U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
October 29, 2008 08:31 PM UTC
33 Comments
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just took the McInnis controversy a step futher:
Scott McInnis prematurely pisses on GOP’s grave
to appeal to (appease?) social conservatives. Look where it got him.
that the Republicans will continue to run plays out of the same playbook that worked in the past but is ineffective against a new “team” of Democrats. Name-calling, gotcha politics, poisoning the well, elevating corporate greed over common good, demonizing government. I hope they blame it on the bad economy and on the liberal media and don’t do any self-examination as to why in Colorado they have gone from running it all to back-benchers…in an astonishing hurry.
This fight has been fought and the war has been won by the social conservatives, and Colorado is the perfect example of what has occurred. Conservatives pass term limits in 1990. The legislature is dominated at this time by socially moderate Republicans. In 1992, the social conservatives challenge a host of incumbent “RINO’s” in the primary, and win most of the primaries but lose a host of the general elections to those seats (See Mike Feeley). The social conservatives begin to take over the party operations in 1994 and then begin to consolidate power. In 1996 and beyond, term limits begin to take out “RINO” Republicans who are almost uniformly replaced by social conservatives. The right wing power becomes so oppressive that Democrats take control of the State Senate in 2000. In 2004 they take control of both houses and in 2006 they get the Governor’s mansion, a US Senate seat and a US House seat and other statewide races as well. The Republican Party drifts further and further to the right and candidates become more and more lunatic. Republican economic conservatives like me who used to control the the party leave the party in disgust. (Lest you think I am some sort of goofball, I was Chair of the Republican Party in Jeffco at one time). In 2008, Dems match the number of Reps in active voters in the state, Dems take a second US Senate seat, come close to a 5th US House seat (or maybe even win it) and carry the state for Obama. After the election the social conservatives continue with the mantra that the reason they didn’t win was because McCain was really a RINO anyway and they didn’t let Sarah Palin be Sarah Palin.
For the future, the Republican Party becomes smaller and smaller and more shrill and more shrill. Ultimately, it becomes a small regional party which can’t compete on a national scale and as an alternative, a new party of Goldwater conservatives is formed and becomes the second party in the US. (This will happen long after my death, but it will happen.)
You know, 8 years ago before the 2000 election I predicted that Colorado was going the way of California and in 10 years its politics would look just like California’s. Well, I was two years off and we don’t have the terminator for Governor.
The party has already decided its course. There is no argument left. The national committee has been controlled by the social conservatives for at least 10 years. It has several times rejected more qualified candidates for national party office solely because they were pro-choice.
The fight was lost long ago. There is no fight to have after the election.
And I’ve been hoping for this to happen, as you said, for a reemergence of the Goldwater Conservatives, but I’d like to see it happen sooner than later, and not after we’re dead and gone. It needs to happen now.
The war was fought and lost by the economic/national security conservative ten years ago. The religious conservatives control and will continue to control the Republican Party until it is defunct which is where it is headed.
Another indication of this came last Thursday in Roll Call when the House Republicans all but announced that they plan to turn hard right after the election in their caucus in Washington. Even one op/ed piece in the Wall Street Journal called the House Republicans bail out plan (cut taxes and eliminate regulations) the equivalent of taking a running leap off the top of a skyscraper without a parachute. To these Republicans as well as the ones who run Colorado, ideology is all important. The facts on the ground are irrelevant. No matter how preposterous their ideology is in a given situation, it must be applied on all occassions. Reality and common sense have been relegated tot he trash heap. these people are fools.
Third parties have real trouble breaking through to be national parties. This is partially because the deck is stacked against them, partially strategic voting, partially money, and partially the two major parties taking good ideas from third parties to use as their own. Whenever a third party breaks through for a while it prompts Democratic or Republican candidates to either genuinely adopt new policies or to at least mouth them.
The Republicans might not dwindle away, though it would be interesting if they did. I think more likely that if one of the current third parties or a new one started enjoying success Republicans might start moving that direction.
For the Republicans to dwindle away to nothing I think the Democrats would have to move a bit more to the middle or the middle to move a bit to the left with the party staying where it is (mostly). The latter is the more likely in my opinion. Then the Democrats would not be the party of the left, but the new right, with the Greens or something else taking up a place to their left.
The reform or demise of the Republicans could be accelerated if a genuine attempt at a strategic third party were made. Instead of a purely ideological driven attempt running hopeless presidential bids, instead trying to take away swing or moderately Democratic districts. If this somewhat hypothetical Colorado Federalist, Colorado Independence Party, or Colorado Modern Whig Party could win a few seats in districts that are lost to Republicans it could show a way forward.
I cannot pick out which new party would actually be successful. That’s lightning in a bottle and cannot be predicted ahead of time. It depends upon the personalities and luck of the people involved in each effort and if the moment is right. Personally I would be most interested in a party that would be Libertarian Lite with a twist of being for reducing the power of Governors and Presidents. With sides of single subject bills and impoundment or line item vetoes to control spending.
And Tom Tancredo is Colorado’s answer to Pete Wilson. Wilson got himself re-elected in ’94 by xenophobic immigrant bashing, but in the process helped finish off his party in California by alienating Latinos.
Actually, I do care. For the good of the state and the country, I would hope that the rational, decent form of Republicanism that has been in the vast minority and on the decline for the past 25 years will win out in the long run. The Democrats need to have a viable opposition to keep their own excesses in check, and I’d rather that opposition not be helmed by a bunch of wacko superstitious crazies like Dobson’s or Tancredo’s minions.
Would it be too much to ask that there be influential Republicans in Colorado, or anywhere in the US for that matter, that at least don’t hate science and actually appreciate the role of art and philosophy, and the world of ideas in general? I know it is for now, but how about the albeit distant future?
I’m also hopeful that Colorado can lead the way back for the GOP. You’ve got a lot of thoughtful moderate Republicans in this state that do think government has a role. And if they can wrest back control in the state that has FOTF in it, then it can be done anywhere.
I see the Republican party reverting to pro-business, fiscal conservative types who like keeping private behavior choices private and prefer to hammer out deals to get things done.
You know. The way the Republican Party was before the social conservative fringe, the rapacious amoral corporate elite and the Ivory Tower neocon nut jobs banded together in an uneasy, unholy alliance to supposedly create a permanent majority.
that’s exactly the way my old friend Joe Blake and the rest of the business leadership thinks. So, none of the above doesn’t apply, Joe’s “elite” does.
I feel that my parents expect me to put my Poli Sci degree to use in this discussion (for once in my life).
One of my favorite comparative government classess in college compared the American political system with that in Europe, specifically Germany. It became quite clear that the “divisions” between the two dominant American parties are minor at best on the grander scope of political views.
Seeing this battle in the Republican Party right now makes me seriously wonder if Americans, for the first time in 100 years (remember the Bull Moose Party? the Do-Nothing Party?) are possibly seeing the emergence of a viable third party. Not a do-nothing flash in the pan like the Reform Party (which didn’t have an original thought of its own, but merely was a quick protest movement) – but a real, bona fide third political party in American politics.
At a certain point, the free-market, lack-of-government-intrusion conservatives will rebel against the ‘social conservatives’, because the social conservatives cannot effectively pursue their agenda without a significant increase in governmental intrusion into private and business life.
The LP might be the best spot for those who want the smallest possible government.
If there was any time for a “for real” 3rd party to step up, this might be it.
Ideological purity and debates that make the vegan arguments about honey look sane by comparison doom the Libertarian Party to forever be an opposition group. They aren’t willing to compromise their purity to capture where the majority of people actually are in their belief of what government should do.
Some sort of Libertarian Lite party that wouldn’t be in favor of privatizing popular government programs like national, state, and local parks (for starters) might enjoy more success. They could just pick out one really good are to privatize, try to simply regulation and taxation generally, and be moderate on social issues and I think they could have great success.
The problem with the Libertarian party is that they don’t want to fix the IRS, they want to do away with it.
The Libertarian Party has compromised its ideological purity by selecting former Georgia congressman Bob Barr as its presidential candidate this year. (Barr voted for the Patriot Act as a congressman, for example, which is legislation despised by hardcore Libertarian loyalists.) Some disaffected conservatives joined the party specifically to anoint Barr as an alternative to — and a way to siphon votes away — from McCain; others in the party went along with that plan hoping for more exposure. There was quite a bit of dissension, from what I’ve read and heard, over Barr’s selection as the candidate.
You have a good point about Libertarians and Bob Barr. Somewhat like the seizure of the Greens by Ralph Nader in 2000. Nader was and is a social conservative rather than a liberal like most of the Green party.
Perhaps it was having stars in their eyes and the crazy thought that it could be the start of becoming a national party. Or maybe the structure of third parties makes them vulnerable to people who actually know something about politics.
But with the Libertarians it is even more mysterious. I cannot figure out how or why someone who was a target of the Libertarian party in 2002 for being a leader of the drug war became its standard bearer in 2008. Perhaps it was a move by Barr to destroy the party that destroyed his career.
Eh. But the official positions of the Libertarian party are still officially in favor of same sex marriage, against national parks, for drugs, against social security, etc, etc, etc. Despite having Barr on the ticket they’re still theoretically dedicated to their purity.
Officially, Barr has renounced his former position on gay marriage and announced his agreement with his party’s platform.
Kind of like Mitt Romney’s move but in reverse.
In Minnesota the Reform Party has morphed into the Minnesota Independence Party. Not the greatest name and they don’t have a solid platform yet, but they are still around and running a moderately strong Senate candidate that is making the race interesting if nothing else.
They call themselves “socially liberal and fiscally conservative” so they’re sort of trying to be Libertarian Lite. Not a bad place to be to capture a lot of disaffected Republicans. If they can manage to keep going they could start to displace the Republican party in Minnesota in a cycle or two.
Is absolutely the biggest legend in his own mind. And no one talks bad about him, as far as he knows . . .
If, as I suspect, Obama’s election presages a 20 year run for the Dems nationally, we’ll see the repubs first retreat to their right-wing base, and themn gradually change, moving to the center as Dems move further to the left. Just as the dems became the majority party in Colorado by becoming the centrist party, so too will the Repubs move-but it’ll take time. Watch the social conservatives nominate in Palin in 2012-and watch her flame out as Goldwater did in 1964. Then we’ll see the wingnuts simply give up on politics, and a new generation of economic conservatives/social moderates take over the GOP. Somewhere, there’s an enthusiastic Obama supporter in his/her 20’s who will become a thoughtfully moderate conservative-and lead the new GOP to victory in, say, 2032.
I’ll be 92 then-and still relying on Social Security & Medicare.
Thanks to FDR, LBJ, and the Dems who have kept the Repubs from gutting both programs…
But at 63, I also remember 64. It was a gop wipeout but wasn’t followed by a turn to the middle. Far from it, the goldwater conservatives took over the party and ousted the pro-business, moderate “eastern establishment”.
I’m only 53, but you are entirely correct. See my Colorado analysis above. The only hope is for a new party. But, alas as I said above, it won’t happen in either of our lifetimes.
…the So-Cons breaking off to form a party of their own with the Palin/Bachmann/Musgrave gang being the flag bearers. The Pro-American Party or something along that line.
Much easier to keep an eye on the fRightwingers when they’re all grouped together and isolated.
If they weren’t so busy trying to take over a major party, they would have found their proper home long ago.
Some of them might feel more at home in the Alaskan Independence Party, though.
Buchanan had the party created years ago and is probably waiting for a good time to resurrect it. He’s been defending Palin quite a bit these days.
This is right up Tancredo’s alley too!
I sincerely hope the party moves to the middle. We can’t win from the far right…even if some of us are ideologically there.
Democrats seem to get that, at least most of the time. You win from the middle and that’s what Democrats are poised to do in 6 days. It’s what y’all did 2 years ago as well.
We also can’t come across as an angry party of white folks (even if that’s what a lot of us seem to be 🙂 ). Immigration is a serious issue but Tancredo does more harm than good. Religious issues are important but Dobson scares the hell out of some folks.
We have to find the compassionate middle that GW Bush talked about 8 years ago (but obviously never followed through on). It exists somewhere, we just have to find it…
and I love your quote line on the bottom – classic !
Dubya was selling snake oil, and it’s pretty clear in retrospect that he never really meant to sell anything more than that.
Palin doesn’t even bother disguising it; she’s selling full-on whacky juice, concentrated.
McCain could have sold a conservative reform package, but he picked the wrong salesman. Romney is probably the party’s best bet in 2012 (or 2016); he’s got a record of compromise and moderation that he just has to be willing to run on – no sell-outs to the radicals next time, just run as a former Republican Massachusetts governor.
This being politics, sometimes (make that a lot of the time) being nothing more than a snake oil salesman works. As a party, we have to find what sells like Bush did, but also have something worthwhile behind it.
Palin is a big question mark to me. Assuming she and McCain lose next week, she can go back to Alaska and spend the next couple years learning how to sell something other than the “whacky juice” you so accurately say she’s full of. If Democrats complete screw the pooch in really short order, the 2012 election could set up really well for her like her election as Governor two years ago. I don’t think that’s likely, but you never know.
I think you need to return to religion is important – and private. Bringing religion into the political sphere hurts both the political and religious world.
Obviously, he’s lurched wayyy to the right in embracing religious standard-bearers, but on a personal level, religion hasn’t played a big role in his candidacy or (as I perceive it) to him personally.