Can Obama Turn Colorado Blue? "The shift came because the GOP nominated right-wing candidates."

[DeepModem Mom]

TIME: Thursday, Oct. 02, 2008
Can Obama Turn Colorado Blue?
By Amy Sullivan/Aurora

Colorado is lovely in the fall. But by all rights, it shouldn't be on a Democratic presidential candidate's travel schedule once October rolls around. In the past 40 years, only one Democrat has claimed the state's electoral votes. Democrats trail both Republicans and independents in party registration. Outside of Birkenstock-and-muesli enclaves like Boulder, Colorado is still culturally a frontier state.

Yet with Election Day about a month away, the battle for Colorado is fiercer than the annual Buffaloes vs. Rams college-football showdown. Barack Obama recently passed through on his ninth visit, while John McCain has made 10 stops of his own. Sarah Palin swung through twice in just her first two weeks on the GOP ticket. And Coloradans can't turn on Dancing with the Stars without seeing the campaigns' dueling ads on energy and the economy.

The two candidates have traded leads in the Rocky Mountain state. In late August, McCain held a 49% to 44% advantage in the state, but in the latest TIME/CNN/Opinion Research poll, Obama is ahead, 51% to 47%. Both men need Colorado in their columns on Nov. 4. By carrying the state's nine electoral votes, Obama could build a winning combination of states that doesn't rely on, say, Ohio, while McCain needs to hold on to Colorado to offset what was almost unimaginable a few weeks ago: potential losses in Virginia, Missouri and Florida.

Over the past decade, Colorado has become Democrats' best shot at a boothold in the once reliably Republican Mountain West. Democrats now control the governorship and both houses in the state legislature and have a good chance of picking up a second Democratic seat in the U.S. Senate next month. The shift came about largely because the state GOP continued to nominate right-wing candidates, while Democrats recruited centrist politicians who often combined prosecutorial backgrounds with aw-shucks demeanors. And it is because neither McCain nor Obama fits either mold that the state is even close this year.

The financial crisis has elevated economic concerns here, which may provide a new twist to the campaign, giving the pragmatic voters of downscale Arapahoe County an unexpected and decisive role in November. In recent days, voters in that demographic have started to break toward Obama. "If John McCain does not carry the state of Colorado," says Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, "his path to the White House gets awfully darn narrow."...

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1846730,00.html

[Life Long Dem]

1. He's leading in the polls now in Colorado by like 5 points or more.

So I don't see why not in turning it blue.