Rawlings kind of sounds like the Republican equivalent to Colorado to me on Minnesota.
Although despite my obvious biases, his arguments mostly boil down to "Colorado is conservative, end of story", while mine were pointing out how very deeply flawed the points about Minnesota "trending Republican" were.
No. I've given plenty of reasons. I think the Democratic bench is obviously empty in Colorado. The Democrats trotted out two wonderful, centrist candidates for Senate and governor and they both won against weak opponents. I don't see how that's exactly a "blude tide."
Listen, Salazar is a lot like Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Ritter is a pro-life, ex-missionary. Those two are tailor-made for Colorado.
Also, how can you underestimate the impact of funding for the Democrats? They bought the election last year! Tim Gill and Pat Stryker realized that the people of Colorado wouldn't vote for their gay rights agenda and so they tried to buy it through the state government. Last year Coloradans unexpectedly voted against gay civil unions (hardly the grist for a left-moving state, yes?). Gill and Stryker thought they could buy that vote too (they outspent Focus on the Family 5:1). When you give Colorado the vote, we don't vote liberal.
Finally, what I see is a wealthier, more centrist Democratic Party in Colorado that is capitalizing on Republican silliness here and in Washington. What I don't see is any movement to the left. Colorado voted for a pro-life, pro-business governor at the same time it voted against gay unions and for traditinoal marriage. That's just what Colorado does.
Match the money or take away the Democrats' centrism and you have what you had in the early part of the decade: GOP dominance. And, frankly, that's the dynamic shaping up in 2008. Mark Udall is not a Salazar or a Ritter. He is considerably to the left of those two and his is considerably to the left of the state, generally. And Bob Schaffer is doing fine with fundraising and there will be more than enough money pouring into the state--for both sides. When you put a conservative up against a liberal in Colorado, (Kerry/Bush, Strickland/Allard x 2, Owens/Schoettler, etc), the conservative wins every time. I'm only expecting the status quo in expecting Schaffer to win.
1. ken Slazar is actually pro choice.
2. Bill Ritter is not conservative, he is moderate
3. CO was only 2 points more GOP than the national average in 04, compared to 10 points more GOP than nationally in 96. Its trending hard towards the Dems
4. The only state which the same sex marriage ban had less support than Colorado was Arizona, a state with a much stronger ban
5. Udall is a liberal, and granted more left than the state as a whole. Schaffer is easily to the right of the state as a whole. They have elected other conservatives, but again the state is more liberal now, and they also dislike those conservatives, Allard has poor numbers Bush has brutal numbers
6 Based off average $$ a week raised Udall raised more than Schaffer (about $6,000 more a week) however the biggie is he has about $2 million more in the bank.
