Colorado

“well over 100,000“: record-breaking number of supporters who came out to hear Barack Obama speak at the foot of the capitol in Denver on Sunday

2.5 miles: length of the line to get into an Obama rally in Fort Collins minutes before it was scheduled to begin Sunday afternoon; 45,000 were estimated to have made it in

60,305: registered Democrats in Larimer County, which includes Fort Collins; the county has 74,466 registered Republicans and 74,645 unaffiliated voters

4,000: size of the “raucous” crowd John McCain drew in Denver on Friday; 6,000-8,000 turned out to greet the Republican candidate in Durango later that day

Sen. John McCain’s more intimate rally in Denver on Friday (AP)

1,051,643 — 1,063,347 — 1,069,294: the number of registered Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters, respectively, statewide

698,000: the number of Coloradans who voted at early-polling locations or by mail as of Sunday, representing 22 percent of the state’s 3.2 million registered voters

9: electoral votes represented by the Centennial State

Nevada and New Mexico after the jump

Sen. Barack Obama takes the stage in Las Vegas on Saturday (Getty Images)

Nevada

11,000 and 18,000: supporters who turned out to hear Barack Obama in Reno and Las Vegas, respectively, on Saturday

186,849: people who have already cast ballots in Clark County early voting as of Saturday; 103,719 were registered Democrats compared to 52,850 registered Republicans

4.2 points: Obama’s lead among Nevada voters, according to the latest state poll results released today by Zogby International; 44.0 percent of respondents support John McCain, 48.2 percent support Obama, and 7.8 percent were undecided

7 points: McCain’s edge in a poll conducted in August, his largest-ever advantage in the state in a single poll; most polls had the Republican ahead from mid-August through late September

79: days since McCain’s last trip to Nevada; Gov. Sarah Palin made stops in Reno and Henderson last week

5: electoral votes represented by the Silver State

Sen. John McCain shakes hands in Albuquerque on Saturday (Getty Images)

New Mexico

fewer than 1,500 and more than 45,000: respective sizes of McCain’s and Obama’s Saturday rallies in Albuquerque

4 points: estimated lead McCain would have if Latino voters were excluded, according to figures compiled by the William C. Velasquez Institute; including Latinos, who make up one-third of New Mexico voters, Obama has an 8 point advantage in the state

5,988: number of more votes George W. Bush won in the state than John Kerry in 2004, clinching his reelection; Al Gore carried the state in 2000 by 366 votes

593,761 — 375,420 — 182,716: number of registered Democrats, Republicans, and voters who decline to state their affiliation as of October 23

5: electoral votes up for grabs in the Land of Enchantment

When Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was first selected as John McCain’s running mate, the News 21 blog wondered about her stance on immigration. With very few immigrants in Alaska, it seemed she had never had the occasion to consider the issue.

Now, thanks to the Spanish-language channel Univision, we know that Palin’s immigration stance adheres pretty closely to McCain’s. While she was unable to tell an interviewer how many illegal immigrants were in Alaska or how the state dealt with them, she said mass deportations would be impractical and inhumane, and that she favored a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in the country already. She also said she opposed “amnesty,” because it has become a charged buzzword.

I understand why people would want to be in America. To seek the safety and prosperity, the opportunities, the health that is here. It is so important that yes, people follow the rules so that people can be treated equally and fairly in this country.

Palin also said she would be activily campaigning for the Latino vote, asking Univision viewers “to hire us and let us work for them.”

At the end of segment the interviewer asked Palin to say a few words in Spanish. She said, “Gracias.”

(AP Photo)

John McCain Fights For Colorado

McCain operatives say rumors of their candidate’s departure from the Centennial State are greatly exaggerated. CNN’s John King reported on Monday that GOP strategists were massaging the math looking for a path to the White House that didn’t include Colorado. One unnamed source said the state was “gone,” while the on-the-record pronouncement from a McCain spokeswoman suggested the campaign is still “within striking distance” in Colorado and other battleground states. (Two state polls conducted in the last week came back with identical numbers; Barack Obama has majority support and a 5 point advantage over McCain, 51 to 46 percent.)

“John McCain is fighting to win Colorado. Just look at where the campaign is sending the candidates,” said Christian Ferry, deputy campaign manager for McCain, in today’s Denver Post.

Sarah Palin made three stops in Colorado on Monday, where she continued her attacks on Barack Obama and urged supporters to vote early. Outside one of the rallies, Todd Palin told a crowd, “Get all your fishing buddies and hunting buddies to vote.”

Given that her trip included a much criticized interview with a local station where the Alaska governor incorrectly stated the vice president is “in charge of the U.S. Senate,” perhaps tracking where the VP candidate gets sent isn’t the best gauge of where the McCain campaign hopes to win as she tends to leave a trail of gaffes in her wake. In her defense, a spokeswoman for the governor suggested Palin knows the role of the veep but was merely answering in a way understandable to the questioner, a third grader.

McCain is scheduled to make three stops in Colorado on Friday.

And though sources say the McCain campaign is “reconfiguring their advertising buys in Colorado,” the RNC continues to spend heavily in Colorado and other swing states.

“How can anyone say we’re going anywhere? We’re spending a boatload of money in Colorado,” said Frank Donatelli, the RNC’s deputy chairman, in the Post.

Newspaper Endorsements

At least 26 newspapers who endorsed George W. Bush in 2004 are endorsing Obama this year, including two papers in Battle for the West states, according to Editor & Publisher. No papers in Battle for the West states that endorsed John Kerry have endorsed McCain. The Denver Post and Las Cruces Sun-News both endorsed the Illinois senator in the past week. Excerpts below.

Denver Post:

In unsteady times, it may seem obvious to gravitate toward the veteran politician, but in this campaign, it’s been the newcomer who has had the steady hand… Obama’s [economic] plan, while not perfect, is far superior to McCain’s catastrophic ideas… Republicans love to mock Obama’s history as a community organizer. But here was a man with no money to offer, no patronage to dispense, no way to punish his opponents. All he could do was to work with people from all walks of life, liberals and conservatives, business people and the unemployed, and bring them together in common cause for a better community. Could there really be better preparation to reunite a worried and divided America to again pursue our “more perfect union”?

Las Cruces Sun-News:

Like many Americans, we would feel more comfortable with the Democratic nominee if we knew him a little better; if he had been on the national scene a little longer; if his résumé had been filled out a little more. But, we also share the belief of most Americans that our country is heading in the wrong direction and is in dire need of fundamental change…McCain is offering a tweak or a minor adjustment to current policy, when what is needed is an overhaul…While Obama’s résumé may be thin, his talents and abilities are anything but… He has demonstrated steady leadership and a keen intellect at a time when those qualities are most needed.

Editor & Publisher tracks all newspaper endorsements, and as of this writing Obama leads 124 to 46. Circulation figures of the respective papers stand at 13,774,039 to 3,926,478.

Below are the newspaper endorsements in Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, along with each paper’s circulation, per Editor & Publisher. Links to endorsements provided, where available.

Endorsing Obama:

COLORADO
Aspen Daily News: 12,500
The Aurora Sentinel: 46,000
Boulder Camera: 28,994
Cortez Journal: 6,700
The Denver Post: 225,193
The Durango Herald: 8,870
Gunnison Country Times: 4,000
Ouray County Plaindealer: 3,000

NEVADA
Las Vegas Sun: 174,341

NEW MEXICO
Las Cruces Sun-News: 21,341
Santa Fe New Mexican: 25,249

Endorsing McCain:

COLORADO
Mountain Valley News (Cedaredge): 2,000
The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction): 31,349
The Pueblo Chieftain: 49,169
Daily Times-Call (Longmont): 21,127

NEVADA
Las Vegas Review-Journal: 174,341

NEW MEXICO
Roswell Daily Record: 11,700

State Assemblyman Lynn D. Stewart, who represents the 22nd District which includes parts of Henderson, rallied the small crowd of about 15 supporters, saying, “one of the reasons Republicans don’t show up to rallies is because they’re at work.”

In a particularly curious observation — funny no matter your politics — Stewart bemoaned the fact that the good name of Mickey Mouse was besmirched in a bogus voter registration scandal: “Mickey Mouse is not a Democrat, he’s a Republican,” he said.

After the rally, I spoke to one of the tours organizers and speakers, conservative radio host and pundit Mark Williams, about the size of the crowd. “We like the smaller, more enthusiastic crowds,” he said, noting a major goal of the tour is to rally the base to get active in their communities to help counterbalance Obama’s enthusiastic army.

Williams took issue with the “liberal thuggery” of sites like DailyKos, and took particular offence at a posting about one of their previous rallies. He accused the poster of making up quotes and calling the people gathered racists.

Since I was at the event in questions, I agree with some of his criticisms of the DailyKos account. With the exception of one or two people, the crowd was quite cordial and not particularly cranky. The reference to “stealing my big-screen TV” seemed to be an attempt by Williams to offer a tangible take on the argument of “I earned it, I should get to keep it.” The nurses have an honest philosophical question to argue here — what’s more important, another TV or universal healthcare — but I didn’t interpret Williams comment as a racist allusion. 

The nurses also claim to have stumbled upon the “Stop Obama” bus, but if that’s the case, did the also just happen to show up to the rally in Henderson this morning as well? And if you’re gonna attack a guy, you could at least spell his name right.

As for the angry McCain supporter who cursed and screamed at people on the bus, per the posting, I didn’t witness it, but I don’t doubt it and know just which man they’re talking about. He’s the same one that told me that, as a reporter, I must be “in the tank” for Obama and became more enraged when he heard I’m from — gasp — southern California.

Before the bus left from Henderson, a local McCain supporter gave tour staffers McCain/Palin signs and bumper stickers to pass out at future stops and stuck around long enough to offer her take on how the campaign is playing out in Clark County.

J. “Sage” Bocook is the founding president of the Las Vegas Pachyderm Club and director of the auxiliary branch of Veterans in Politics International. A recent transplant to North Las Vegas, Bocook said she first became active in Republican politics 42 years ago “working with my dad for a guy named Ron Reagan running for governor of California.”

She acknowledges a lot of conservatives aren’t in love with John McCain, and some of the people working hardest to get him elected are former supporters of Hillary Clinton. In defiance of conventional wisdom and despite Democrat’s significant registration edge, Bocook thinks McCain can win Clark County. She thinks there may be as many people “voting against Obama’s socialist regime as voting for McCain.”

Asked which issues are most important to her, she immediately responded our country’s military strength and the treatment of our servicemen and women. “My family has been involved with the military here since 1775 in the Virginia militia,” she said.

Bocook also told me she believes Obama may be an “Islamic Trojan horse.” I ask if she means: a) His foreign policy wouldn’t be as aggressive as McCain’s and could include making certain concessions to the Muslim world; or, b) That he’s in league with terrorists.

“Our country was attacked [on 9-11] by sleeper cells looking like normal people, Trojan horses. We have to be watchful,” she said.

So does this mean she thinks Obama is Muslim?

“I do see from my reading of Sharia law that if you are lying in the name of Allah, that’s a good thing… he calls himself a Christian now, but I don’t know,” she said.

For our readers, a different perspective from a rural conservative: I asked John Norton in Elko after yesterday’s rally what he thinks of claims Obama is Mulsim. He called those rumors “bogus” and accepted that Obama is a Christian. “He’s not a Muslim, but he’s a liberal,” Norton said. “And that’s why I won’t vote for him.”

Elko residents come out to ‘Stop Obama’

The “Stop Obama Tour” kicked off Wednesday with rallies in Sacremento and Reno. In Elko, speakers questioned Obama’s experience, stoked fears that the Democratic candidate will raise taxes and strip people of their gun rights if elected, criticized the media for its coverage of the campaign, and offered ringing endorsements of McCain and Sarah Palin.

The Our Country Deserves Better political action committee, headed by former California state assemblyman Howard Kaloogian (who launched the successful campaign to recall California’s Democratic governor Gray Davis in 2003), is funding the tour that is scheduled to make close to 40 stops across the country before ending in Washington, D.C. Organizers are calling on average Americans to submit resumes online or at their rallies, and plan on selected the best three to show that ordinary Americans are more qualified to lead this country than Obama.

Conservative columnist and radio host Mark Williams said Barack Hussein Obama, “because that is his full name,” sounded like a late night infomercial spokesman in his stump speeches and debate performances.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do as president, but first send me money,” Williams said in his Obama-as-infomercial-salesman impression. To pay for Obama’s lofty plans will require raising taxes on the hard-earned money of blue collar Americans like those in Elko’s ranching and mining community, he said.

Deborah Johns, who the PAC’s website describes as “one of [Fox News Channel's] favorite military moms,” spent most of her speech emphasizing Obama’s lack of qualifications to head the American military when compared with veteran McCain.

A McCain supporter listens to ‘Marine Mom’ Deborah Johns

“Barack Obama is not even worthy to shine the shoes of John McCain,” Johns said. But she also hit Obama on economic issues, telling the two dozen supporters gathered at the rally that he would be “nothing more than a modern day Robin Hood.”

After the rally, local attorney and small business owner Grant Gerber, whose family has lived in the area for more than 100 years, told me the economy and likelihood of tax increases under an Obama administration have him most concerned, calling Obama’s economic plan a “redistribution of wealth” that smells of socialism.

A Vietnam vet who attained the rank of Captain in the Special Forces, Gerber said he wouldn’t want Obama as his commander in chief.

Gerber conceded that Obama looks to have more local support than George W. Bush, who carried Elko County with 80 percent of the vote in 2004. But he bemoaned some of the national media stories with Elko datelines as inaccurate because they “make it appear that the area is becoming an Obama hot spot.”

John Norton, a Washington, D.C. transplant who’s lived in Elko County for 16 years, thinks Democrats might carry 30 percent of the vote this time around. He attributes the rise in support for Obama in part to biased media coverage. “The press in this country – except for Fox News – is very liberal,” he said.

Gerber concurred, noting that even the local paper, once family-owned and unabashedly conservative, has become increasingly more liberal than the community it serves after being sold to a larger media conglomerate.

Media bias isn’t only limited to liberal leanings, Gerber said, but a pessimistic attitude that only highlights negative or sensationalistic stories. “Reporters only write what they think will get printed,” he said.

The most egregious example he’s found is coverage of the rest of the world’s opinion of America. “The national media is not telling the truth. They say middle easterners hate Americans, but it’s not true,” Gerber said. He recently spent two years on a Latter Day Saints humanitarian mission in Egypt working on water projects and providing medial training and equipment to impoverished communities, and says the vast majority of people he encountered had nothing but good things to say about America.

Norton also criticized Obama as being too much of an internationalist who is “acting like he wants to be president of the world.” Obama is an attractive and gifted speaker, a modern-era John Kennedy, Norton said, but even though “McCain might not be as well spoken, you don’t vote on that.”

A self-proclaimed history buff who studied the subject at BYU, Norton thinks too many voters don’t know their country’s history or give the founding fathers’ ideas their due. He also bemoans the popular opinion that higher education or intelligence must inherently lead to liberal values. “If you voice a conservative point of view, they think you’re ignorant,” he said.

On the issue of experience, Williams said Joe Biden would serve as Obama’s “training wheels.” He rebutted questions of Palin’s experience by suggesting that unlike Obama who would be learning from his lietenent, Palin would have a master hand at the wheel in McCain.

And for many who thought McCain wasn’t conservative enough, it was Palin who shored up their support. A lot of people in Elko didn’t immediately embrace McCain, said Norton. “People were waiting for the McCain/Palin signs before putting up signs,” he said.

Also at the rally, Singer-songwriter Lloyd Marcus performed a song he wrote about Sarah Palin and led the crowd in singing “Proud to Be an American” in honor of the veterans in attendence. “Would this happen at a liberal rally? I don’t think so,” he said.

Lloyde Marcus’ tribute to Sarah Palin, ‘Sarah Smile’

When a pro-Obama bus rolled into the parking lot of the rally, it looks like things could get ugly. The National Nurses Organizing Committee’s “Grade the Candidates” bus looked to be egging on McCain supporters, pulling right up to the “Stop Obama” bus, but it hung around for just a few minutes before driving off.

Pro-Obama nurses egg on the McCain supporters

Some suggest tensions are high in Elko, but Norton thinks most people get along at the end of the day. Though he does admit that “there might be a little more testiness” this time around.

That testiness was on display before the rally began when a man whose cowboy hat was littered with pro-McCain and anti-Obama buttons tried to shoe off an Obama supporter sitting on the far side of the parking lot holding an Obama sign. “Get out of here, you bastard,” he shouted, before turning his attention on me.

“You people [the media] are in the tank for Obama,” he shouted.

Ironically, the Obama supporter was telling me he’s had mostly cordial discussions with coworkers and the pro-Obama signs on his block haven’t been tampered with before the man tried to run him out of the park.

If Nevada continues to be one of the handful of pure toss-up states, why the dearth of polls in the state, asks UNLV political science professor David Damore in PolitickerNV. “Two of the primary issues associated with polling in Nevada are the sporadic nature by which the polls are conducted and virtually all of the polling is done on the cheap, yielding small sample sizes and large margins of error,” Damore writes.

RealClearPolitics lists 15 presidential polls in Nevada since February; for comparison, fellow swing state Colorado has had 29 polls at last count.

The latest polls still show John McCain ahead, but on the ground Nevada’s starting to feel blue. With Democrats leading Republicans in registration by more than 76,000, why is the race still so tight — and McCain ahead — even in the few polls available in the state?

“The folks who end up in these samples tend to lean towards the old and reliable. In this case of Nevada, this means that those more likely to be sampled are those who regularly vote, hold stable addresses, and rely on landlines (e.g., rural voters who overwhelmingly favor the GOP),” Damore explains. In contrast, many of Obama’s most fervent supporters are “young, first time, cell phone only voters” who are difficult to reach by pollsters.

By the end of 2007, 15.8 percent of U.S. households were cell-only, more than triple the figure from just four years ago, according to government estimates. Though pollsters massage data with complicated weighting schemes, the rise of cell-only households poses a challenge. A 2007 report examining the cell-only problem by the Pew Center for the People & the Press sums up the challenge:

If people who can only be reached by cell phone were just like those with landlines, their absence from surveys would not create a problem for polling. But cell-only adults are very different. The National Health Interview Survey found them to be much younger, more likely to be African American or Hispanic, less likely to be married, and less likely to be a homeowner than adults with landline telephones. These demographic characteristics are correlated with a wide range of social and political behaviors.

And while a 2006 Pew survey concluded cell-only respondents answered similarly to landline users when asked about their party identification or if they’d vote for a generic Republican versus a generic Democrat, Pew’s 2008 surveys show a stark difference. Landline respondents were split down the middle, with 45 percent each choosing McCain and Obama. But the cell-only respondents favored Obama 55 to 36 percent. The most recent report concludes:

Traditional landline surveys are typically weighted to compensate for age and other demographic differences, but the process depends on the assumption that the people reached over landlines are similar politically to their cell-only counterparts. These surveys suggest that this assumption is increasingly questionable, particularly among younger people… Pew’s surveys this year suggest at least the possibility of a small bias in landline surveys. Such a bias could be consequential in an election that appears to be very competitive right now, especially if significant numbers of young people turn out to vote.

Is John McCain giving up on Nevada?

Yesterday, John McCain backed out of a planned appearance in Reno, meaning the Republican candidate hasn’t been to the Silver State since addressing the convention of Disabled American Veterans in Las Vegas August 9. Running mate Sarah Palin’s only stop in the state was her first solo campaign appearance at a rally in Carson City September 14. Obama was in Reno yesterday, and has made at least 4 stops in the state since McCain’s last visit.

Instead of trying his luck in Reno, McCain will make stops in Denver and Pueblo, Colorado, on Thursday and Friday. Since August, McCain has made 2 stops in Colorado while Obama has made at least 4, not counting appearances related to the Democratic National Convention.

Nevada is the only Battle for the West swing state where McCain has a slim lead in the polls. Obama continues to build his lead in Colorado and New Mexico.

Track the candidates campaign stops on Slate’s Map the Candidates.

Boulder Voter Registration

Judy DeHaas/Rocky Mountain News

Michelle Obama encouraged college students to register to vote at a rally at the University of Colorado in Boulder today. Both the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post were liveblogging from the campus.

Liberal-leaning Boulder, where John Kerry beat George W. Bush by a 2-to-1 margin in 2004 countywide, is seeing a surge in voter registrations, with up to 2,000 new applications being received each day. County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall told the Daily Camera she expects up to 90 percent of the county’s 210,000 eligible voters to cast ballots.

Monday marks the deadline to register to vote in Colorado.

Sen. John McCain is scheduled to accept the Republican nomination for president later tonight. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accepted the nomination for vice president last night. Though neither has spent much time talking about immigration, it is sure to come up some time after the next president takes office. With that in mind, how have the GOP candidates stood on the issue in the past?

John McCain is well-known for going against the majority of his party to back comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship, in 2005, 2006 and 2007. This reform would include a guest worker program, which is perhaps of special importance to a senator from Arizona, which has experienced a recent labor shortage. He is also opposed to English as an official language.

During the GOP primary, McCain backed away from his previous stance on immigration, suggesting that this shift was due to the public reception of his bill. At one debate, McCain responded to a question about whether he would back his bill if it came up again this way:

We are all committed to carrying out the mandate of the American people, which is a national security issue, which is securing the borders. That was part of the original proposal. But the American people didn’t trust or have confidence in us that we would do it. So we now know we have to secure the borders first. And that is what needs to be done. That’s what I’ll do as president of the United States.

Veep pick Palin has no record on immigration—after all, the tiny state of Alaska has barely any immigrants. It is safe to assume she would officially agree with McCain, however.

McCain’s stance is not much different from current president George W. Bush, or his rival, Sen. Barack Obama. But even though it is not being debated among these candidates, immigration remains a contentious issue. If McCain were to win, could he pass comprehensive immigration reform this time?

(AP Photo)