Posted on 09/28/2006 8:22:23 PM PDT by okstate
Zogby Internet "poll".
Now, I know this poll is BS.
Survey USA polls have declined in quality since 2000.
Really? They were quite close in 2004, only missing one state and finishing 2nd or 3rd in accuracy behind Rasmussen and possibly Mason-Dixon.
How does he pronounce it, anyway? Bo-pray (the real French pronunciation), Bo-prez, or Bew-prez?
I agree that the regional swing is odd, but the overall numbers agree with other polls. It's a weird situation, that's for sure.
Actually, it was 1972 when anti-war leftist RINO-turned-'Rat Floyd Haskell upended Senator Gordon Allott and radical liberal Pat Schroeder beat freshman Conservative Republican Congressman Mike McKevitt. Although tolerating the wacky Dick Lamm for 12 years as Governor and the dreadful Roy Romer for 12 more, the state righted itself by dumping Haskell after a single term in 1978 and remained one of the few consistent GOP-controlled legislatures in the country.
Hart himself was nearly defeated in 1980, but a brutal 3-way primary contest on the GOP side between former GA Congressman and Secretary of the Army Bo Callaway (the "Country Clubber" candidate), former Astronaut Jack Swigert (the regular Conservative), and moderate/liberal RINO Mary Estill Buchanan saw the latter prevail, and she lost by a scant 19,000 votes. Swigert, who would've beaten Hart handily, would win a newly-drawn 6th House district seat 2 years later, dying just before being sworn in after being stricken with cancer. Had Swigert won the Senate seat, Gov. Dick Lamm might very well have appointed Hart back to the seat again.
Wow! Thats funny! I came from SoCal with a large pack of defense workers and we all voted conservative. We always thought it was the Colorado cities that were as Blue as Blue can be. The only Red we saw was out in the ranch lands.
Bob B needs to get his message out. He can close that gap. He is slow to go just like our other pathetically slow Bill O. Who I beleive is afraid to fight for the Republican party.
Bo-pray
Hard to know where to start. Between allowing his own personal business to spin out of control, he's been fairly poor on other issues, such as taxes (TABOR), and has presided over the loss of the Republican majority, not only in the legislature, but incredibly, at the national level. All utterly inexcusable.
Some trouble, and it will be potentially close, though she will win again. If she does lose, it will be a disastrous blowout for the GOP. The 'Rats haven't won that seat since 1970.
Don't panic too soon. This same thing happened in the '70s when it looked like the left was going to permanently control the state. When the residents got a good taste of it, they turned back to the GOP. The problem is the GOP needs to get its act together.
Ahh, that could cause some problems...
After 9-11, Colorado tax revenues took a nosedive and programs were cut. Because of Colorado's "TABOR" amendment with it's "ratchet down" provision, when revenues eventually rose the budget couldn't go up as rapidly as it had fallen.
This caused some real problems with popular programs like road building. I think the problems were real, although they were exaggerated by the media.
In any case, the Republican controlled legislature sat on the budget problem for two years without coming up with a solution -- they were much more interested in knife fights between the various GOP factions. I think the electorate voted out the Republicans in 2004 because of the spectacle of the knife fighters doing nothing to get a handle on the budget situation. The GOP was also caught flatfooted by the new McCain-Feingold "reforms" and 529 loopholes -- they were badly out maneuvered by the dems.
The budget issue neatly divided the state GOP with bad feelings all around. Gov. Owens didn't show much leadership, either.
Specifically, Bob Beauprez was pretty effectively painted as "Both Ways Bob" in primary ads. And, frankly, his own ads are pretty lame. To me, he comes off as a guy who might deliver your firewood.
IMO, what's happening in Colorado is more a function of a dysfunctional Republican party with a whole bunch of GOP leaders more interested in the family feud than beating the Dems. I hope this nonsense ends soon, but I'm not optimistic.
voters angry at high gasoline prices.
It won't be that easy this time. Over half of our new residents are from California and we didn't have 'campaign finance reform' then. Today, only unions and trial lawyers can finance campaigns practically with small donor groups. There are several barriers to progress:
1. He whose name must not be spoken. One man runs the Republican party in CO and holds all the money strings. He, more than anyone else is responsible for the passage of Referendum C. He, more than anyone else, is responsible for the sorry state of the CO repub party.
2. Campaign Finance Reform. We need to raise big money and put up a ballot initiative that eliminates the union and trial lawyer exceptions to campaign finance reform.
3. The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. These leftist publications will hide all the really loony and unpopular stuff the dems do and trumpet their every act as a triumph. We have to go directly to the people to let them know what their legislators and governor are actually doing as opposed to what the Post and the News tell them. That's going to take money too.
Because of problem number 1, the Republican party is no longer the vehicle through which conservatives can act in Colorado--the money guys have taken the party into the toilet and will not relinquish the strings. We're going to have to set up a shadow party and shadow financing and it's going to take a long, long time.
[the money guys have taken the party into the toilet and will not relinquish the strings]
With the erosion of the CO GOP after smashing success in the late 1990's, the money guys will, no doubt, blame James Dobson for GOP failures.
When they do that, which they will, just ask them who has been in charge of the party for the last eight years and who presided over the loss of both houses of the legislature and probably the governor's seat.
I'm not giving up on Bob. He's a very good man and I don't think there's really a 17% difference. But the election will be over in about two weeks (absentee ballots will be 60% of the vote) and Bob is peaking (if you can call it that) way too late. It will take a miracle to pull it off and I'm working hard for that to happen. If the miracle doesn't happen, then hold onto your hat for a really, really ugly ride in Colorado for the next few years.
What kind of problems? Are you insinuating people would vote against him because of his name? If so, why would you think that?
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