I'm surprised at how fast and how much Colorado has moved to the Democrats. It has become the opposite of West Virginia.
There is nothing correct about that analogy. Colorado has been highly competitive on the local level going back decades. Heck, Bill Owens is the only Republican to have served as governor between 1975 and 2011.
During the same time, West Virginia was solidly Democratic, going Republican only on the rarest of occasions.
We are talking about presidential elections here.
His point is still valid. We elect lots of democrats on local levels so it isn't as if the party doesn't exist and that all of a sudden we've become liberal. These local officials just tend to be a lot more moderate, but still the fact remains that the democratic party has been strong in Colorado locally so nationally it isn't a huge shocker. And one Presidential election mirroring the national average in favor of the democrat of the last few cycles doesn't mean we're a shoe in for democrats. Look at Obama's weak approval numbers. Every where in the country he's winning against specific names, but not a generic republican and his approvals are not great. Once there's actually a republican nominee and voters pay attention and learn about the candidates instead of just listening to a little bashing now and then by media pundits or other candidates, we'll get an actual picture of the future of Colorado which could just as easily vote republican in 2012 as it could vote for Obama's re-election.
