Democrats look West to increase fortunes

Nothing here that we don't already know, but still a good story about the resurgence of the Mountain West Democrat.

They are trying to build on a number of recent successes. Four Western states, including Montana and Wyoming, that all had GOP governors have elected Democrats since 2002.

In Colorado in 2004, Democrats won control of both houses of the state Legislature for the first time in 40 years, and the Salazar brothers won U.S. House and Senate seats that had been Republican. The state may elect a Democratic governor Nov. 7.

Just this week, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report moved Wyoming Rep. Barbara Cubin's re-election chances to a more vulnerable category, from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican." In Montana, Democrat Jon Tester poses a real threat to GOP Sen. Conrad Burns.

Democrats control at least one house in half the Mountain West state legislatures. They have a chance to pick up U.S. House seats in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona. Even in Idaho, which went 68 percent for President Bush in 2004, Democrats have a shot at picking up the governorship and a congressional seat.

We are competitive in House races in Wyoming and Nebraska too.

Charlie Cook, a highly regarded nonpartisan political analyst, said the Mountain West is not trending Democratic so much as it is "trending less Republican."

"In large part, it is that the greater social and cultural conservative focus of the Republican Party has hurt them with many Westerners who are fairly conservative but also libertarian," Cook said. "When they say they don't want the government interfering in their lives, they don't just mean guns, but they mean their private lives as well."

The Republican response is hilarious:

"The Republican Party is a party that advocates policies that are much more friendly to rural America and (better on) resource issues," he said. "There's an independent streak that exists in the states in the West that favors the party that thinks the government should be smaller and more effective and taxes should be lower and we should be growing the economy and letting local governments take control of their own issues."

Smaller government? Bush has grown government larger than anyone since FDR. Local control? GOP efforts to impose their morality, pass civil-liberty-invading measures like the Patriot Act, the Schiavo mess, and No Child Left Behind have all make a mockery of the GOP's supposed support for states rights.

It is precisely because Republicans have failed to match their rhetoric that the Libertarian Democrat is on the rise in the Mountain West.