Posted on 10/14/2012 7:20:56 AM PDT by Kaslin
LAIRD, Colo. – This small Great Plains town is the terminus of a journey across the Rocky Mountain State on U.S. 34, greeting travelers from Nebraska and bidding farewell to Coloradoans.
On either side of the highway stand two slightly oversized “Romney for President” signs.
In the distance, in a town boasting 47 people, a stone octagonal house sits forlornly, its former glory faded by neglect and the elements.
This highway and U.S. 36, passing through Jefferson and Arapahoe counties, give way to a state not at all like the one often envisioned, politically or economically, from afar.
The 479 miles of rural, suburban and patches of urban Colorado reveal many Democrats with an interesting lack of enthusiasm for President Barack Obama, despite all of the built-in support and demographic advantages at his fingertips.
Only one homemade sign for his re-election was seen along either well-traveled highway.
Exactly 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency. And that win may well come down to Colorado – specifically, Jefferson and Arapahoe counties.
Both are at the center of the 7th U.S. Congressional District race between incumbent Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat, and his challenger, Republican Joe Coors.
If businessman Coors has a good election night on Nov. 6, then so will Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, not only in Colorado but likely nationwide.
Colorado is looking like a state that is the national average, perhaps a tick or two rightward, according to Sean Trende, a savvy number-cruncher and Princeton-trained political scientist for the website RealClearPolitics.
“So if Romney is winning Colorado, it probably means he is headed for a decent night,” Trende said of the relatively new electoral trend of a Western state signaling a presidential win.
If Romney wins here comfortably, that probably means a national win on the scale of George Bush in 2004, or even Obama in 2008, Trende said.
Right now, he said, Colorado’s numbers look pretty good for Romney: “We have him up a half-point in the RCP Average, with the president down to about 47 percent of the vote. That’s not a great position for the president to be in.”
The Democrats’ traditional map in Colorado looks like a “C,” Trende explained, “starting with ‘Old Mexico’ in the south, swinging through the ski areas in the west, and then coming into Boulder, Denver and the suburbs.
“The latter are the key battleground in the state. If Romney runs well in Jefferson and Arapahoe counties, it is over. If Coors is running strong against Perlmutter, the state won’t be close.”
The House race at the center of the presidential election has Coors up 45-to-36, with 55 percent of the district favoring repeal of Obamacare.
Still, Coors is being hit with ads by Perlmutter, by the Democrats’ House Majority PAC and by AFSCME, the government-workers union.
Colorado is the face of the new West and a new political power. Known for its picturesque mountains and ski resorts, it also is home to enormous energy resources – gas, oil, coal – as well as to aerospace-manufacturing and health-care businesses.
Jobs associated with the oil-and-gas boom are natural votes for Romney. And, although he lags behind with Colorado’s many Hispanic voters, interviews with young people across the state showed strong support for him.
Interview after interview here also revealed that Obama’s problem in Colorado, among Democrats who voted for him in 2008, is enthusiasm: About one-third will “probably still vote for him” (a line heard over and over), one-third will go for Romney, and the final third will just stay home.
U.S. 34 begins hundreds of miles to the west of here and, for part of its way, has Rocky Mountain National Park as a stunning backdrop – making it the highest paved highway in the country. It peaks at an elevation of 12,183 feet, so high up that snow keeps it closed in the park for much of the year; long wooden poles line its switchbacks, so summer road crews know where to go for the annual snow-clearing.
All along its twisting route – as on Colorado’s other rural byways, in its neighborhoods and Main Street shop-windows, and even adorning some pretty beat-up cars – you see plenty of Romney-Ryan campaign signs.
Landslide.
I live in south Florida, in an agricultural area admittedly conservative and Christian. We have an annual influx of snow birds by the 10s of thousands. Traveling around Highlands County for work, I see Romney signs out numbering 0bama sings 20 - 1 at least.
I live in Colorado (suburban Denver). In ‘08, there were a lot of BHO signs in my neighborhood and on the streets I travel. I realize it’s anecdotal but there are very few this time around- actually only 1 BHO sign and it’s 2 miles away. There was one house in our neighborhood that had a Hope and Change sign in an upstairs window for nearly a year after the election. This year- nothing. I think it’s pretty hard to be enthusiastic about a liar and complete loser.
Even Volvos in Boulder have RR stickers.
Wolverines!
I read here yesterday that the state of Oregon(sp) is trending Romney.
“Landside”,DAMN FOOLISHNESS!! This is going to be a hard fought battle and it ain’t gonna come EASY!! I’m sick of hearing that word, LANDSIDE!! The BEAST has only a flesh wound and it ain’t dead yet so don’t get too comfy!! 3wks is an eternity and the EVIL RATS ain’t going quietly. They are going to throw everything including the kitchen sick at R&R and the SHEEPLE will eat it up like ice cream!! SO DON’T GET COMFY...this my friends isn’t EVEN CLOSE TO BEING FINISHED! We are fighting a spiritual and evil regime and they’re gonna give it all they got! LIBERALISM is a cancer that is hard to cure so PRAY and ask God to give us a victory come Nov.6! We are in DANGEROUS territory right now...WE need God more than EVER!
So many places swinging towards Romney that I can feel the ground sway and it makes it hard to walk...
I live in the I-4 corridor and the Romeny Ryan signs are 20 -1 as well.
“Interview after interview here also revealed that Obama’s problem in Colorado, among Democrats who voted for him in 2008, is enthusiasm”
Drive thru Denver—left wing central. Obama signs are as rare as jackalopes.
LMAO, great analogy!
Colorado might well put him over the top, if not for those other 400 votes coming in from all over the map.
Are you in Oregon?
Oregon’s Wyden did work closely with Ryan, making it a bit harder to paint team Romney as extreme.
WHERE did you read that about Oregon????
Very good rant, and worth repeating. The enemy at this point is complacency, press the attack.
Yes, it is spiritual warfare, and we do need God more than ever!
Here on saturday? I can’t think of the thread where I saw it.
No.I’m from Missouri.
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