What the Hell Happened in Colorado? ( Dec 2004 )

Weekly Standard ^ | 12/07/2004 | John Andrews

[george76]

Why Republicans held the state for Bush and lost everything else on the ballot.

RED-STATE JOHNNIE HAS THE BLUES.

Times are hard for Colorado Republicans, these days. Yes, we again carried Colorado for President Bush. With a GOP voter-registration edge of 186,000, we darn well should have. But that was all we did.

Down-ballot, this was the ugliest election for Colorado Republicans that I've experienced in my 30 years in politics. And as president of Colorado's state Senate, I saw the devastation up-close.

While Republicans were winning U.S. Senate races from Florida to Alaska, netting a four-seat gain, Colorado lost a seat the party has held since 1995, when Ben Nighthorse Campbell ...

While Republicans were picking up five seats in the U.S. House, boosted by Texas' hard-fought redistricting victory last year, we lost a western Colorado seat that should have been safe.

And if this weren't enough, Colorado was the only state to suffer a bicameral switch of legislative control in the last election.

Democrats won seven seats in the Colorado House, and one in the state Senate, to grab a majority in both chambers for the first time since 1960.

A political party is an idea before it's a checkbook, an organization, or a platform. The idea that has inspired Republicans from Lincoln to Reagan to George W. Bush is an optimistic, assertive defense of ordered liberty and traditional values. That idea lost its voice in the Centennial State. Recovering it will be Job One for us in 2005.

John Andrews of Denver, a member of the Colorado Senate since 1998 and its president since 2003, leaves office on his term limit next month.

[jnaujok]

Have I seen that article? Sure. And won't it be great when the Dems get to hold up Bill Owens and Lionel Rivera and get to say, "The Republicans campaigned to cut child care credits for the poor (two of the refunds) and to cut the Earned Income Tax Credit (another refund) for those who are the poorest among us. Republicans are always happy to tax the poor and give the money to rich developers and their cronies."

And they'll be right. Ref C will cut 15 separate credit programs for the poor and take the money and give it to developers and companies for building infrastructure. Hooray, not only are repubs now saddled with tax increases, but they Dems can truthfully say we are taking money from the poor to give it to the rich.

The party is in a tailspin in Colorado, and now we're eating our own as well.

It may be sunny outside, but it's a dark day in Colorado.

[Digger]

California liberals fleeing the crap of their own creation and coming to Colorado.

So true. Also all of these California libs came to Orange Co after they ran LA county into a 3rd world ward all while bitching about their new place being so religious, etc. ( Point of info: There is no one on this site that hates these libs more than I do)