Blake: Dems turn eyes to West

Wednesday, December 7, 2005

It's a long shot, but Colorado could hold its 2008 presidential caucus or primary in January, months earlier than usual.

Many national Democrats are eager to end the stranglehold that New Hampshire and Iowa have had on the early presidential action because they consider the electorates in those two states to be insufficiently diverse.

The Democratic National Committee appointed a 40-member commission to study the primary calendar last spring. Nobody paid much attention to it until recently, when Iowans and New Hampshirites discovered they might have to share national attention - not to mention heavy rental-car, hotel-room and television-advertising revenue - with other states.

The primary commission, which meets in Washington this weekend, is considering a plan that would add one Western and one Southern state to the January calendar. The four Western states under consideration are Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada as well as Colorado. But Mike Stratton, a Colorado political strategist who's on the commission, conceded Nevada is the likely choice.

The Southern state will probably be Arkansas or South Carolina, he said Tuesday.

The commission's recommendation, of course, could be overturned by the full DNC some time next year. Its decision won't be based on what's best for the country or even the party, but on what might be best for the presidential candidate favored by most members, whether it's Hillary Clinton or someone else.

What's best for the country would probably be a back-loaded primary with the most populous states voting last, in the late spring of 2008. That would give voters a chance to evaluate the hopefuls over a longer period and see who had the most staying power.

But no, partisans always want their candidate picked as early as possible so they can spend more time and money attacking the other party's choice instead of their primary rivals.

Trouble is, the strategy often backfires. Early selection also gives the other party more time to concentrate its return fire. The longer John Kerry was out there alone in 2004 - and he clinched the nominaton in early March - the more time Republicans had to seek out and exploit his vulnerabilities. Did they ever.

But never mind what's best for the country. We're here to look at what's actually happening, and that's an increasingly front-loaded primary system.

Leading the charge to add more early states is Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "He wants to blow up New Hampshire and Iowa totally," said Stratton. They should have no birthright franchise on the early selection process. Other states, like Michigan, have more union members, more minorities and more blue-collar voters who vote Democratic.

Stratton is pushing for a Western regional primary on Feb. 5 - still an extraordinarily early date - for all the Rocky Mountain states not chosen to vote in January.

New Mexico and Arizona are reported to have tentatively established the Feb. 5 date. Organizers are still trying to recruit Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado and Nevada - if it doesn't get the January date.

Supporters of a Western regional primary would also have to get Republican support, since most states can't afford to hold separate primaries for the two major parties. Gov. Bill Owens has long supported a regional primary, Stratton correctly noted.

"If we don't get a deal, the Western states will get screwed," said Stratton.

We're used to it. There have been efforts to establish a Western regional primary for decades, but they've all died aborning because legislatures instinctively don't cooperate.

Colorado had a presidential preference primary in March during the 1990s and in 2000, but the state eliminated it in 2004 for cost-cutting reasons - and because the GOP majority knew President Bush would be renominated - and reverted to its traditional and irrelevant caucus system.

Amendment 37 revisited: In last Wednesday's column I put the portion of solar energy required of large utilities by Amendment 37 at 4 percent by 2015. As several readers pointed out, the actual requirement will be 0.4 percent. After the column appeared, the Public Utilities Commission established the Renewable Energy Standard Adjustment (i.e. premium) at 59 cents a month on Xcel Energy's average residential bill beginning Jan. 1. That was less than the original estimate of 63 cents, but still well above the maximum 50-cent premium approved by voters in 2004. The legislature changed the premium to a 1 percent maximum earlier this year.

blakep@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5119.