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

What is it with local GOP officials in New Mexico? Last month, Bernalillo Couty Republican Party chairman Fernando C De Baca was forced to resign after saying “Hispanics consider themselves above blacks” and wouldn’t vote for a black presidential candidate and today the chairwoman of a Republican women’s group is in hot water after calling Barack Obama “a Muslim socialist.”

In a letter to the editor printed Tuesday in the Alamogordo Daily News titled “Why I’m a Republican,” Marcia Stirman, chairwoman of an Otero County Republican women’s group, hits all the major (and some minor) talking points — she believes in the death penalty, small government, spanking kids, gun rights, winning wars, etc. — before calling out the “Muslim socialist” heading the Democratic party ticket.

After calls from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for state and national leaders to repudiate the remarks, they did just that.

Otero County GOP chairwoman Sassy Tinling said she will ask Stirman to step down, and New Mexico state Republican Party executive director Matthew Kennicott said Stirman’s comments don’t reflect the party’s beliefs and she doesn’t speak for the party, according to the Associated Press.

Maybe New Mexico Republicans are frustrated that Obama continues to build his lead in their perennially toss-up state, and Democrats claim almost 220,000 more registered voters than Republicans. Maybe it’s that Rep. Tom Udall, Democratic nominee to replace retiring Republican Senator Pete Domenici, looks likely to cruise to a win over Rep. Steve Pearce.

Maybe it’s that none of the New Mexico house seats are Republican locks. CQPolitics.com ranks the 1st and 2nd congressional districts, both currently held by Republican reps, as a toss up and leaning Republican, respectively. The 3rd district is considered safe for Democrats.

In the New West Politics “Diary of a Mad Voter” blog, Heath Haussamen writes that views like Stirman’s are hurting the Republican party and could partly be to blame for state’s like New Mexico increasingly shifting blue. He writes:

It’s a free country, and Stirman is certainly entitled to thinking that is ignorant, divisive, hateful and inciting. But if she chooses that path, she’ll be part of the problem, not part of the solution… Thinking like Stirman’s in the GOP is a primary reason for the shift to the left that promises to give Democrats a huge majority in Washington on Nov. 4. The GOP is going to have to do some soul-searching and redefine itself after the coming shellacking.

Indeed.

“Let’s see how they vote,” Smith tells the reporter, before asking, “Do those numbers include 17-year-olds?”

Smith thinks Democratic numbers are inflated and has vowed to pore over the final list of new voters once the country registrar processes last minute registrations. She points to registration scandals trumpeted in banner headlines across the country — people registering multiple times, Mickey Mouse signing up to vote in Florida, the ACORN raid last week in Las Vegas — and vows to weed out any NFL player names or other suspicious registrants from her local rolls.

“If I were a Republican, I’d be particularly vigilant,” said Amy Curtis-Webber, executive director of the Washoe County Democratic Party. Not because she sees anything alarming about the flood of new registrations, but because Republicans have nothing else to cling to in the county-wide shift toward Democrats. “If we leverage this advantage, we can swing the state,” she said.

A tale of two parties: Washoe County GOP Chairwoman Heidi B. Smith sits under Reagan’s watchful eye, Democratic Party Executive Director Amy Curtis-Webber under the Kennedys’

As of Monday afternoon, Nevada’s second most populous county had about 950 more registered Democrats than Republicans, according to Dan Burk, registrar for Washoe County. “We’ve see some [bad registrations], but it’s relatively rare,” said Burk, adding that that as a percentage of total new applications, nothing seems out of the ordinary.

In 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry by 21,500 votes in Nevada, carrying every county except Clark County. In some rural areas, Bush beat Kerry by a factor greater than 3-to-1, but since Clark County accounted for 66 percent of all votes cast, many believe Bush owes his victory in the state to Washoe. Bush’s margin in Washoe, where 19 percent of Nevada voters cast their ballots, was his smallest in the state, winning 51 percent of votes to Kerry’s 47 percent.

“If Kerry had carried this county, he would have carried Nevada,” said Curtis-Weber. And with Nevada, he would have won the White House.

“Washoe county plus the rurals canceled out Clark County,” said Eric Herzik, chair of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno. In Herzik’s estimation, Obama needs to flip Washoe, perform better in the rural areas, or improve the notoriously low turnout in heavily-Democratic Clark County. “If any of those factors change, Obama wins Nevada,” he said.

Statewide, Obama is attacking on all three of those fronts. The campaign has 8 offices in Clark County, Obama has made 3 stops in rural Elko where Bush won 4-to-1, his best margin in the state, and the staff and volunteers in Washoe are making sure the swing county swings their way.

The current shift toward Democrats in Washoe “underscores the fact that people think this country is on the wrong track and are ready for something new,” said Jeff Giertz, deputy communications director of Obama’s campaign in Nevada.

But perhaps more critical to their success in Washoe is the excitement and commitment exhibited by Obama supporters compared with McCain supporters.

I meet two Reno Republicans, veteran volunteers of campaigns going back more than two decades, in the small parking lot that separates the McCain’s Reno campaign headquarters from the Washoe County GOP office in a vacancy-strewn strip mall in the shadow of the Atlantis casino.

“I think most Republicans in Nevada are not in love with McCain the way the Obama people love Obama,” said Marilyn Schenk, who this election cycle is volunteering with the party but not the McCain campaign.

Schenk was among the 51 percent of voters in the state to caucus for Mitt Romney in January, and said she cried for two days when Romney withdrew from the campaign. McCain came in third, with 12.75 percent of the votes, behind second-place finisher Ron Paul.

“It’s hard to fake a love for a candidate,” adds Joannah Schumacher, a friend of Schenk’s who originally supported Ron Paul. Both women will vote for McCain and continue to volunteer for the party, but neither seems particularly excited about their candidate.

Republican mascots: Elephants and Bill O’Reilly

Rather than talk about what they like about McCain, most of our conversation centers on what they don’t like about Obama, the sorry state of the mainstream media, and their critique of young voters “excited about voting but who lack the knowledge to vote wisely.”

On the last point, which sounds like a critique of Obama’s large lead among young voters, the women say they are less concerned with ideological leanings than the failure of schools and parents to teach their kids to learn about the issues, the political process, and how to think critically for themselves.

Schenk, who came from a Democratic union home, thinks her 26-year-old daughter is making an informed decision in choosing Obama, even though she doesn’t agree with it, because Schenk made sure to talk about politics and world events at the dinner table. She’s skeptical that all of Obama’s young supporters decisions are equally reasoned.

Both women seem genuinely excited by the electoral process and the power of American democracy, but not so much for McCain.

In Obama’s campaign office across town, it’s another story.

The license plates on display in the parking lot — Nevada, California, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts — show the distance some supporters are willing to go for their candidate. Inside, there are more volunteers than phones, and a number of people are hand-writing letters to undecided voters about why they like Obama.

Obama volunteer Katy Lloyd is calling supporters looking for volunteers willing to walk precincts the next few weeks. She spent most of the day canvassing, knocking on about 50 doors, about 10 of which were answered. Like volunteers on both campaigns, Katy urged people to vote now. Early voting in the state begins on Saturday, and some are estimating early voting may account for anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of turnout in parts of the state.

Obama volunteers man the phones in Reno

Lloyd wanted to volunteer for Obama early on, but the Seattle resident realized her efforts would be relatively insignificant in “dark blue” Washington state. But after looking at electoral maps — she says FiveThirtyEight.com is a favorite website — she saw she could make a difference in Nevada. “I had some extra airline miles… and could stay with a friend from college who lives in Reno,” she thought after reading how close the race was shaping up in Washoe, so she hopped on a plane for a week of campaigning.

Herzik, the political science professor, said the momentum and ground-level supporter all favor Obama. Political Science 101 shows that personal contact equals higher turnout, he said. As evidence of the Obama camp’s efforts, he noted the experienced of his two under-25 year old sons.

“Both are registered Republicans and have been contacted 3 times by Obama supporters” targeting young voters, Herzik said. Neither has been contacted by McCain supporters.

At the county registrar’s office Tuesday morning, a number of people express similar experiences.

Kahea, 28, is one of the first people out of the registrar’s office. A recent transplant from Hawaii, she says she likes Obama but has avoided his supporters. Since her fiance told the Obama campaign he was backing the Illinois senator, “they come, and they call, and they email,” Kahea said, to the point of becoming annoying. She thought she missed the deadline to register, but last weekend, when she inadvertently answered a canvasser’s knock at the door, she was informed she could still register to vote in person at the registrar’s office and here she is at 8:30 a.m.

Mario Zamora, 27, is registering to vote for the first time. As a young Latino who grew up in Los Angeles and says he’s looking for change, I’m somewhat surprised when Zamora says he’s a McCain supporter. Obama supporters have contacted him numerous times and they “annoy the hell out of me,” he says. McCain supporters, on the other hand, “think I’m Mexican and [therefore] must be voting for Obama,” surmises Zamora in an attempt to explain why he had to contact them to get more information about the candidate.

Not all people at the county registrar on the last day to register to vote are procrastinators.

Dave has lived in Reno for 20 years and never voted for a Democrat. He’s registered to vote, but for some reason his affiliation shows up as Non-Partisan, so he drove down to the registrar’s office to be counted as a Republican. “It’s a badge I want to wear,” he said. “These people that are switching parties [to the Democratic party], give it a year and they’ll be hating life.” Dave owns a mortgage company and worries about the economy, but he thinks “it’ll be a lot tougher with Obama in office.”

Jack is a Democrat who has called Reno home for three decades. Since it was the last day to register, and “this is a big election,” he says he came down just to double check his registration. A retiree living on social security, health care and the economy are the issues he’s concerned about. He’ll be out “first thing Saturday morning” when early registration begins “to make sure I get my vote it,” he said.

With just an hour until registration closes in Washoe County, a line snakes outside the door

At 8:00 p.m., with just an hour until registration closes, a line still snakes out of the registrar’s office. If the two dozen or so people I talked to at the registrar’s office are a fair reflection of the county, the Democrats’ slightest of edges appears to be real, but nothing to take to the bank.

The Democratic Party’s Curtis-Weber said she remains “cautiously optimistic” and believes that multiple contacts will ensure high turnout.

Smith, on the GOP side, agrees that this election will turn on each campaign’s get out the vote effort. “When you clear out the deadwood [of invalid registrations], it’s basically even on each side,” she said. Smith remains unconvinced that Democrats will be able to get all their new supporters to the polls, but is confident that the Republicans can mobilize their supporters as the election nears.

Republicans have counter on a 72-hour strategy to mobilize the base that has been effective the last two elextions, Herzik said. The thinking goes “it’s not the contact in October that counts, it’s what happens the last 72 hours,” he explained.

But with the rise of Democratic registrants and Obama partisans out in full force for weeks and months ahead of the election, the base might no longer be enough for Washoe Republicans.

(AP photo)

Nevada authorities raided the Las Vegas offices of a group registering voters in low income communities seeking evidence of voter registration fraud on Tuesday. Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now organizers are accused of forging signatures of names picked out of phone books and NFL players.

“Tony Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada, and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won’t be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4,” said Secretary of State Ross Miller.

“There were some people that probably sat down on the couch and filled out names out of the phone book. When we talk about fraud, that’s really what we’re talking about here: not an attempt to steal an election,” said Matthew Henderson, Southwest regional director for ACORN, on a call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.

But conservative columnist Michelle Malkin argues that this latest raid is emblematic of “systematic corruption of our election process” and not an example of a few staffers getting lazy and wanting to avoid 120 heat. She notes similar inquiries into questionable registration forms from the group collected across the country and ends the piece with an interesting (or is it race-baiting?) reference to an interview with a homeless Obama supporter quoted as saying, “I want him to do his thang. You know, do his thug thizzle.” (quote at approx. 1:05 in video clip)

Malkin ends her piece:

“Thug thizzle” is street slang for performing your trademark move. Obama and ACORN have practiced their thug thizzle together for years: organizing an ever-expanding community of ineligible and marginal voters to expand the Democratic power base. Rules be damned.

Community groups worry that the raid could negatively affect turnout. “My fear is that for disaffected voters of color who don’t feel like political leaders are looking out for their interests, this will reinforce their disaffection,” Steven Carbó, senior program director for Demos who works on voting rights, told the Las Vegas Sun.

Many conservative writers have attempted to link Obama to what they consider to be, to quote Stanley Kurtz, “the largest radical group on America” that faced a recent embezzlement scandal and various questions about the veracity of its voter registration campaigns over the years. The Obama camp has attempted to correct the record with its “Fight the Smears” campaign by simultaneously denying that Obama was a community organizer for the group and defending ACORN’s efforts at the same time.

In their statement responding to the Las Vegas raid, ACORN accused officials of engaging in a political stunt that will impede their get out the vote efforts. The group said they immediately dismiss staffers who submit bad registrations and were caught off guard by the raid because they have been cooperative with state election officials since their current registration drive began:

For the past 10 months, any time ACORN has identified a potentially fraudulent application, we turn that application in to election officials separately and offer to provide election officials with the information they would need to pursue an investigation or prosecution of the individual.

Election officials routinely ignored this information and failed to act. In early July, ACORN asked to meet with election officials to express our concerns that they were not acting on information ACORN had presented to them.

If the group has been as cooperative as it claims, the raid “smells like a set-up” by Republicans as part of an “ongoing effort to keep people from voting in November,” writes a DailyKos blogger. But the blogger concedes that Secretary of State Miller is a Democrat, perhaps taking some wind out of the “Republican conspiracy” argument.

Offering perhaps the best analysis with respect to the greater implications come election day in blueing Nevada, Las Vegas Sun political columnist Jon Ralston writes on his Flashpoint blog:

What a bonanza for depressed Republicans are the community organizing group’s allegations of voter fraud. Suddenly, there are press releases and conference calls from energized Republicans. And I’m sure they’re all chattering in the bar that this accounts for the entire Democratic registration edge in the state. To dare to dream…

Reviewing the Debate

(Getty Images)

Denver Post columnist Dan Haley: “John McCain needed to make up some ground on Barack Obama tonight, and I don’t think he did that. Nor do I think he hurt himself. Tomorrow, it’s still Obama’s race to lose and McCain is a few points behind…I didn’t glean much new from this debate and I don’t think it moves the needles much in either direction.”

Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi: “Did the theoretical Republican candidate actually propose the U.S. Treasury buy up all bad mortgages in the entire nation and re-negotiate them? I hope McCain was simply unable to articulate a more complex position, because it sounded a lot like a comprehensive nationalization of the entire industry, a plan that would almost certainly cost hundreds of billions of additional tax dollars. If you’re going to out-Democrat the Democrats why run for office?”

Las Vegas Review-Journal in an editorial: “No one but an idiot believes we will see anything but a vastly larger and more expensive federal government under either of these two candidates… In normal times, America would not seriously consider placing in the White House a dreamy-eyed big-spending liberal with only two years experience at the national level and no experience in foreign policy, no experience meeting a payroll at a hot-dog stand, no experience in the military. But these are not normal times. John McCain held his own Tuesday night. But to launch an October surge, he needed to do more than that. This race is still Barack Obama’s to lose. ”

Rocky Mountain News in an editorial: “Both candidates were sharp and articulate. They attacked with gusto when given the chance. But even so, there was a feeling of anticlimax by the time the event was over… It was too full of responses the politically aware public already knows.”

New Mexico Independent reports from a McCain-supporters’ debate watch party: The debate “engendered less emotion than a rerun of American Idol…It was almost as if every line of the night had been heard before, as had the inevitable response.”

And a somewhat more energetic pro-Obama watch party: “There was a little yelling, some throwing stuff at the TV and a lot of silent eye-rolling… There was beef stew waiting in the kitchen aspartygoers filled their glasses with red wine and cracked open cans of beer.”

In an article for The Indypendent, former News 21 reporter Renee Feltz revisits Arizona, where thousands of potential voters have been unable to register due to new identification requirements. These voters, most of whom are poor, elderly and/or Latino, would have tended to vote Democratic. Thus it is in the GOP’s interest to continue stoking fears about illegal immigrants committing voter fraud.

Hans A. von Spakovsky, formerly a Bush appointee in the Department of Justice who now works at the Heritage foundation, is one Republican who would like to see strict ID requirements in every state.

von Spakovsky argues the “honor system” of signing a legally binding registration card fails to keep non-citizens from the polls, and suggests election officials should be allowed to access U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement databases “regarding voter eligibility based on citizenship.” He also wants all states to require anyone who registers to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship.

Citizenship is already a legal requirement to vote in the United States, but GOP scare tactics have led more than a dozen states to consider additional legislation to require documented proof of citizenship, and in many cases a Voter ID card, in order to vote.

Arizona is the only state with both of these requirements. Though there was—and still is—no evidence of voter fraud by illegal immigrants, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200 in 2004, requiring proof of citizenship in the form of a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport in order to register to vote. This summer Feltz and fellow News 21 reporter Stokely Baksh found that the laws proved burdensome to many citizens who wish to register—the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund found 38,000 cases of rejected registrations.

Read the rest of the story here.

Colorado 2008 = Florida 2000?

The Colorado Independent wonders if Colorado will take the crown as the poster child for election day dysfunction this year, pointing to potential problems with a new statewide voter database system and dealing with huge numbers of new voters who have to wade through with the longest ballot in the country.

The State of Colorado Registration and Election system (SCORE) compiles voter information from across the state to comply with the Help America Vote Act. The system, two years behind schedule and millions over budget, automatically cross-checks voter information with other state agencies to verify voter eligibility and ensure more up to date and cleaner voter rolls.

Coloradans have reason to question the reliability of new computer systems. In 2006, a series of computer crashes dubbed “The Glitch of ‘06” contributed to wait times of up to 3 hours in Denver, causing an estimated 20,000 voters to leave polling places without voting.

“I feel pretty comfortable front-end that we’re not going to have the problems we had in 2006,” Secretary of State Mike Coffman told the Denver Post. SCORE has held up in recent tests, but the ultimate challenge comes on election day.

“There is going to be a burden on the system that we have not seen,” Jenny Flanagan, executive director of the nonprofit government accountability watchdog Common Cause, said in the Post.

The surge of new voter registrations in the state — with more than 100,000 in the last five weeks alone — could spell long lines and sow further confusion and frustrations at the polls.

“Because we have had such a massive voter registration effort, we expect to see problems where people think they are registered but actually find they are not at the polls,” says Flanagan told the Independent.

Further contributing to long lines, Colorado voters will be contending with the longest ballot in the nation and the longest in the state since 1912. In 2006, an informal test found voters took between nine and 25 minutes to fill out their ballots. State law says voters have 10 minutes to vote when other people are in line.

To avoid lines on election day, voters in Colorado and elsewhere are encouraged to vote before November 4.

“The way to ease the burden both for the people who run the elections and the people who count the results is to vote by mail or vote early,” Gov. Bill Ritter said last month, a sentiment echoed by county clerks, political campaigns, and nonprofits.

Mail-in ballots have already gone out in parts of the state, and in-person early voting kicks off October 20, meaning it’s too late to avoid the barrage of political ads in the Centennial State.

McCain Attacks Obama in NM Speech

(Getty Images)

Sen. John McCain called Sen. Barack Obama “a mystery, a liar, complicit in the economic crisis and an unaccomplished naïf” in a speech at the University of New Mexico yesterday, writes Marc Ambinder.

“Who is the real Senator Obama?,” McCain asked repeatedly, “purposely trying to fuel lingering doubts some undecided voters have about Obama, who burst on the national scene only four years ago,” said the Santa Fe New Mexican in its coverage of the speech.

Gearing up for today’s debate, McCain appeared to be playing to a national audience without sprinkling in appeals to New Mexican voters. “Except to acknowledge retiring Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who had spoken before McCain arrived, he barely mentioned the state,” said the New Mexican.

The UNM student paper, The Daily Lobo, reported “close to 1,000” people attended the event with about 250 people protesting outside.

McCain’s attack on “the real Obama” centered on Obama’s relative lack of experience and discrepancies McCain sees between Obama’s rhetoric on the economic crisis and his record. “To hear him talk now, you’d think he’d always opposed the dangerous practices at these institutions. But there is absolutely nothing in his record to suggest he did. Nothing, zero, zippo, nada,” he said.

The Obama campaign fired back, describing the speech as “another frustrated tirade” from a candidate down in the polls.

The sharp attack is seen as a preview of McCain’s debate strategy.

But it’s the words of the audience, not McCain, that are drawing some of the sharpest criticism. At points in the speech when asked, “Who is the real Obama?” responses included “he’s a pansy,” “socialist,” “a liar,” and “terrorist.”

Jason Zengerle blogs on the New Republican that McCain missed a “mavericky” opportunity by letting such comments pass:

What if McCain, instead of continuing with his speech, had stopped cold, looked the audience member in the eye, and gently but sternly rebuked him with a homily about how we’re all Americans and the problem with Obama isn’t that he’s a bad man or a terrorist, but that he’s wrong on the issues? Sure, it would have been hypocritical–it’s no coincidence McCain’s supporters think Obama’s a terrorist when you’ve got Sarah Palin accusing him of palling around with one–but it would have been dramatic and mavericky as hell, too.

A cutout of Barack Obama at a Mexican Independence Day celebration in Denver last month (Getty Images)

New Mexico took center stage over the weekend on a 20-minute segment — New Voters in the New West — on NOW in PBS. Reporter Maria Hinojosa calls New Mexico “the battleground of battleground states” as she follows both campaigns’ efforts in the state. The report focuses on young voters and Latinos.

In 2004, Republicans won the state by just shy of 6,000 votes. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who campaigned for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and is trying to deliver the state in November for Sen. Barack Obama told Hinojosa, “Senator Kerry is still mad at me.”

Obama has 39 field offices in the state compared to 10 for McCain and 6 for Kerry last cycle. The PBS report tries to run against conventional wisdom, following around a group of college-aged McCain supporters and highlighting lingering concerns among the usually Democratic-leaning Latino community.

“It’s risky for Obama’s campaign to assume that we’re going to vote Democrat just because we’re registered Democrat,” community activisit Arturo Uribe said. Uribe, who is seen encouraging community members to register to vote but not backing a candidate in the report, said race, religion, and other factors mean Obama can’t take the Latino community for granted. He also said some Latinos worry that with an African-American president, blacks would become the “preferred minority.”

“I’d rather go with the old man,” one middle aged Latino man told a group of Obama canvassers. “He’s got the experience.”

In a poll of New Mexico voters conducted last week for the Albuquerque Journal, “62 percent of Hispanics surveyed favored Obama, while 17 percent backed McCain and 21 percent were undecided.” Brian Sanderoff, president of the firm that conducted the poll, estimated that Bush carried up to 38 percent of the Latino vote in the state in 2004. Among all likely voters polled,Obama is ahead of McCain 45 to 40 percent.

In Colorado, where Latinos are expected to account for more than 10 percent of voters for the first time and could thus determine who carries the state, a recent poll has Obama ahead of McCain among Latino voters 68 to 26 percent.

The Obama campaign’s registration and get out the vote efforts are bolstered by nonprofit groups that target low income communities, including many that are predominately Latino. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a coalition of groups targeting low income families, announced today that it exceeded goals in Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico in its voter registration efforts with Project Vote.

A subset of Latinos being courted are new citizens. Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer with the Pew Hispanic Center, told the AP, “In places where the election is very close, they make all the difference in the world,” New citizens, like other first time voters, are excited to cast their first ballot and tend to be good ambassadors in their communities, either for particular candidates or simply to promote the importance of civic engagement.

“We can make the difference in these elections,” Arturo Munoz, a Salvadoran native who became a U.S. citizen in August, told the AP through a translator. “If more Hispanics vote, the future president will have to address topics important to them.”

VP Debate Editorials and Columns in the Battle for the West

Denver Post: “Palin had fun. But her frequent dependence on cheerful phrases like ‘darn it’ or ‘doggone it’ and her avoidance of specifics and entire lines of questions will no doubt keep her critics on the attack… Palin’s biggest task is convincing undecided voters that she could lead should she have to, and it’s hard to see whether her performance, as clean as it was, held enough substance to sway them.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Gov. Palin actually looked like she was enjoying herself, especially as the evening wore on, whereas Sen. Biden, as the evening progressed, looked more like a scowling sourpuss…if Americans are looking for a fresh new face, someone who can connect with ‘Main Street,’ Gov. Palin’s performance — perhaps she ‘lost on points’ — might help push the Republican ticket toward victory.”

Las Vegas Sun: “[Palin] smiled a lot and certainly was folksy, peppering her comments with phrases such as ‘I’ll betcha’ and ‘heck of a lot.’ There is nothing wrong with a down-to-earth demeanor — we wish more politicians were like that. At the same time, however, folksiness can’t substitute for substance. The Bush presidency is a case in point.”

Pueblo Colorado Chieftan columnist Chuck Green: “Palin showed… she could stand toe-to-toe with one of the Senate’s best. But she didn’t display an impressive grasp of issues and didn’t display a great sense of confidence. Biden projected confidence and a wide range of knowledge on several issues, but he misstated the facts or outright lied about the historical record at least six times during the 90-minute production. He might look like a statesmanlike U.S. senator and exude confidence, but Americans still can’t believe what comes out of his mouth.”

Reno Gazette-Journal: “Can we please bring back the final ‘g’ in words ending in ‘-ing’? Palin seems to drop it — as in ‘I was talkin’ to some soccer moms’ — to show that she’s one of the folks, but Sen. Barack Obama does it, too, and so does seemingly every TV newscaster in Reno. That may be OK in casual talk among friends, but it has no place in formal speechmaking… Just as we expect candidates to pronounce the name of our state right, we should expect them to pronounce ‘-ing’ right. It may not be folksy, but it is presidential.”

Rocky Mountain News columnist Mike Littwin: “In any case, even if Biden won in the instant-polls, Palin did well enough in memorizing talking points and occasionally winking that the McCain campaign is sending her immediately to Colorado… McCain probably can’t lose Colorado – where he’s trailing in the polls – and win the election.”

Santa Fe New Mexican columnist Bill Stewart: “[Palin] was folksy and friendly, deflecting questions for which she was unprepared… Palin connects on a personal level. It is probably her greatest political strength. It is one of Biden’s strengths as well. He teared up when talking about the challenge of being a single father following the tragic deaths of his first wife and his daughter.”

Civil War Over Political Relevance in NV

“If we are not careful, the North may become the center of Nevada’s political universe,” warns the Las Vegas Sun’s Jon Ralston in an appeal to his fellow southern Nevadans. “Washoe County may go Democratic and Reno already has, perhaps making the North decisive. This cannot stand. The South must rise again!”

Ralston points to the recent stories in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times with Washoe County datelines as evidence for the shift in influence. The little swing county that could may be the sexier story for national media, but Las Vegas’s Clark County still accounts for more than two-thirds of all registered voters in the state.

Perhaps that’s why eight of Sen. Barack Obama’s 16 field offices in the state are in Clark County. For comparison, Sen. John McCain’s campaign has nine locations — some of them shared space with local GOP offices — and 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry maintained two offices four years ago, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Clearly, Obama had a head start on building grass-roots support,” Reno-based Republican consultant and lobbyist Pete Ernaut told the Review-Journal. “McCain’s campaign has been playing catch-up.”

Observations

On Saturday, the New York Times offered snapshot portraits of five cities being heavily courted by both campaigns; three are in Battle for the West states. They turned to local reporters or columnists, not Times staff writers, to file the reports.

Pueblo, Colorado

“Pueblo is traditionally a Democratic town, though conservative Democrat… McCain is looking for those disenchanted independents, he’s looking for those Hillary voters, he’s looking for Hispanic voters. Everyone is aware of the long-held tensions between African-Americans and Hispanics; he’s looking for whatever Hispanics he can pick up.” – Peter Roper, political reporter, The Pueblo Chieftain

Elko, Nevada

“George Bush might not be our president if not for Elko, which proves beyond a shadow of any doubt that every vote truly does count. But this election could be Elko’s last hurrah… Clearly, Elko County with its huge conservative base will carry the day for McCain-Palin, but by how much? Enough to offset Obama’s doubtless victory in Clark County, home to Las Vegas where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 100,000? I wouldn’t bet my paycheck on that one.” – Doug McMurdo, associate editor, Elko Daily Free Press

Las Cruces, New Mexico

“Las Cruces has always been a Democratic-leaning community, but socially conservative on values like guns and religion… I have read media accounts of Hispanic voters being reluctant to vote forObama, or any black candidate. If that sentiment exists, I haven’t seen it.” – Walt Rubell, managing editor, Las Cruces Sun-News

Two new polls have Sen. Barack Obama ahead of Sen. John McCain in Nevada. An InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position survey of 437 likely voters has Obama up 48 to 47 percent. A CNN/Time Magazine poll conducted by Opinion Research Corp. has the Illinois senator up 51 to 47 percent among likely voters, and 54 to 43 percent among all registered voters.

With young voters and people who didn’t make it to the polls in 2004 overwhelmingly supporting Obama, it’s not unreasonable to assume that likely voter polls are underestimating Obama’s support. Among the criteria used to determine voting likelihood is past voter behavior. Factor in people missed by pollsters entirely — like cell-phone only users — and the race might be less of a nail biter than it appears.

“The national polls have moved in Obama’s direction since the beginning of the financial crisis,” Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “The state polls are following the national polls.”

New figures show Democrats hold just shy of 94,000 voter registration advantage over Republican; in Washoe County, Republicans’ registration lead has fallen to just 1,997. More than 40,000 Washoe County voters are registered non-partisan.

“I can say public polls show 80 percent of people in this country feel things are headed in the wrong direction. Independent voters see a clear choice in this election,” Jeff Giertz, an Obama campaign spokesman, told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

But Heidi Smith, county Republican Party chairwoman, told the Gazette-Journal that many independents are Republicans who just don’t want to declare their party. Interesting theory.

Obama’s ground game helped spur the recent turnaround in the polls and sparked the surge in new registrations. “What you see in Nevada is what we’ve been seeing all across the country so far. [The Obama] campaign has an overwhelming number of volunteers and organizers on the ground,” Sean Quinn, a reporter with the political website fivethirtyeight.com, told the Christian Science Monitor.

CSM reporter Ben Arnoldy followed around both campaigns in Las Vegas. Arnoldy noted that in the office, McCain phonebankers used an automated system that allowed them to move through their lists at least twice as fast. “The real ace in the hole from the McCain camp’s perspective is their high-tech, streamlined approach,”Arnoldy wrote.

Unfortunately, their perceived advantage didn’t always translate to the street, leading Arnoldy to conclude that “if the McCain campaign had a database advantage, it wasn’t on display on a recent weekend in Las Vegas. Six out of nearly 40 doors knocked on one McCain canvass turned out to be wrong, while an Obama canvasser just encountered one vacant home.”

Among the Obama volunteers in Nevada are hundreds from solidly-blue California. “More visibility of enthusiasm for Obama is a good thing,” University of California, Santa Cruz, professor of politics Bob Meister told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. But he warns out-of-towners could rub some Nevadans the wrong way.

“I’m not going to be wearing a sign that says I’m from California, but I’ll be telling them why I’ve come to do this,” said retired school teacher and Obama volunteer Dennis Connors in the Sentinel.

Arnoldy also encountered Californians in the Silver State, something local Obama staffers didn’t exactly highlight. He writes:

The presence of out-of-state help was a detail the Obama campaign went to some lengths to mask. A campaign press official — who himself initially refused to divulge he was from California — cornered [Obama volunteer] Mr. James before an interview in an effort to get him to play down his origins. But no one who answered his knocks in Las Vegas seemed bothered by James’s California-ness.

In a personal essay on AlterNet, Patricia McBride writes about why she travelled to Nevada where she knocked on 51 doors in 115 degree heat:

I hadn’t knocked on the door of someone I didn’t know since I sold Girl Scout cookies in the sixth grade… I don’t bother strangers. I don’t particularly like it when strangers knock on my door. I’m essentially friendly, and I’m pretty smart, but the truth is I’m painfully shy and at heart a very private person. Were it not for the fact that I love my child and that I love my country deeply, and I fear what it has become, I’d really be very content to stay home and live as much like a hermit as possible. But that simply isn’t an option this year.

And what about McCain’s California supporters? McCain spokesman Rick Gorka told the Orange County Register they have no plans to bring in volunteers from California now, but they might closer to election day. George Andrews, executive director of the Republican Party of Orange County, said the local GOP chapter was focused on local efforts to deliver a resounding win for McCain in “America’s Most Republican County.” Rather than help their candidate in a state that matters, it looks like they’re going for a consolation booby prize — best McCain margin in a blue state.

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.

Barack Obama takes the stage Tuesday at the University of Nevada, Reno (AP)

Today’s Los Angeles Times looked at the Democratic party’s surge in registrations in Nevada, with 43 percent of registered voters to the Republicans 37 percent (compared with 2004 when Republicans had the slightest of edges with 40.5 percent versus the Dems 40.1 percent) and concluded “there may be no better test of Obama’s campaign strategy than here in Nevada.”

“The Obama campaign believes that by turning out thousands of newly registered younger and Latino voters… they can capture the Silver State’s five electoral votes,” writes Dan Hoyle in Salon.com. But getting newly registered voters to turn out is often easier said than done.

“Democrats love to tout voter registration numbers, but that’s putting the cart before the horse,” McCain spokesman Rick Gorka said in Salon.

Nevada Democrats’ “secret weapon” may be out of state volunteers who help register new voters, canvas neighborhoods to convince undecideds, and are expected to get people to the polls come election day, writes Hoyle. Alise Moss, a healthcare consultant from Sparks, Nevada, told Hoyle, “We love those crazy Californians,” and estimated up to 400 have stormed town on any given weekend.

“While registering and contacting voters here in California is a great way to be active, the reality is that California is not a contested state,” Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti wrote to his supporters last week, urging them “to travel to help walk precincts and work with voters in that swing state [Nevada].”

In their “Drive for Change” push, the Obama campaign is also reaching out to California voters looking to make a difference. “Nevada is a crucial battleground in the race for the Presidency, and Barack needs support not just from all Nevadans, but also from Nevada’s neighbors — especially California. This is the chance for Californians to have a major impact on this historic race,” reads the plea on Obama’s website.

McCain cancelled a stop in Reno scheduled for Thursday, leaving some Republicans worried he’s not paying enough attention to Northern Nevada and risks losing Washoe County. “You cannot win statewide as a Republican without winning Washoe County,” Republican strategist Robert Uithoven told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Obama is in Washoe County today speaking at the University of Nevada, Reno. The Illinois senator was planning on speaking about healthcare, but instead will focus on the economy. Likely to go over well in Nevada is a gambling metaphor recently added to Obama’s stump speech and last heard yesterday in neighboring swing state, Colorado.

“I read the other day that Sen. McCain likes to gamble. He likes to roll those dice. And that’s OK. I enjoy a little friendly game of poker myself every now and then,” Obama said. “But one thing I know is this — we can’t afford to gamble on four more years of the same disastrous economic policies we’ve had for the last eight.”

Check out liveblogging of the UNR speech by the campus paper the Nevada Sagebrush.

Bailout Voting Out West

Politicker’s James Pindell reports that incumbents in tight races overwhelmingly voted against the bailout.

There are 41 incumbent House members on Politicker.com’s The Pindell Report of the nation’s most competitive House races. Of that group 31 voted against the bailout, possibly proof that that a yes vote might be politically toxic just a little over a month from Election Day. Of the four House members running for the Senate only Maine’s Tom Allen voted for in favor.

The three congressmen running for senate that voted against the bailout hail from Battle for the West states — New Mexico’s Steve Pearce and Tom Udall and Colorado’s Mark Udall. Mark Udall’s opponent, former Rep. Bob Schaffer, also has spoken out against the bailout.

Nevada Rep. Jon Porter was the only incumbent in a tight race in the West to vote for the bailout.

The votes and comments of your Battle for the West reps:

Diana DeGette(D-CO-1), Yea: “Despite my hesitations, I supported this bill — not because I wanted to, not because it was the politically easy thing to do, but because it was the right thing to do.”

Mark Udall(D-CO-2), Nay: “The cost of this bailout was too high and the return far too uncertain for the American families who were being asked to bear the burden.”

John Salazar(D-CO-3), Nay: “Rather than adopting this bill, Congress should remain in Washington as long as it takes to craft legislation that restores confidence in the markets and helps Main Street, but doesn’t leave the American taxpayer holding the bag for the excesses of an out-of-control Wall Street.”

Marilyn Musgrave(R-CO-4), Nay: “Today I voted against a piece of legislation that was fatally flawed from the beginning. This bill was too hastily assembled and had taxpayers paying far too high a price.”

Doug Lamborn(R-CO-5), Nay: “I believe our economy will come back, stronger and better even when it hits obstacles. The key is to allow the markets to work themselves out, not be bailed out.

Tom Tancredo(R-CO-6), Yea: “I made the decision because I fear the folks who did everything the right way – those who paid their bills and lived within their means – would pay the price for the excesses of others. A careless smoker who starts a fire in his house may deserve to suffer the consequences.  We could refuse to call the fire department and take solace in the fact that the careless smoker will lose everything – but if we do not act, the embers from the fire caused by his irresponsibility may land on homes throughout the neighborhood.  In order to save our homes, we must put water on the fire started by the careless smoker.

Ed Perlmutter(D-CO-7), Yea: “My vote was important to show a bipartisan effort to stabilize our markets and help those on Main Street in these hard economic times.”

Shelley Berkley(D-NV-1), Nay: “We must produce as good a piece of legislation as possible, even in a tight time frame…If we have to come back in October to do a better job for Main Street and reform Wall Street, then so be it.”

Dean Heller(R-NV-2), Nay: “I cannot with good conscience put Nevada’s taxpayers on the hook for the foolish excesses of Wall Street.”

Jon Porter(R-NV-3), Yea: “I don’t trust Washington and I certainly don’t trust Wall Street, but I do trust that we must take immediate and decisive steps to correct our financial markets and the time is now. I voted yes today because when I go to sleep at night, I need to know that I have taken every action possible to protect America from further collapse.”

Heather Wilson(R-NM-1), Yea: “I felt it was important for Congress to act to stabilize our financial markets. Today’s bill was a ‘workout,’ not a ‘bail out,’ and had protections for taxpayers and homeowners. The bill would have given needed liquidity to the financial industry and let taxpayers share in the profits as mortgage markets recover.”

Steve Pearce(R-NM-2), Nay: “I strongly disapprove of putting taxpayers on the hook in order to bailout the Wall Street firms that got us in to this crisis. Those who made risky decisions should own up to them.”

Tom Udall(D-NM-3), Nay: “Today’s legislation provides too much to corporate executives, too little to homeowners, and nothing to ensure that Wall Street cannot repeat the mistakes that got us into this crisis.”

See a complete state by state voting breakdown here.