At a break in a conference a few years ago, a few of us stood around the smoking lounge — a sunny spot outdoors on a fine fall day — and talked politics.
Somebody made the usual complaints about the two major parties, and said we needed a third party. Somebody else said that in the Mountain West, it would be good to start with a second party.
Go back just four years to the eve of the 2004 election, and Colorado was nearly a one-party state. Both U.S. senators were Republicans. The congressional delegation was 5-2 Republican. Only one Democrat, Attorney General Ken Salazar, held statewide office; the governor, treasurer and secretary of state were all Republicans. Republicans controlled the state House of Representatives 35-30, although Democrats held the state Senate 18-17.
In national politics, Colorado was reliably Republican. Harry Truman carried it in 1948, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and Bill Clinton in 1992 — that was it for Democratic presidential candidates since 1940, when even FDR couldn’t win here.
Similar GOP dominance extended throughout the Mountain West, where there was not a single Democratic governor.
That’s certainly changed. A Democrat is even competitive for Wyoming’s congressional seat, and Wyoming has a Democratic governor. So does Montana, along with two Democratic senators. Polls indicate that Barack Obama can carry Colorado and New Mexico, and is competitive in Montana and even McCain’s home state of Arizona.
So what happened?
During that conversation in 2004, I pointed out that Democrats might do well in the West if they’d give up on gun control. Another said the Democrats could try being a national party, instead of a coastal party.
That is what happened in the past four years. If any one person is responsible, it’s Howard Dean, who lost early in the Democratic primaries of 2004, but went on to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Dean had been governor of Vermont, a state with no prohibition on concealed carry, and he took guns off the table. He also instituted a “50-state strategy” to organize Democrats and recruit candidates precinct-by-precinct throughout the country, even in red states that had been ignored by the national Democrats.
Dean took party heat for this. Democratic strategist Paul Begala said Dean was “just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose,” and James Carvelle said money was better spent in a few close races than being spread around the country.
But in just four years, Democrats are competitive, even dominant, in a lot of places like Colorado where they were nearly invisible a few years ago. And if Republicans in the future decide to imitate it — i.e., quit pushing social hot buttons and become more than a Southern party — then so much the better.
However, this is the most “non-partisan” election I’ve ever seen. There are yard signs and bumper stickers and political ads. And I’ve yet to see one that mentions the candidate’s party. No “McCain-Palin: Republicans for Reform” or “Obama-Biden: Democrats for Change.” No mention of party on propaganda for Udall and Schaffer, or even in our statehouse and county commissioner races.
Why not? The GOP is connected to George W. Bush, the president with the lowest approval rating on record, and the Democrats are connected to a Congress with an even lower rating. Little wonder, then, that candidates are keeping their distance from their party affiliation.
Ed Quillen (ed@cozine.com) is a freelance writer, history buff, publisher of Colorado Central Magazine in Salida and frequent contributor to The Post.
