebellion. As recently as 2004, Democrats had failed to carry a single Rocky Mountain state, capping a generation of near-total futility.
Obama not only broke through with his 2008 victories but pushed New Mexico, a former swing state, firmly into the Democratic column, where it seems likely to stay in 2016.
However, the opportunity for a wider, more lasting shift in presidential preferences — what one Obama advisor called "a fresh start" for Democrats in the vast region — dissipated with surprising swiftness.
Clearly, the Pacific coast states of Washington,regon and California, plus Hawaii and New Mexico, are safe states for Dems. But it is starting to become clear that Colorado and Nevada may not be safe states for Dems as many have assumed.
And clearly, the GOP still has issues to deal with, such as their inability to attract female and minority voters, especially Latino's in states like Colorado and Nevada. But I think it is safe to say that both Colorado and Nevada will be battle ground states in 2016 - but clearly the GOP cannot win the presidency without carrying both states.
http://www.latimes.com/...