Obama bids for Western votes as key to victory
By LIZ SIDOTI and KATHLEEN HENNESSEY
Associated Press
August 20, 2008
Page 2 of 3
Voter registration numbers reflect the shifting landscape.
Across the region, Democratic signups have outpaced Republican over the past eight years. In Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada, specifically, Republicans held a 124,000 advantage in party registration in November 2004. Now, the latest reports in the four states show Democrats with a 73,000 edge.
In part, the boost can be attributed to the extended and competitive Democratic primaries and the Obama campaign's effort to tap into previously unregistered voting pools and the general public's sour attitude toward the Bush-led GOP.
Pat Welding, a barber in the sprawling Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, typifies the trend.
He twice voted for Bush but abandoned the Republican Party recently after his son-in-law got called up for a second tour in Iraq.
"I registered Democratic because I was so mad," Welding, 58, said while standing outside of his shop. He noted the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush's justification for going to war, and said: "It's a sham." He will vote for Obama because "he's talking about getting us out of there."
Republicans are fighting to win back such party-switchers.
In Nevada's Washoe County around Reno, the party has sent letters to about 1,200 voters who've dropped their Republican registration. The letter acknowledges "this has been a difficult year for most of us in many different ways," does not name any Republican politicians and asks voters to come back to the party to support "a full slate of candidates."
"The vote's going to be tight. There's no denying that," said Heidi Smith, the county's GOP chairwoman. But, she said, "I really think there are enough people who, I don't want to say fear Barack Obama, but just don't know him, and will end up voting for McCain."
Like the rest of the country, voters in the West care deeply about the economy, gas prices and national security issues.
But they also consider candidates' records and rhetoric on water rights, mining laws, federal land management, the environment and conservation â€" and that's where McCain believes he has an edge given his Arizona roots and western ties.
Obama is emboldened by the fact that more left-leaning people now call the region home.
In Colorado, Interstate 25 cuts through Denver's political power center, from Colorado Springs â€" home to the Air Force Academy and the headquarters of the conservative Focus on the Family â€" in the south to Boulder â€" chock full of liberals and environmentalists â€" up north. Rocky Mountain ski towns brim with upscale Democrats.
New Mexico's Democratic areas are in the north around artsy Santa Fe and Taos, home to liberal transplants, and the southwest around Hispanic-heavy Las Cruces by the Mexican border. The state's primary Republican region is in the southeast, called "Little Texas" because its right-leaning politics are akin to those of its next-door neighbor.
Most Nevadans live in the gambling hubs of Las Vegas and Reno. Compared with the rest of the state, those are more moderate areas that in recent decades have attracted retirees and young families drawn from the East and West coasts by the relatively low cost of living, as well as Hispanics looking for jobs in the tourism and construction industry.
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