Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

What’s a kid to do when asked to wear a patriotic red, white, and blue t-shirt to school? If you’re Aurora, Colorado fifth grader Daxx Dalton, you naturally decide to don your homemade “Obama [is] a terrorist’s best friend” shirt, of course, and promptly get suspended. The boy’s father, Dann Dalton, a self-described “proud conservative” told Fox31 he supports his son and that the public school system is “full of liberal loons.” The Colorado Independent reported that Dann Dalton was quoted in a 2000 story about an anti-abortion protest against a Planned Parenthood doctor as saying the protest was “God’s work.” In the story, Dalton is described as “[taking] part in the protest along with his two young children.” The family is considering a lawsuit against the school district and 11-year-old Daxx said he’ll retire the shirt for now, but plans on wearing it on election day.

As goes Colorado, so goes the nation? Last week, political analyst and Roll Call columnist Stuart Rothenberg called Colorado the “one state that is most likely to determine who will be the next occupant of the White House.” The latest Quinnipiac University poll, whose results were released today, have Sen. Barack Obama up 4 points over Sen. John McCain, 49 to 45 percent among the 1,418 likely voters surveyed. The poll found the Illinois senator up 55 to 40 percent among women, 68 to 26 percent among Latinos, and 52 to 42 percent with voters aged 35 to 54 in Colorado. Young voters, those 34 and under, were evenly split with 48 percent supporting each candidate. McCain leads 49 to 42 percent with men, 51 to 44 percent among whites, 47 to 46 percent with voters over 55. So much for Obama getting the youth vote and McCain the geriatrics.

A survey of 742 rural voters across 13 battleground states — including CO, NM, and NV — showed Sen. John McCain ahead 51 to 41 percent among rural voters. With rural voters expected to be crucial to an Obama victory in any of these states, Republicans will continue to paint Obama as an effete elite out of touch with small town America values (see: the “Bittergate” scandal ) and hope that their VP pick Gov. Sarah Palin can land those votes, in part by ratcheting her up as a sort of Anti-Obama.

Republican political consultant William Greener, who helped conduct the survey, said McCain will need a wider margin among rural voters, but noted that George W. Bush polled similarly among rural voters 2 months out and ultimately built a 20 point lead among rural voters by election day. For their part, Obama and his surrogates continue to reach out to these voters, with the candidate making stops in Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado last week.

Undecided rural voters may be hesitant to go with Obama, but that doesn’t mean they’ll automatically line up for McCain because of Palin, either. Rural Westerners “think with their brains and not with their guns,” said Jonathan Thompson in High Country News, who equated the Alaska governor to Dick Cheney with lipstick, someone who would be a “drill-happy, gun-slingin’, hard-liner, rural Western vice president with ties to the oil industry.”

Despite early speculation that Palin on the GOP ticket could change the dynamic in the West, “Palin power doesn’t seem to have led to the massive Western swing toward McCain that some expected,” wrote Robert Saldin, a political science professor at the University of Montana. But even if Palin proves less than convincing with independents, she clearly has mobilized the base of the Republican party who were lukewarm toward McCain. “Enthusiasm in this mostly conservative county [El Paso County] may give the state to John McCain; apathy will hand it to Barack Obama,” read an opinion piece in the Colorado Springs Gazette. Many of the religious conservatives in Colorado Springs, home of Focus on the Family and several of the nation’s largest mega-churches, may have stayed home rather than vote for McCain, but Palin looks to get them out to the polls.

With registration deadlines looming across the country, on the ground activists for both parties are focusing on getting people signed up to vote. Colorado’s deadline to register lands first on October 6; citizens in Nevada and New Mexico have until October 14 to register.

The most recent figures available show Republicans still have a slight voter registration edge over Democrats in Colorado, though they’re numbers have dwindled since 2004. Current registration numbers for Colorado (compared with November 2004 figures): Republicans 1,029,062 (-90K), Democrats 955,428 (+13K), Unaffiliated 1,022,575 (-2K).

Democrats have taken the lead in registrations from Republicans in Nevada since 2004, though the most recent polls have McCain with a small lead in the state. Current registration numbers for Nevada (compared with November 2004 figures): Republicans 489,802 (+48), Democrats 565,855 (+127),  Non-Partisan 200,959 (+3K). In rural Washoe County, seen as a bellwether for the state and where News21 fellow Amada Becker chronicled the changing political landscape earlier this summer, Democratic registration is just 3,000 behind Republicans, the county voter registrar reported last week.

New Mexico Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 2, and some analysts have moved the state from “toss up” to “leans Democratic.” But the Democrats enjoyed a similar advantage in registrations in 2004 yet Bush still managed to carry the state by 6,000 votes, and current polls suggest Obama will need to work to win the Land of Enchantment. Current registration numbers for New Mexico (compared with November 2004 figures): Republicans 360,513(+1K), Democrats 563,103 (+15), Decline to State 168,930 (+4K).

With Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico still competitive — and perhaps because up to 50 percent of voters in theses three states are expected to vote before November 4 — it should come as no suprise that Western airwaves contine to be flooded with political ads. The Denver-metro area ranked first in the nation, with 1,360 TV ads from September 6-13 according to a study by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. Las Vegas came in third with 1,215 ads. Albequerqe and Reno also made the top ten, with 1,012 and 1,004 ads, respectively.

(Image source: MyFOXColorado.com)