Saturday, June 10, 2006

Could Colorado become a blue state?

From The Atlantic, which notes that in the last Presidential election "fewer than 70,000 votes among Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, with their collective nineteen electoral votes, could have swung the election just as surely as Ohio’s 60,000. And with George W. Bush winning by margins of 5 percentage points, 3 points, and 1 point, respectively, these were swing states by any definition of the term."

In addition to growing numbers of Californian and Mexican Democrats here, the ideological shift in the Repubican Party appears to be painting my region blue:

As the South has become central to Republican Party strategy, its particular flavor of social conservatism, moral certitude, and activist government has infused the national party’s character. This is slowly alienating the other major bloc in the Republican coalition: small-government conservatives, especially those who value individual liberty most highly.
. . .
In balancing the religious Right against the libertarian Right, the GOP balances the South against the West. (The Midwest is something of a muddle in between.) Bush-style big-government conservatism has tilted the party’s regional balance and put the West in play.