Cross posted at
Squarestate dot net--if you haven't been there, and you are from one of the square states, come on out.
Out here in Colorado, I must confess that I am more hopeful about November's elections than I have been in many years. There are a few reasons to be hopeful--people are finally seeing the light about Bush, Republican'ts can't seem to get anything right, Democrats are organized with a fifty state strategy and are more energetic than at any time since 1992.
However, I also have some real reservations, including a ticket that is slanted toward Denver, lacks a Latino/a on the statewide ticket (and doesn't seem to be speaking to Latino/as in a real, respectful dialog), a number of difficult state House and Senate seats, and subtle competition among U.S. House candidates for campaign funds.
Bush's Colorado numbers, with 36% approving of his performance and 60% disapproving are dreadful. In the past, I would say that a president with those kinds of numbers would sink candidates in districts like Musgrave's and the 7th. However, from 1990 on, we saw districts that were heavily gerrymandered using new, highly sophisticated GIS techniques (I know, I was involved in the Democratic gerrymander process in Illinois that failed.) Also, since 1998, voters have bucked their trend of punishing the President's party in direct relation to the President's popularity. There has almost always been a loss for the President's party at the midterms. Since 1998, however, that trend has been reversed and the President's party has actually increased strength, in 1998 when Clinton was under impeachment threat and in 2002 when Bush was Euren Beliebsten Fuhrer! Before 1998, the loss of the President's party at the midterms was pretty close to a political science law--a theory that has no observable contradicting data. Is 2006 the year that this law returns to equilibrium? Or is some other thing going on, e.g., Americans are taking on a more authoritarian political culture that embraces a strong executive? We shall see, but if one uses the pre-1998 calculations for losses of the president's party, Bush is going to see a disaster in 2006. Using those calculations, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see Republicans lose ALL their seats in the US House, or maybe save only the 5th. Let's cross our fingers that 1998 and 2002 were exceptional, rather than the harbinger of a new rule.
Second, someone at Squarestate.net recently used the term Republican'ts. It's absolutely true and drills down from Bush all the way to wacky crazed county board members that talk about man-sheep love so easily that you just KNOW she has some video tapes at home. They can't balance budgets and all their tax cuts have left us with higher taxes at the local level. I remember about ten years ago talking to a Republican who wanted to do away with the income tax. I asked him where he would get the money to run government and he said a national sales tax. I asked him if he really wanted to pay a 25% sales tax. He said it wouldn't be anywhere near that, and said it would be 10%. Well, 10 years later, we still have an income tax and sales taxes are near 10% anyway. They can't tell us why we went to war. They can't tell us where all the money is going in Iraq--Hell, oil is over $70 a barrel and they can't pay for their own damn reconstruction?!? Locally, they can't protect our water on the Western Slope, can't slow growth on the Front Range and can't do anything in the legislature other than yammer about bestiality and illegal immigration and threaten to shove their fists up people's butts. Yeah, Republican'ts is the perfect name for them. While voters could put up with such shenanigans when the country was running on autopilot under Clinton, they now expect solutions to the problems that the Republican'ts themselves have created. And the Republicant's have no solutions to offer, only the same old tired fear of gays, Mexicans and terraists that they have whined about for six years now. You know what? Americans aren't scaredy cats and the Republican'ts are going to find they have gone to that well one too many times.
The last reason I see hope is that Democrats have developed a fifty state strategy and have real energy. It's really hopeful to show up at a DL, a Move-on meeting or a regular Democratic meeting and see 25-35 people there. It's even more encouraging to see this happen out here on the Western Slope, which was written off for many McInnis years by the Washington knuckleheads. Colorado's turnaround in 2004 woke many in the Democratic Party up to the potential of the West, but it's good to see it trickle down to the state regional level. We have an excellent coordinator in Northwest Colorado and she's doing a lot to teach the locals what it will take to create a successful campaign--and sending signals back to Denver about what the concerns are out here. Energy is contagious and I think Democrats are going to be energized to get out and vote in 2006 and the Republican base is going to be demobilized. At least, I hope so.
However, I'm really concerned about the Denver-liberal bias on the ticket this year. It's white and Denver heavy right down the line. I honestly see Ken Gordon losing at this point. I know he's probably still tired from the walk down the Front Range, but I am constantly hearing that he's not out here on the Western Slope and that people don't know who he is--even though he is the mastermind that saved this state from busting through the fiscal guardrail. I'll even put out a personal invitation to Ken, if he's reading or if he's got somebody reading, to come out to a house party here in Steamboat. You don't have to walk. But this brings up a point I'm going to keep hammering--we need good Latino/a candidates to run for statewide office. But even more, we need to speak to Latino/as about the issues they care about in a way they can understand. The Republican'ts are trying to strangle their access to healthcare--not undocumented workers but all low-skill workers in the state of Colorado. Nobody is talking about the way that Latino/as are iced out of Colorado's higher education system and silently tracked into service jobs--a real shame because America has always been the land of opportunity for its new immigrants. That DSCC ad was incredibly stupid. One might almost suggest that a Republican't came up with it and stuck it on the DSCC website, but no, it's more stupid Washington crap that is so inside the Beltway that it reeks of Fruit of the Loom. Also, out here on the Slope all you hear is water, water, water. So Both-Ways-Bob has it half right. Running against Denver and choosing someone from Grand County (even a right wing crazed nutjob) is smart politics when running against a team from Denver.
Let's make no mistake about it, we've got a tough row to hoe, folks. There are a number of tough House seats to defend to keep our majority in the Legislature. We've got to hang on to that and, as somebody pointed out this week, expand it. Bernie Beuscher is probably safe, but will never have an easy election. Gwyn Green is going to have a tough time. It was a close election this time, and her opponent got HAMMERED by her own party in the primary. But the best defense is a good offense, and we need to look for pickup opportunities, rather than fall back to the ramparts. We need to take a 50-state strategy on a state level and contest every district. I would look at candidate quality differential--places where the Democrat is a far superior candidate and look secondarily at past district numbers. In 2004, the CW was that the 7th was the most competitive CD, but I knew that the 3rd was a more likely pickup, even if the numbers didn't say so, because Salazar was SO much better than his opponent.
Finally, I think this is the best set of congressional candidates, statewide, that Colorado, or, indeed, any state, has ever seen. Let's even throw Wyoming into that. Our candidates in every district are so much better than theirs there should be no contest. And at S2, we've all got our own pet candidates. And every time some national figure comes up with a popularity contest or Blue State offers to add someone to their list, we subtly suggest that everyone should go to their site and vote for our candidate of choice, whether it's Angie, Ed, or Bill. We should be saying to these out of state yahoos that "Hey, we've got a great slate of candidates across our state (and in our neighbor to the north), why not support ALL of them. Remember in 2004? We swept the state House and Senate and this year we could sweep our Congressional delegation, which means there won't be a federal Republican't left when Udall beats Allarcrity in 2008." I like Jay Fawcett and Bill Winter saying, "We don't leave comrades behind." We should make that our motto this fall, and not compete. Netroots are not that deep, but so we must ensure that, like strawberry plants, we spread out wide.
So, I'm both hopeful and a little worried about this fall. I'm curious about what people here have to say about it.