REUTEMAN: Win, lose? Colo. looks both ways

By Rob Reuteman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 4, 2008 at 9:05 p.m.
Updated July 4, 2008 at 9:43 p.m.

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One prominent national pollster opined this week that Colorado is an "economic winner," while a statewide pollster offered fresh evidence that those of us who live here feel otherwise.

John Zogby, founder of the Zogby International polling firm, listed Colorado as one of the "regions that have turned themselves around" in an essay he wrote for Politics magazine this week. He thinks the "Red State/Blue State" paradox no longer describes American politics well, and he's proposed a new theory.

Zogby has come up with two new kinds of "Equinox" voters, the Spring-Aheads and the Fall-Backers. Colorado, he says, is among the Spring-Aheads, "areas growing in diversity, in the population of the 'creative class.' For the Democrats, these are the areas that are the antidote to the areas mired in economic decline."

In addition to Colorado, the group includes southern New Hampshire, southern Florida, central and southwestern North Carolina and parts of Wyoming and Montana. In fact, Colorado is the only entire state Zogby considers to be "in play" this election cycle.

The Fall-Backers are areas that have "suffered at the hands of the changes in the U.S. economy over the past 15 years," unable so far to recover from the collapse of the manufacturing economy and transition successfully to an information economy. Parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana and West Virginia fall into this category.

The irony, according to Zogby, is that the Spring-Aheads traditionally vote Republican but are likely to vote Democrat. The Fall-Backers, on the other hand, are traditional Democrats who now identify more with the Republican Party.

He poses the questions: "What's behind the flip? What's making the Republicans more attractive to the economic losers and the Democrats the party of economic winners? With an economy that's still in transition, Republicans still have not quite adjusted. In many ways, this is old economy vs. new economy."

It's an interesting theory, but some research released Thursday points us in a different direction. Pollster/ political consultant Floyd Ciruli has research from a survey conducted last month. It shows that, for the first time in at least 10 years, fewer than half (47 percent) of Colorado voters view the state moving in the right direction. Last year, 63 percent of us thought we were on the right track. A record 39 percent of Colorado voters think the state is headed in the wrong direction.

How much does the economy in Colorado have to do with the state being "headed in the wrong direction?"

"It's all about the economy," Ciruli said Thursday. "And it's all about baby boomers."

Likely Colorado voters ages 18-34 are optimistic, he said, by a 65-25 percent margin. Those 35-44 years old remain optimistic by a 52-30 percent margin. But once you get to voters ages 45 and above, the numbers turn around, enough so that the average shows more than half of us are no longer happy campers.

"Younger Coloradans are generally happy," Ciruli said. "This pessimism is not about jobs. It's the boomers who are unhappy. This polling is about property values, portfolios and our position in the world."

And Coloradans are still more optimistic than the country at large, where surveys show only 15 percent of likely voters believe the country is headed in the right direction, he added.

"We're finally catching up," Ciruli said.

Can the Zogby poll - which shows us as economic winners - and the Ciruli poll - which shows us as thinking we're losers - be reconciled? Perhaps not. But I'll leave you with one thought. Google "Zogby" and "wrong" and you get 325,000 hits. Google "Ciruli" and "wrong" and you get 2,450.

• July 5, 2008

  5:04 p.m.

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  jacka writes:

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