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Colo. crucial milestone on road to victory 'We turned a red state blue,' Webb says

By Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 5, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Antionette Barbour weeps with joy after hearing that Barack Obama was declared the winner in Ohio. She was attending an Obama victory party at Brother Jeff's Cultural Center in Denver with Amail Alam Fard, a friend. Both are from Denver.

Photo by Judy Dehaas / The Rocky

Antionette Barbour weeps with joy after hearing that Barack Obama was declared the winner in Ohio. She was attending an Obama victory party at Brother Jeff's Cultural Center in Denver with Amail Alam Fard, a friend. Both are from Denver.

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Sen. Barack Obama's historic journey to the White House ran through Colorado on Tuesday, as he won all but one metro Denver county and took several traditionally Republican areas to handily carry the Centennial State.

In doing so, he captured Colorado for the Democrats for only the second time in 44 years, validating the party's decision to hold its national convention in Denver and its strategy of betting on Western states.

"This is a great historic night," former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb said at the Democrats' raucous party at the downtown Sheraton.

"America will feel great in the morning that a young man from modest means who is bright and intelligent, who worked his way up the political ladder to be president of the United States. This country is going to feel better and the world is going to feel better.

"In Colorado, we turned a red state blue," Webb added.

The Illinois senator racked up a convincing lead over Republican Sen. John McCain as the evening progressed.

McCain won reliably Republican El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs. But Obama was cancelling him out in Denver and Boulder, where he was leading by a 3-to-1 ratio.

Obama also was winning several of the state's swing counties, including Jefferson County - where Republicans make up the largest voting bloc - and Larimer County.

Exit polls conducted by CNN and MSNBC showed Obama winning heavily in the state among women and Hispanics and with the backing of every income group and all age groups with the exception of those 65 and older.

A spokesman for the McCain campaign declined to comment beyond McCain's concession speech, in which the Arizona senator said Obama had commanded his respect.

Battleground game plan

Former Sen. Hank Brown, a senior statesman of the Colorado Republican party, gave credit to the Democrats even as he praised McCain for staying true to himself during the race.

"I think it's just a storybook campaign by Obama in Colorado," Brown said. "It's probably the best organized presidential campaign we've seen in a long, long time."

In the fiercest presidential contest the state has ever seen, Denver played host to the DNC, and the presidential candidates wore a path across Colorado, courting voters at more than two dozen events over the past 11 months to win the state's nine electoral votes.

Colorado's battleground status - consistent throughout the election season, even as other states moved in and out of contention - came courtesy of changing demographics, including a jump in voters registered as unaffiliated.

Democrats' hopes were also bolstered by the recent election of a Democratic governor and their party taking control of the state House and Senate.

They looked to Colorado - together with Nevada and New Mexico and a combined 19 electoral votes - as an alternate route to the magic number of 270 needed to take the White House.

GOP on defense

Republicans, meanwhile, found themselves playing defense, and McCain came into the general election with some cards already stacked against him.

The Arizona senator lost the caucuses in Colorado to Mitt Romney, while Obama won the Democratic contest - giving the Illinois senator a head start in terms of momentum.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson - who wields great influence with conservative voters - said he wouldn't support McCain because he wasn't conservative enough.

Dobson changed his mind after McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, but never provided the kind of high-profile support he gave President Bush during his campaign for re-election.

And Hispanic voters, who make up a large portion of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, leaned heavily toward Obama.

As the candidates flooded the state, they often went into unusual territory.

Obama focused heavily on Colorado Springs, while McCain in the waning days traveled to Durango and a county that voted for Democrat John Kerry in 2004.

The phenomenal draw of Obama's candidacy was illustrated on a beautiful fall Sunday 10 days ago when he drew an estimated 100,000 people to Denver's Civic Center.

McCain and Palin's largest gatherings, in Colorado Springs and Grand Junction, were about one-tenth that size.

An economic tsunami

Political observers pointed to the disastrous economy as a main factor in an Obama victory.

Economic turmoil always helps the "out party," or the party not in the White House, said Kenneth Bickers, chairman of the political science department at the University of Colorado.

That could be seen this year not just in Colorado but in other states that became surprising battlegrounds, including Virginia and North Carolina.

"In the end, there's this economic tsunami sweeping across the country and it's lifting states that shouldn't be in play into play," Bickers said.

Obama also was aided by the unpopularity of Republican President Bush, a well organized grass-roots campaign that registered hundreds of thousands of new voters and a significant fundraising advantage.

After saying he would take public financing, Obama in June opted not to do so.

McCain received $84 million from the U.S. Treasury for the fall election cycle. In September alone, Obama raised $150 million.

The money advantage meant Obama could hire more staff, advertise more - including a 30-minute commercial aired Oct. 29 - and open offices across Colorado and other key states.

By late October, Obama had 51 offices here, including three in the Republican stronghold of Colorado Springs.

McCain had 13.

Tom Cronin, professor of political science at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, also pointed to the Palin factor.

While the Alaska governor may have appealed to the party's conservative base - and generated enthusiasm among others immediately after she was selected - polls showed voters soon lost confidence in the pick.

"I think the Sarah Palin nomination added sizzle and spark in the first few weeks, but she was like a shooting star," Cronin said.

He called McCain's campaign "haphazard," Obama's "masterful."

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, a Democrat, said he wasn't surprised women turned out in droves to support Obama over Palin and McCain.

"I think the women of this nation and this state really saw the strength of Obama and his life," Salazar said.

"His father left him when he was 3. The way he was raised, the fact that he's an ordinary common person really connected with voters. That struggle is the heart of this victory."

Hispanics supported Obama, Salazar added, because they are no different from any other Americans.

"I think they voted for Obama because they want the kind of change he will bring to the country," he said.

A moment to remember

Brown called McCain's campaign "admirable," saying the man called the maverick of the Senate stuck to his beliefs even when it was politically unpopular. In corn-crazy Iowa, for example, McCain spoke against ethanol.

"There always are things you can do differently," Brown said, "but on the whole John was true to himself, and that's all you can ask."

Other Republicans acknowledged that the outcome was crushing.

"Arrgghh. What a night," said political consultant Sean Duffy, who worked for former Gov. Bill Owens.

"I am at home cooking massive amounts of comfort food."

Webb, meanwhile, said Republicans had "lost their way."

He credited Obama with targeting young and first-time voters, and called the import of Tuesday night's election for black Americans stunning.

"I'm a softy kind of guy," said Webb, who is black.

"I understand the history and significance of it.

"I will feel great when I see (Obama's wife) Michelle in the White House and the kids playing on the south lawn like John Kennedy's family."

burnetts@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5343 Staff writers Katie Kerwin McCrimmon and Lynn Bartels contributed to this report.

Colorado: The road more traveled

* McCain 11 visits

Denver 6, Aurora 1, Colorado Springs 1, Durango 1, Aspen 1, Pueblo 1, Grand Junction 1

* Palin 6 visits

Colorado Springs 3, Grand Junction 2, Golden 1, Englewood 1

* Obama 9 visits

Denver 3, Pueblo 2, Fort Collins 1, Golden 1, Grand Junction 1, Thornton 1, Westminster 1

* Biden 3 visits

Denver 1, Commerce City 1, Colorado Springs 1, Greeley 1, Pueblo 1