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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2004-08-10

Coors v. Salazar

In what turned out to be a not-very-close election, Pete Coors beats Bob Schaffer 61-39, while Ken Salazar beats out Mike Miles 74-26. Contrary to all expectations, neither race had much drama from about two minutes after polls closing on.

Two points about this. Again, I state that I believe there is a groundswell among Republicans/Conservatives that is completely escaping the notice of pollsters and pundits. Just the turnout for the GOP primary (as of this writing, GOP ballots number nearly 325,000, compared to Dems 222,000) indicates an enormous interest in not just this race, but this seat. Sure, in this state the GOP registereds outnumbers the Dems, but not by the 46% margin of tonight's turnout. That Pete Coors, in a closer race, still got 30,000 more votes than Ken Salazar has got to be a bit of an eye-opener for the Democrats.

Secondly, and I tip my hat to Jonathan, who blogged this earlier, I also think that the negative attacks by Bill Armstrong, the Colorado Conservative Voters and the Colorado Christian Coalition played a bigger role in this than can be measured. Bob Schaffer tried to stick to a positive message, but did not have the resources to compete; into that vacuum went an ugly underbelly of GOP politics that did not resonate with the general public. The result: a surprisingly easy victory for Pete Coors. And where Jonathan left with speculation, I declare: keep the message positive and simple, Mr. Coors, and we will soon be addressing you as Senator Coors. Go hard-core negative, and you might just give this away.
Posted by: Michael / 8/10/2004 11:41:00 PM

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