While most states are seen as dichotomous either blue or red, Colorado cannot be written off as just another red state. Colorado politics are as complicated as family gatherings. Where else can you find a Democratic Governor who is Anti-choice and a mayor is who is solidly pro-union. Two weeks ago, McCain led Obama by 12% points in Colorado’s polls. The Democrats have built a slim yet growing majority -- a combination of left of center, progressives and centrist -- in the state that had been at the vanguard of draconian ballot amendments for English-only education and public services, and Amendment 2 that denied LGBTQ communities from seeking compensation from discrimination. What was once a red state is now a purple haze.
Today’s Denver is not the same city of our childhoods. The old timers in Baker, an historically Latino working class community in Denver, are now making way for the gentry who have the cash to pay upwards of 0,000 for beautiful old homes. Or at least they did before the Fannie Mae and Countrywide pyramid schemes collapsed.
Denver is a growing metropolitan city with its sights set on being an international city along the lines of Los Angeles and New York. The Convention is Denver’s quincenera – guests formally dressed, carefully choreographed, with peers anxiously watching, and the guest of honor showing her best face.
Denver’s racial and ethnic demographics, with long-time African American and Latino communities certainly make it a cosmopolitan contender. 50% of Colorado residents live along the I-25 corridor from Fort Collins to Pueblo and 50% live in rural areas, unlike New York State where the majority of the population, and Democratic voters, are concentrated in the downstate metro. Latinos and Whites are scattered across the small towns and farmland that make up Colorado’s rural communities.
Denver, and to a lesser extent Colorado, exhibit a long history of Black and Latino political leadership, evident from the number of African-American and Latino presidents of the Denver City Council, as well as former mayors Federico Pena and Wellington Webb. Pena was elected in 1983, long before Latinos constituted a voting bloc capable of shifting electoral maps.
One of those City Council Presidents was Elbra Wedgeworth. Back in 2005, Wedgeworth began an effort to bring the DNC to Denver after failed efforts in 2000 and 2004. Wedgeworth, who described herself in the Denver Post earlier this week as a "black woman from East Denver," is now President of the Denver-DNC Host Committee. The mile-high city out-bid Minnieapolis and Gotham to host the 2008 DNC.
And the strength of this political leadership has only escalated to the state legislature in recent years, with a resurgence in the Democratic Party across the state. Following the 2006 election, Democrats controlled both the State Senate and House for the first time in 40 years. And in that short window, Peter Groff (D-Denver, District 33) rose to becoming the first Black to serve as Senate President in the centennial state's history. And in local politics, Paul Lopez was elected to the City Council last spring representing a heavily Latino district in West Denver.
The ballot on November 4th will mark a defining historical moment for the State as well as the country. In addition to the opportunity of electing an African-American as the 44th president, Colorado voters will also be voting on Amendment 46 that prohibits race-based programs at the local and state levels. The initiative, the grossly-named “civil rights initiative,” will effectively dismantle the hard won gains of the past 40 years. Colorado is one of five states this year targeted by Ward Connerly’s deceitful American Civil Rights Institute (and supported by Bush lackey and Cabinet member, Linda Chavez). But Colorado Democrats are fighting back with Senate President Groff leading the charge.
Hopefully, the Democrats have learned that by trusting and empowering (small d) democrats, a new generation of political leaders will rise from communities like Denver's Black and Latino neighborhoods -- whether they are the 1,600 in Idaho who attended a Boise caucus this spring, Nebraska farmers, small-town mayors in Alabama or Mississippi, union rank-and-file or recent immigrants in Portland.
Dean's efforts to open the Party up from the top-down in 2004-2005 ought to be remembered on Thursday night as we witness the history of Barack Obama accepting the nomination in the home of the Denver Broncos in front of 75,000 along with millions nationally and billions worldwide.
“We’re going to be in places where the Democratic Party hasn’t been in 25 years,” Dean likes to say. “If you don’t show up in 60 percent of the country, you don’t win, and that’s not going to happen anymore.”