Posted on 03/28/2008 8:12:56 AM PDT by OESY
...The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds that the share of voters who call themselves Republicans has dropped six points nationwide since 2004. That doesn't matter much in the Northeast (where the GOP's already locked out) or Down South (where the GOP remains dominant). But in the interior West, it's a big, big deal.
In 2000, none of these eight states had a Democratic governor. Now five do, including Colorado. A 2006 post-election Salt Lake City Tribune analysis showed that, where the GOP had beaten the Democrats by 20 points in the region's vote for the House in 2000, that advantage had fallen to one point in 2006. A few states, including Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, had seen a majority of House votes cast for the Democrats.
In fact, Colorado now looks bluer than a half-drowned Smurf. It's got a Democratic governor, House, Senate and high court. The GOP lost both houses of the Legislature in 2004 after spending a session on such issues as gay marriage, the Pledge of Allegiance and the liberal biases of college professors - while the state faced a massive fiscal crisis.
At the federal level, the state's got a recently minted Democratic senator (Ken Salazar, replacing a Republican in 2004) and two recently acquired House seats (one picked up in 2004, one in '06). Turning Blue on the presidential ballot is all that's left in this metamorphosis.
As Caldara put it: "Colorado is, in fact, the test tube of how to export liberal expansion to the Western states." A moderately conservative state has been turned Blue....
Of course, Democrats have worked hard to capitalize on the Republicans' carelessness. Liberal groups... have turned discontent into votes. And now they have a model to use in the rest of the region....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Ummm Colorado has alot of wild eyed liberals.
The loss of common sense is not the fault of the GOP.
LOL LOL
I don’t call myself a republican. I am a conservative who up to now voted republican.
Wouldn’t have anything to do with socialists fleeing California, would it?
I am not a Republican. I am a conservative, who up to this year has voted Republican.
There are issues you use to roll out the base and then there are the issues of the day that you have to articulate positions and solutions for. Whining about gay people doesn’t solve tax or employment issues.
America’s fall is tied directly to its abandoning the principles that we were founded on, namely Judeo-Christian. We have a generation of self-absorbed, impulse buyers who cannot see past what sitcom they are watching to pay attention to what is happening. They are so concerned with the last text they received and who they be hooking up with later they have basically become entitlement democrats by proxy.
Trying to correct a wrong in a party that has abandoned its roots is small beans in the face of this pandemic.
It is really easy,
we have far left social liberals in the west who have infesting the GOP leadership.
Unfortunatly most of the ones we have managed to purge out over the recent years have now glomed onto el leftst mccainiac in hopes of stopping all the possitive inroads we have made.
(protecting marriage, second amendment, stopping illegal amnesty)
From what little I’ve seen, the explanation is rich liberals looking to move to a chic place to live. The Democrats have become the party of welfare recipients and rich yuppies, and Colorado is one of the fashionable places to build your new dream home. Or to move out of California and escape the mess you have made.
It’s much like people fleeing to New Hampshire from Taxachusetts.
Certainly something did happen after 2004 as well. Bush came back into office on a tidal wave of conservative support, and he immediately started blowing it. There was great discouragement in 2006, and even greater discouragement now, with that jackass McCain as the party’s choice.
Also, Mel Martinez ran as a “conservative,” as did many of the other new Dem senators elected that year, and regretably the voters believed his lies.
The High Court is Democrat? That's so wrong...
Rich liberals see government pork profits as their road to wealth.
IOW the ultimate OPM.
exactly
It’s simple: the GOP establishment has gotten on small-government fiscal conservatives’ last nerve.
another nice spot ruined by rich leftists is Whitefish MT.
all true!
I am no longer a Republican. I was one when they offered Conservative candidates, but no longer.
Colorado’s moved bluer due to all the Cali and Pac NW folks moving in, not because of an inherent shift of the domestic natives.
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with socialists fleeing California, would it?”
Yup. Tens of millions of Californians... many Liberal... having fled that state in the last decade, for surrounding states.... and bringing their leftist poison with them. They weren’t content with screwing up California. They’re determined to do it Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, etc too.
This will continue until the 9th circuit is disbanded and reformed to represent real America and not just San Francisco. This and a heavy veto pen should be job 1 for any conservative Presidential candidate. If John McCain added this to his WOT policies he could gain a great deal of support. JMHO.
McCain has already said that he never would have appointed Alito to SCOTUS. And he has demonstrated that his idea of passing bills and confirmations through congress is “bipartisanship.”
I.e., he will work with Ted Kennedy and his other friends to choose his judges, so as to have an easier time confirming them.
So we won’t get more Ruth Bader Ginsbergs if McCain becomes president, just more David Souters.
I live here and while it is quite true that we've been invaded, imo, it wasn't only that. The Dem's somehow captured a lot of our voters. Our county has a lot of new people, but we still outnumbered registered Democrats 3 to 1, and they still won.
I knew people who are staunch conservatives who I know voted for Salazar, even knowing he was a Dem. Some based on race, some because the conservatives were labeled extreme.
And, our party really has collapsed since that election. Even when the first thing the new Democratic legislature did was work on circumnavigating TABOR (our taxpayers bill of rights, requiring all new tax increase to be set before the people), there was nary a peep from the Republican party. The only guy who cared was Joe what'shisname from the Independence Institute.
I went to the caucus and signed my name on a volunteer sheet, but have heard nothing.
I agree. I think he was just saying that Alito was to obvious and it might be better to appoint someone with the same principles who had a little more camouflage.
McCain said he would never appoint a justice like Souter. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Yes, he voted for Alito. The spotlight was on him. But I read his remarks, and basically he said that if he had been Bush, rather than a senator, he would not have chosen Alito for confirmation—because he was too controversial.
Well, let’s face it. If McCain is elected president, and the Democrats control congress, the only way to confirm decent SCOTUS appointees will be to fight it, tooth and nail. The majority of the voters oppose unlimited abortion, which is how Bush finally got Roberts and Alito confirmed—by backing the Dems against the wall.
I just don’t see McCain doing that sort of thing. The only people he enjoys screwing are conservatives.
Easy to say after the fact. Souter was appointed as a “stealth” candidate, under the assumption that a recognized conservative would be borked. His patron from New Hampshire vouched for him as a covert conservative—and either was fooled, or lied about it, nobody knows for sure.
Souter’s true colors only emerged after he got on the court.
There was one rule for the Democrats—appoint anyone you like and we’ll confirm her—and another for the Republicans—be bipartisan, or we’ll stonewall you. I just don’t think McCain is going to fight that. I’d love to be proven wrong, but his political history, especially in the last decade, is not encouraging.
I think the statistics you quote indicates more that the distribution of wealth is such that there is no longer a middle class. Many people who previously could pay for health care, food, gas, utilities and housing have reached a point that inflation has outstripped their pay and the credit card buffer is all used up. There is no longer an incentive to support the status quo when people can no longer succeed in playing the game.
The top 20% may be paying the taxes, but they also have all the wealth. Your statistics show that a tipping point has been reached where the majority of Americans aren’t able to make it in the current economy and system. This means the election may see the ice burg roll over as people are enticed by the Democrat promise of greener pastures.
They imported Mexicans into SoCal to turn it from a conservative base into a leftist province. They are moving to Montana, Colorado, Idaho.
Public education accellerates the process. Children of conservatives can be turned with 12 years of state propaganda and a healthy dose of TV. It takes an extraordinary amount of parenting to raise a child who understands the world from a conservative, pro-family, religious, traditional American point of view when they are 20, and to keep them that way after they finish college.
Conservatives need to understand that their ability to influence this nation is in danger of disappearing. Just a few more states go into lib control, and we will be a permanent minority. The civil war was fought because the south was going to lose ability to control of the federal government, once the territories came in as free states. We are about to be in the same position, but in a better cause.
It is important to have a strategy for reversing this trend while we can. That means gaining control of the federal government with Conservatives in charge within the next few years, before amnesty passes and before another 10 years worth of kids raised at government schools reaches voting age. It means having conservative leaders who are teachers, who explain what they are doing and why, and who convince people of the correctness of their policies. Reagan made people conservative, he didn't get elected because they were conservative to begin with. With a conservative government, we can reform the judiciary, reduce spending, begin a long, multi-generational process of regaining control of the institutions, which are wholly the province of the left. Perhaps, with a little luck, we can take the country back from marxism. But right now, we are not looking like the horse to bet on.
It is a lesson Republicans should learn from. And freepers, too. Give some money to your local candidates...and volunteer for them too. A little time and money can make a lot of difference...especially in suburban districts that are too big for people to personally know either candidate...and where races are are not terribly well covered. A cheerful volunteer walking the neighborhood and handing out literature on behalf of a candidate for the state legislature could be the only personal touch a citizen gets...and he just might remember the candidates name when he steps into the voting booth.
Too often, we get caught up in the national races because they run the ads and get our blood boiling. This year, with conservatives unhappy with McCain, is a good time to concentrate on the local races.
BTTT!
I agree- if we are going to have good consevative candidates in the future we must nurture them in local, then statewide races. A talented conservative state legislator is a future talented governor and then hopefully a great conservative president. The alternative is the mess we have in this election.
CO was a prime example of BAD RINO leadership. You’d be amazed what one lousy RINO Governor can do to a party in short order. Owens took a Republican state and turned it rodent. Lost the legislature on his watch, the Governorship, and the majority of Congressional seats.
btt
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